|
|
Click here to subscribe to the monthly FLOW newsletter.
Dear FLOW members,
One of FLOW’s great challenges is to encourage people to understand
that entrepreneurial freedom leads to unbounded creativity,
establishing a new norm. There are three difficult barriers to
achieving the
understanding and the reality of liberating the entrepreneurial
spirit for good™, which is the mission of FLOW:
- Fear of Freedom. Many people are hostile to, and frightened
by, freedom. Freedom is, by its very nature, disruptive
and therefore dangerous. (See Virginia Postrel’s wonderful book
The Future and
Its Enemies for more on those who are afraid).
- Fear of Risk. Creating new enterprises is not the simple
creativity involved in feeling good about being different.
Creating new enterprises,
the most important manifestation of creativity, involves
putting one’s life, reputation, and livelihood on the line month
after
month, year after year, often in the face of rampant misunderstanding
and hostility.
- Attachment to the Status Quo. The vast majority of those
who educate us, in schools, universities, as researchers,
and as journalists,
have never created an enterprise from scratch. Thus the
most important fact about the future, that new institutions
can
and will be created,
is not a visceral reality for those who form all of our
minds, and they have a vested interest in maintaining things
the
way they are.
I was reminded of these three barriers while speaking at the
10th Annual Young Entrepreneurs Summit in Sao Paolo, where
for three
days I was surrounded by people from all over the world who
were creating things from scratch. It was an extraordinary
experience to be immersed in such an environment; the immersion
in a world
of creators was necessary to call my attention to how invisible
this phenomenon is to most of us most of the time.
Nkhensani Manganyi is an extraordinarily beautiful and articulate
young jewelry designer who is going to change the world’s
perception of South Africa by means of her cutting-edge urban-Afro
designs.
She wants the world to perceive South Africa as the coolest,
hippest, most vibrant multi-cultural place on earth. What
impressed me
most was her unabashed ambition not merely to create a company,
but to transform cultural realities. Can she do it? We don’t
know. Could she do it without her conviction? Not a chance.
I also met Tracy Carroll, the creator of Flexcar. Flexcar
(as with its competitor Zipcar) allows people to reserve cars
online
and to pick them up at various convenient destinations near
public transit, train stations, and airports. Unlike rental
cars, once
one is signed up as a customer Flexcars require no delays
at all – one can come out of a subway station and walk up
to a
car just
as if one owned it, then park it at another location without
checking it in with anyone. Flexcars are designed to be almost
as convenient
as owning a car but without the cost and hassle. Most advocates
of mass transit are hostile to the personal automobile, yet
most people refuse to ride mass transit unless it is as convenient
as owning a car. For some people, Flexcar provides the requisite
convenience.
I met Flavio Melo, who created Exploranter, a high-end road
caravan voyage through South America. Flavio is motivated
by an absolute
passion for exotic and unknown destinations in Brazil, yet
he realized that in order to attract people to the truly unknown
he would have to start with the known. Thus he started by
offering
road trips to Patagonia with gourmet cooking along the way
in a rolling five-star hotel. But now that customers have
come
to trust the amazing travel experiences he provides, he has
expanded
his offerings to include those secret places that he so wants
to share with others.
In very different ways each of these (and dozens of others
I met) have created a new reality that had not existed (or
will
not exist)
without their personal commitment, vision, and will. Increasingly
as I listen to arguments in the media and among pundits, every
word I hear I filter through my FLOW glasses: “Does this person
who is talking understand creative possibility?” If they do
not, and the vast majority does not, I appropriately discount
their
authority.
This is why FLOW is proud to have developed the Working for
Good curriculum, designed to liberate the minds and spirits
of young
people so that they understand the power of creative vision
combined with a personal commitment. The Working for Good
curriculum is available as a
download.
An eighteen year-old blogger has already provided a great
review of the curriculum:
“The basic purpose of this "curriculum" is to ignite the passion in people throughout the world to become better entrepreneurs,
not necessarily in the "start your own business" sense, but more in the "individual initiative to change the world" sort . . . Mm, this stuff just makes me all warm and fuzzy. Optimism, you win
the day!”
In a world of conflict, argument, debate, and cynicism, FLOW
is setting out to transfer the vision and the personal tools
to more
and more people who want to create a meaningful life for themselves
by making a better world. Please visit the Working for Good
website and tune in to our webcast
on May 2nd, 3rd
and 4th, to get a taste of FLOW’s first substantial outreach
and education project.
FLOW Website Update
Featured on our home page this month you will find:
"Areté and the Entrepreneur" by Brian Johnson, Philosopher & CEO of Zaadz, a company merging spirituality, capitalism and technology to change
the world by inspiring and empowering people to live at
their highest potential while using their greatest strengths in
the
greatest service to the world. This piece and the next
are also included in the Working for Good Curriculum.
"J.B.’s Story" by Marilyn King, two-time Olympic pentathlete
and creator of Olympian Thinking™a program designed
to catalyze entrepreneurial creativity into action.
A brief review of Gregg Easterbrook’s book, The Progress
Paradox.
An introduction to Idealist.org, a wonderful resource
with a database of more than 50,000 non-profit organizations
throughout the world.
FLOW Events
If you live in New York or Washington, DC, there
are two FLOW-related gatherings coming up, to
which you
are invited:
FLOW Advisor Susan Niederhoffer will hold her monthly FLOW gathering in New
York City on Thursday,
April
6 at Cinema, 2 East 45th Street from 5:00
to 7:00pm. It is an “open event for anyone in town
to come
and tell
us about
their
business or non-profit that's making the world
a better place. Come and meet fellow travelers
or
just have
a beer. Hope to
see you... best, Susan”
And FLOW friend Charlie Frohman is presenting his monthly Conscious Entrepreneurs
and Creatives
(CEC)
event, sponsored in part by FLOW, in Washington,
DC Saturday, April
8 at Spiral Flight Studio, 1826 Wisconsin
Ave., NW, from 7:00 to
10:00pm. The evening will include an art
show, creativity talk and reception catered by local
restaurant Casbah,
for free!
Click here to RSVP.
Finally, I would like to thank Susan Niederhoffer,
Charlie Frohman, and Phyllis Blees for
hosting FLOW groups in
NYC, D.C., and
Austin, respectively. Please contact
us if you would like to begin hosting
FLOW groups in your area.
Coming soon: we will soon post our first
audio program – a recording of a conversation
between
FLOW co-founder
John
Mackey
and Ken
Wilber, prolific thinker and author
and founder of the Integral Institute.
Please send your ideas, questions,
and stories to us.
Yours in FLOW,
Michael Strong, CEO & Chief Visionary Officer
P.S. FLOW is above all a forum of free exchange for its members in the quest
for sustainable peace, prosperity, and happiness. We welcome your
feedback to the content of this newsletter and all FLOW activities
and publications. Please send your thoughts to contact@flowidealism.org.
P.P.S. Please join one of our five themed discussion groups, and participate
in our active and growing community, at www.flowrealism.org or www.flowidealism.org (FLOW, where idealism and realism both lead to the same place).
|
JOIN FLOW to
"Criticize
by
Creating"
~Michelangelo
Would you like to join us to liberate
the entrepreneurial spirit for good?
Email
us for printed copies of the FLOW brochure.
|
