The Fires of the Forge

Barack Obama and You and Personal Responsibility

As I write to you tonight, on January 19, 2009, the nation is atwitter. Barack Obama’s approval ratings are at an all-time high as even some of those who were against him are now for him, and for what he now symbolizes to us… hope.

Tomorrow, we likely will hear him challenge us to increase our personal responsibility. That is a theme that resonates down deep to the root of your heritage as an American, for had not our forebears exercised it there would be no United States of America.

What I wonder is this. What is personal responsibility? Do I even know what that means? Or is it merely a phrase that stirs the fibers of my being and yet means naught because I do not know how to translate it into the actions of my mind, emotions, tongue, hands and feet?

Do you know what personal responsibility is? If not, if you don't define it for yourself, how will you meet his call? And, if you do believe you know, what would those who know you tell me, particularly those you have wronged? I am challenging you because I am challenging my self.

I ask these questions because we are in a mess. The mess is the sum total of decades of lack of personal responsibility by every single one of us in a country whose cornerstone was personal responsibility. And Barack Obama is going to ask you and I to accept personal responsibility tomorrow.

Are we ready for that, I wonder? Willing? Able?

Will I become more personally responsible, I wonder? Or will I nod up and down enthusiastically in a country with my countrymen who feel it in the bones but have not found pause even though we are in a mess, pause for each of us to inventory in what ways our personal responsibility is lacking?

All this has me asking one very basic question. What I believe is the right question.

“What is personal responsibility and In what ways have I not yet accepted it?”

That is a carefully phrased question. I didn’t ask whether I have accepted full personal responsibility. I know I have not. And it is extremely likely you have not either. For the big, fat, honkin’ mirror right in front of our individual faces is a collective mirror of a country that has not. That is the inconvenient truth.

And while some may have accepted more than others, what does that matter when everyone uses the fact that some are less responsible than they as an excuse to delay becoming even more responsible? Where you have not accepted it—where I have not accepted it—that is where the weakness lies and our greatest potential slumbers in the shadows. Goethe said that if we would but each sweep in front of our own doors the whole world would be clean.

Further, if you want to accept personal responsibility, I’d encourage you to not turn over your power, your responsibility, your will-to-good and your responsibility to act to our new president. That is not what he needs, what we need nor will that work. In this times of “outsourcing”, this is the last frontier. You cannot outsource personal responsibility. Nor can I. Freedom is not free.

So, for myself I have a very simple prescription. First, identify in what ways I have not fully accepted personal responsibility. Second, as my act of service to humanity, shore up those areas in my self, my life and relationships. Shine the light in those dark spaces, Transmute them through action. Third, both support and hold our new president accountable. Hope ushers in fools, and the times don’t favor that.

And as the inauguration happens, realize that you and I are being inaugurated too, and that has consequences and repercussions of great import that are simply unknowable as we peer down a very long road. Is it a road of return, a return to prosperity and good times? I don’t think so, the imbalances now reverberating from those so-called good times are too great. We became more materially prosperous than spiritually rich and on so many levels we have taken more than we have given. Therefore, we cannot retrace our steps, we cannot find solace there, in a return down a road that led to imbalance in the first place.

No, this road you and I and our fellow Americans now must walk isn’t a road of return. It is a road to a level of consciousness in which both corruption and idealism burn just as brightly as the other in an inferno fired by courage, love, goodwill and right action.

Personal responsibility is what is required to both create the conditions for those new times, and to prepare, purify and fortify us for that journey. A journey where every man, woman and child must be a leader in order to support one. This is the new leadership, where a leader and supporters are true equals in all respects except that their respective activities are different due to an agreement as to who will do what. An agreement that can be revoked by anyone, because everyone has power.

And you and I.

Merry Christmas

I am wishing you all a very merry Christmas! I am grateful to have you as a reader, and my greatest hope for you and for me and for all of us is that we truly do learn to love our neighbor as we love ourselves such that all the separativeness and imbalance in the world is transformed through the individual and collective power of the inclusiveness that we unleash.

And may we all remember, as we spend time with our families and loved ones, that the size of the presents we give is dwarfed by the sheer power of our presence--which is what they most want from us anyway.

Current Affairs: The Next Freight Train

I was talking with the president of a large and growing healthcare company today. We were speaking of the turnover that occurs in the staff of Medicare that occurs when an administration changes (about 50% of the people in that very large organization will pack their boxes).

That led to conversation of the trillion dollar financial bailout. Then he paused, and said that most Americans think that we dodged that freight train. Then he paused again and said, "I wonder if we are ready for the next freight train behind that one. It is bigger--and it is called Medicare and Social Security."

Here's an eight minute clip from the TV show 60 Minutes where Andy Court interviews the Comptroller General of the US's GAO, David Walker. He's our country's CFO. It is called Wake Up Call. I consider it a must see for the informed leader.

Leadership: Confront the Brutal Facts

Sara (my wife), Stone (our blue heeler) and I went for an incredible hike in the Holy Ghost recreational area in the Sangre de Cristo mountains near Pecos, NM on Saturday. Nature is amazing to me. I've heard it say that nature has a predilection for balance, whereas humans have a predilection for evolution. See the rub?

I'm a big fan of Jim Collins work, and I'd like to tie to his book Good to Great. Jim says there are seven things companies who went from good to great did that distinguish them from others who never made the trip to great. One of those things is that great companies "confront the brutal facts."

What continually amazes me in working with leaders is that... they don't. For all the face value bravado, courage, and all that jazz, they don't confront the brutal facts. I've seen it in my self. I have seen it in every leader I've ever worked work (and that is a lot). Humans have the most unbelievable capacity to deceive themselves, and leaders are not exempt.

Shall we confront the brutal facts? Look at the market today. $700 billion bailout passes on Friday, which should buoy the market since everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. Today the market dips below 10,000 for the first time in four years. What do you deduce?

The, look at CNN's home page. Two links really jump out at me (other than the obvious market drop). One is that one if four mammals is now at risk. I am not talking some obscure insect at the edge of outer Mongolia here. I am talking one in four mammals. Then there is the slide show there on global warming. Here they are for you.

Meltdown: A Global Warming Travelogue
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/28/what.matters.meltdown/index.html

One in Four Mammals At Risk of Extinction
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/06/endangered.mammals.ap/index.html

Where are you with confronting the brutal facts, my friend? You are a leader. The challenges of these changes are not coming, they are here. They are here. And the sum total of our actions as leaders have brought us to this point. It is the sum total of the changes we must make as leaders that will bring us out of it.

This week, in this blog, let's get real. Let's get practical. Let's connect the dots. I hope with every fiber of my being that you will be a leader at the vanguard. That you will confront the brutal facts. That you will lead change around you. I don't think this is going to look like anything we've seen before. Why do I say this? Because man's power--including his capacity to throw financial markets and nature's systems out of balance--has reached a tipping point. It is tipping. You know it. I know it. And it isn't time for a bunch of words and saber-rattling and fear mongering. However, that same power can be aimed at solving this, and that power is sufficient should we choose to use it for that purpose.

Life is changing before our eyes. That's good. It needs to. You only need to make one decision... as a leader and as an individual. Will you cooperate with what is going on, and therefore influence it in a positive way? Or will you "wait and see" when all the data you need is already in front of your nose, and have it done to you in a way that you do not like?

The vast majority will choose the latter. This blog stands for those who will stand at the vanguard, and step into the unknown. I don't have the answers. But I have some perspectives I'd like to share with you. Where you go with those perspectives is up to you. I hope you will find them useful. Stay tuned...

Get Up, Stand Up!

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great crisis, maintain their neutrality."  Dante

I am also reminded of Bob Marley's lyrics, "Get up! Stand up! Stand up for your rights."

This financial crisis bail out discussion before us as Americans has me deeply disturbed. I have written my senator and congressman. Have you?  I hope that whatever you believe, you say it, too. WEIGH IN, NOW. Act! Here is how to contact your Senator and U.S. Congressman. Go to:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Here's what I said...

Dear Senator,

I strongly oppose the approval of a Wall Street bail out. The financial crisis is a critical issue, yes. But I have two issues with bailing out.

First, an imbalance of this magnitude cannot simply be "absorbed" by any system. An imbalance of this magnitude must be worked out through the natural operations of the system in which the imbalance was created. The market economy is designed to rebalance foolishness through liquidation. Interfere with that system--trying to have all the benefits of the system without the consequences that come from abusing it--and the whipsaw effect will be worse than the initial consequences. Let the system work. Let's bear the consequences. Let's be adults about this and take our licks instead of adolescents who feel victimized and entitled.

Second, I am incredibly concerned about the role government is beginning to play. I am very concerned about the liberties we have lost. I am very concerned that a government maneuver like this actually will make the government even more powerful and the individuals that government is supposed to represent enslaved to an even greater degree. I cannot tell you exactly why I feel this way, but I am becoming increasingly alarmed as an American.

“Freedom is a package deal - with it comes responsibilities and consequences”

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Goethe

I do not believe my eyes, my friend: I believe there is probably more to this than meets the eye. I believe that what appears to be a "generous" and "benevolent" move to save us from ourselves is a move that actually covers some very questionable motives, driven by some very questionable power brokers.

Face it down. Face them down. Represent us well. For the long-haul, not the short-term.

My best,

Otis Woodard

The Nature of the Financial Imbalance (Crisis)

In my inaugural post two days ago, I wrote of the increasing imbalance we can see all around us. I wrote that nature, which has both the capacity to temporarily (relatively speaking) absorb imbalance as well as a predilection for balance, will return to balance. It will absorb our foolishness for a while, much like a parent will tolerate the folly of their teenager because some of that is simply expected during that age.

But when that child is 45, the same folly is no longer appropriate, and a parent who embodies unconditional love will step back and allow that child to bear the consequences of that folly. In short, if the child won't grow up proactively, then they should bear the consequences. Firstly, perhaps that will be just the motivation required. Secondly, if they refuse to grow up, then the full consequences must fall on their shoulders--whether that means living on the streets, jail, or premature death. This isn't some form of punishment to do this. It is to allow the person the full life experience they require to evolve.

What the Federal Bank is doing is similar to what nature has done. The Fed is trying to absorb our folly. But the Fed possesses neither the intelligence of nature (so it does not "see" the ripple effect of its action), nor does it possess the unconditional love that is so strong and so abiding that it can stand by while we "suffer".

There is no "soft" way to settle imbalance of the nature of the USA's financial crisis. It would be kinder to stand back, and allow the imbalance to work itself out. Mind you, there would be tremendous pain. But here is the rub. Printing money and the derivatives method will not fix the root problem. The root problem--aside from the greed of the people in the mix of it--is your greed, my greed.

All this crisis is is a mirror for how we all feel entitled to live in a certain way, without the consequences of the imbalances that is creating. That won't work. And we are 45 now.

Financial Crisis = Imbalance

Here's a video link for you. Ex-presidential candidate Ron Paul giving his straight up perspective on whether the $100 billion plus Fed bailout of the banks is constitutional, much less right. I'd like for you to notice something as you hear him speak. More on that in a moment. Here's the link.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/09/19/ron.paul.bailouts.cnn?iref=videosearch

Notice the emotional detachment combined with his care and concern. The reason I want to point this out is the I believe that as things becoming increasing chaotic in the world, and as people become more fearful, others will prey on our fear. One of the the things I've noticed is that authentic people do not rely on emotional appeal. They simply speak the truth, and allow that truth itself to work on us. So as I watch Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin, I watch for this.