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"The Voice of Zentrepreneurism" | Premiere Edition September 2006 From the quill of Allan Holender |
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Welcome fellow zenners to the premiere edition of
"the Zen Messenger"
We are now officially launched in so many ways. The intention of this newsletter is to inform, educate and inspire. I extend a warm welcome to those of you who have either read the book or are in the middle of doing so. Much of what we will talk about in the newsletter will be directly related to the writings in the book. So if you have not had a chance to purchase, you now have options. On the www.zentrepreneurism.com website we now have available an e-book and audio book for downloading. This newsletter will be published monthly, but I hope to have a weekly "zen buzz" in your e-mail box to start each Monday to prepare you for a zenful week! As we build a global community of zenlightened entrepreneurs, it is my further hope you will see this as your voice as well, and share your ideas, thoughts and reflections of what you read and see in your world.
Zenners Speak, is a column I hope you will find open 24 hours a day. This month, we have three reviews of the book, which also serves as the writer's view of the world and business. They are; Michael Rosone, Yves Farges and Robert Fitzgerald. I encourage others to send in their book reviews or just speak up!
Last weekend, along with 12,000 others I had the pleasure of listening to, hearing and feeling the message of his Holiness the Dalai Lama. His messages were simple butprofound, much like his Holiness himself. Often I am asked about my view of anideal CEO for a company. I have said that we are now finally beginning to replace the Chief Embezzlement Officer with the Chief Enlightenment Officer. Can you ask for a more enlightened leader than the Dalai Lama. You see the leader of a company, doesn'thave to be ruthless, dogmatic, and powerful, he needs to be kind. gentle and compassionate, and hence the underlying message throughout the weekend was one of compassion. Compassionate leaders inspire employees to become more compassionate. Compassionate employees inspire companies that become compassionate companies. It may take 20 to 30 years as the Dalai Lama has said., but the end result of caring and compassionate people are communities and countries that become caring and compassionate.
Let the compassionate, non violent revolution begin!
Allan Holender
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- The Dalai Lama in Vancouver
- Business and social leaders meet with His Holiness
- Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education
- Zenners Speak
- News from Zentropolis
- The Business of Saving the World
- Zentrepreneurism on the air and in the street
- Introducing the Zen team
- Global Conference...Zenners of the world unite.
- Voices of Zentrepreneurism- A groundbreaking DVD
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In the words of Doug Ward of the Vancouver Sun;
"Dharma steeped in the Shangri-La thin air of Tibet hit Vancouver in recent days with the visit of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, who regularly reminded his fans here that he is just a simple Buddhist monk.
The Dalai Lama's message, repeated in stump-speech aphorisms about the need for compassion and affection for others, was simple too -- as simple as the venerable monk's saffron robes.
Given the crowds he attracted, simplicity seems to be a good thing. The Dalai Lama remains a spiritual superstar in British Columbia.
His unadorned, self-deprecating persona continues to go over well with those who desire serenity and moral clarity in a world beset by materialism and war.
A Vancouver Sun poll in 2004 found that the Dalai Lama was the most admired spiritual leader among British Columbians. And there was nothing to indicate last week that his popularity here has waned.
His mix of pop Buddhism and advocacy for human rights, non-violence and altruism still inspires reverence.
On Saturday, 13,500 people paid between $20 and $60 to hear the Dalai Lama talk at GM Place about "cultivating happiness." His rapt audience responded with rounds of applause, especially when Immigration Minister Monte Solberg presented him with a framed copy of his honorary Canadian citizenship.
The award was a nod to his political importance as the embodiment of the struggle for human rights in Tibet. Solberg called the Dalai Lama "a leading champion of human dignity." Only two other people have been granted the honour: South Africa's former president, Nelson Mandela, and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who rescued many European Jews during the Holocaust.
But it was the Dalai Lama's advice on how to achieve inner peace that seemed to be the big draw. At times the event resembled a giant self-help seminar.
He told the audience: "Think about others and your own problem appears insignificant; think only of oneself and even a small problem appears unbearable."
A cynic might find his unelaborate prescriptions almost reminiscent of Chauncey Gardiner, the character in the movie Being There, whose short TV-informed utterances were accepted as profound.
But there were few cynics to be found in the GM Place crowd.
Jodi Wood, 32, a high school teacher who came over from Victoria, said afterwards that "I don't think you can see the Dalai Lama enough in one lifetime.
Business and social leaders come together in Vancouver for Dalai Lama
Elianna Lev of the Canadian Press wrote;
A group of politicians, athletes, CEOs and social activists put their differences aside and joined together in one room on Sunday to pose questions and gain insight from the Dalai Lama.
The gathering was the last event in the Buddhist leader's three-day visit of Vancouver, which was primarily to open an education centre in his name.
More than 100 people from around the world attended Sunday's conference, titled Connection for Change, including former prime minister Kim Campbell and Olympic rower Silken Laumann.
The meeting was intended to spark dialogue from leaders in the community, regardless of their background or social standing.
Each person in attendance was paired with someone else, usually from a drastically different place in society, and many of those involved called the experience productive.
Calgary-based Jim Gray, co-founder of the Canadian Hunter Exploration, one of Canada's largest natural gas companies, was teamed up with Ken Lyotier, a former drug addict and CEO of United We Can, a non-profit that buys recycled cans and bottles from street people in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Lyotier left the conference's first meeting after feeling out of place amongst the neatly dressed professionals. Gray decided to meet his partner on territory where he felt more comfortable, so he ventured to the bottle depot in Vancouver's poorest neighbourhood. They ended up talking for more than two hours.
Only by conversation can we establish that trust, and Ken and myself have started just such that conversation thanks to the dialogue, thanks to the conversation, thanks to the culture that are initiated by this conference, Gray said.
He added that while he assumed Lyotier expects him to disappear back to Calgary, he intends to visit the area in October with his daughter to learn more about addiction.
Another successful pairing brought together George Weyerhaeuser, former senior vice-president of Weyerhaeuser Canada, the international forest products company, with former B.C. premier and social activist Mike Harcourt.
Weyerhaeuser recently took on responsibility for the topic of mobility with the World Business Council for Substantiality Development.
Harcourt has spent several years looking at the issue of mobility from an activist's perspective.
I suddenly had access to someone who'd been doing leading-edge thinking from the point of view of the social sector and the human side, Weyerhaeuser said.
Selected attendees had the opportunity to ask the Dalai Lama questions regarding global and social issues.
One question was regarding how people could take responsibility in a society that focuses on the individual.
Taking care of one's self or looking after one's self is justified, the Dalai Lama said. But if you look more deeper than one individual, no matter how able or strong the person, without society he or she cannot manage.
During his visit to Vancouver, the Dalai Lama attended several public forums on a variety of topics.
On Friday, he met with a theatre full of young people to discuss how to cultivate compassion in the world.
The following day, the 71-year-old met with scientists to talk about how stress affects humans. Later that day, he received his honorary Canadian citizenship. |
Vancouver to Build Dalai Lama Centre
Once built, the Dalai Lama Centre for Peace and Education will be the only physical facility to which the Dalai Lama has consented to lend his name.
At 4,645 square metres, bigger by about 800 square metres than the Vancouver Art Gallery's exhibition space, the centre will have an outdoor European-style piazza -- where people can gather for a bite to eat or a coffee -- a zen garden on the rooftop, plus a bookstore and library.
There will also be a film screening theatre, performing arts theatre and art gallery on site, all focusing on spiritual works.
Other studios will provide space for performing movements such as Tai Chi, and salon-type rooms for the public to discuss the ideas generated throughout.
Besides the films and performances, Victor Chan, the founder, envisions author readings and many lecture series including one for Nobel Peace Prize winners, but also with top scientists from around the world.
"This will be a place where a lot of things go on," says Chan from his office in the Continuing Education Centre at Simon Fraser University downtown. "Intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, it will be a cultural and educational bazaar, if you will. A kind of beacon that attracts people from all walks of life to be stimulated intellectually and emotionally and to have a nice time doing it."
Chan says the centre can capitalize on the good friendships the Dalai Lama has developed over the last four decades; friendships with people like South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic.
The centre will have what Chan calls, the two wings of a bird. The global wing will highlight the Dalai Lama's powerful international connections, with guest speakers, support for interfaith dialogues and discussions on peaceful resolutions to conflicts.
It will also be very much rooted in the local community, he says, adding that half of the $60 million budget will go to operating costs, research, local programming and an endowment. The other half will go towards the centre construction and a meditative retreat on Bowen Island. The centre won't be a palace, but will be iconic and comfortable, he says.
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Here are three zenners speaking their mind about the book and the world of business;
Michael Rosone,Managing Director SoundBoard Boonton, New Jersey
I find your commitment and passion to this movement to be inspiring. As with any movement it takes both a leader and patience. Corporate America (and business the world over) is blessed that YOU are the one with the strength, conviction, passion and insight to lead us during such an otherwise unsettling and pivotal time. It is long overdue that the worlds of business, self-help and spirituality come together for not only the good of business but for the good of humanity.
After all, are we not first human beings before we are businessmen? Your courage and willingness to openly introduce and foster compassion, love and an open heart into the Boardroom will in my opinion profoundly impact the dynamics of employer/employee relationships while creating both stronger and more enlightened businesses. All of which will only make the world a better place to work and live. I believe the business world is ready for your message. It is my opinion that the collective consciousness of business wants to live by and embrace your message yet up until now no one has given them the permission to say it is ok (life's funny like that isn't it?). Thank you for going where few people would have the courage to go.
michael@yoursoundboard.com
www.yoursoundboard.com
Yves Farges, CEO, Qualifirst Foods, Vancouver
I am pleased but not surprised to hear that the book is progressing. Creating a media buzz is an essential part of the process of selling books and getting the word out.
My general attitude to business follows generally accepted business rules, but in Dean Martin's words, I do it my way, by understanding that the business world is not a monorail of money, but rather a web of paths you walk or run down, to reach a broad variety of goals, some of which appear to have nothing to do with money, but add real value to the business process in an indirect way.
The indirect way is an interesting concept, hard to teach, but most mature business leaders know it as there is more than one way to skin a cat. Now, that phrase is designed to raise the hackles of animal lovers, but in essence, we are talking about choices, and more specifically, choices to obtain results through indirect ways.
The classical way is more sales, volume, and the steamroller approach to competitive business. I feel quite strongly that there is a better way, using service and bringing real quality to the marketplace, strategic rather than general.
Please keep in mind Allan that you are early with a concept that has been bubbling away for decades. There are going to be a lot of people that are going to be nodding, just knowing instinctively that this set of ideas is right. Your book will encourage them and make a vague idea much more tangible.
In a world finally raising ethics to a real standard, confounding larger businesses that have quite frankly speaking zero ethics, people need support or at least some feedback that what they are doing is right. The next generations are not going to put up with unethical behaviour on a global basis. Your book is one of the early clarions for these ethical business troops, and I continue to maintain that in the next few years, someone important will buy your book and will make a very real contribution to society. Just knowing that makes you a victor before the battle.
yfarges@far-met.com
www.qualifirst.com
Robert Fitzpatrick, Author, North Carolina
Allan,I have read the entire book. I enjoyed it and learned a lot.
From my read, it is both an assessment and indictment of our business culture, but more importantly it is an interpretation that asserts that a positive shift is in the works. I must say, having been immersed investigating fraudulent MLM's and living here in Bushland, this is hard to detect.
I know that business cultures go in cycles. Let us hope this new gilded era is over or nearly so. We are drowning here in the US in "privatizing" the culture and commercializing everything. Cities are selling ads on school buses, forcing kids to watch commercial news and calling it learning (including the commercials.) Locally, we are fighting to maintain a park which the city wants to sell commercial naming rights to. The marketplace is consuming everything else.
America is the land of the military industrial complex, the largest on earth, and the oil industry and the largest pharmaceuticals. So, our view may be skewed. It is abundantly clear that business life is less and less fulfilling to nearly everyone. Consider that the most popular reflection of business culture is the comic strip Dilbert.
So, I welcome your manifesto. Not only are you seeing the future, but helping to usher it in. Giving the new model a name is very important. Once it is named, as you have done, it can be embraced and it can grow.
If I can help in any way, let me know. I think you have found your voice. It is loud and clear.
RFitzPatrick@FalseProfits.com
http://www.FalseProfits.com
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This column is reserved for a make believe, but yet real place. A place where all things are possible. And contrary to the movie Sin City, where everything bad happens, this is Zentropolis where everything good happens. This city has its own free speech television network, and rather than Sin City's version of CNN, where all reports are focused on lying, cheating, fraud, embezzlement, killing , wars, environmental crimes, and man's inhumanity towards man, GNN has it's has it's own reports of truth, integrity, honesty, peace, harmony, compassion , nurturing , and caring for all on GNN (The Good News Network). I make reference a lot in my book to the good citizens of Zentropolis, and their good deeds. Here are some of the stories we are covering this month in Zentropolis.
Ervin Laszlo in an article in Ode Magazine writes about what Zentropolis might look like; Let me offer one example of how such a breakthrough might look: Faced with growing problems and shared threats, citizens across the planet pull together to form associations and networks to pursue their dreams of peace and environmental sustainability.
Business leaders and entrepreneurs recognize the importance of these aspirations and respond with new goods and services that help make them a reality. Soon, global news and entertainment media commit themselves to chronicling emerging social and cultural innovations. On the Internet and through other grassroots communication networks, people everywhere begin exploring new visions of the natural world, the global community and human existence itself.
Out of all this comes a new culture of solidarity and social responsibility across the planet. Public support mounts for government policies that institute social and ecological repairs. Money isdiverted from the military and defence industries to the needs of people. New measures are implemented to develop sustainable energy, transportation, industrial, technological and agricultural systems. Huge numbers of people around the world get better access to food, jobs, and education. As a result of these developments, international mistrust, ethnic conflict, racial oppression, economic inequity, and gender inequality give way to new traditions of mutual respect. Rather than breaking down in conflict and war, humanity breaks through to a sustainable world of self-reliant butco-operating communities, enterprises, countries and regions.
At this point in our history, human beings have accumulated unprecedented power hence responsibility to decide our destiny. Although the prospect of global breakdown stares us in the face, it is by no means inevitable.
We also have the unprecedented option of choosing a brighter tomorrow. Nothing prevents us from shifting our evolutionary path toward a peaceful and sustainable civilization, nothing except our own patterns of thinking and action. The leaders now in power and the mainstream society they represent have not yet glimpsed a different future for our civilization. Yet many other people are inspired by visions of a global breakthrough that are already emerging at the creative frontiers of our society. Societies are seldom culturally monolithic in their thinking. This is especially true in eras of innovation and ferment. Those periods spawn a large number of subcultures, or alternative cultures, that spring up alongside the prevailing power structure.
This is what we see happening today, with some of these alternative cultures devoting themselves to imaginatively rethinking the priorities, values, and behaviours of society, giving particular attention to how we can improve environmental sustainability and human ethics. This sort of fundamental reassessment of how we live, even if overlooked or ignored by those in power, can spark rapid and revolutionary change. While barely visible in the major media, a number of grassroots movements, from global justice to holistic health to spiritual exploration, are already blazing the trail away from the usual assumptions of mainstream culture.
Even the people involved with these movements underestimate their own numbers, in part because most of them go about their business without trying to convert others and because they lack social and political cohesion. Yet the more serious and sincere of these alternative cultures show promise as catalysts of a social breakthrough. Unlike many subcultures and sects, these people do not relish taking antisocial stances or want to hide away from everyone else. Rather, they are quietly but profoundly engaged in the world, as they challenge accepted beliefs and pursue new avenues of personal and social commitment.
www.odemagazine.com
Roger Saillant, CEO of Plug Power, one of the first electric fuel cell companies, has good instincts. Saillant has created an organization that feels different, that has an energy that is palpable. Work at Plug Power is not your job or my job. It's our job, he states. And that's how people become enlisted when we are working together. It is what happens when you think of yourself as having no boundaries, when you think of yourself as working in a field of connection and consciousness. In creating this organization, Saillant has tapped into something that moves human beings and not just machines: I believe that people want the truth; they want to learn and grow, to be part of a community and a shared inspirational vision, he states. When you try to practice these principles, somehow the universe reaches out and gives you insights that guide you at an intuitive level. No longer isolated in the command tower, Saillant is part of a neural network of human relationship that learns and grows together.
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The Business of Saving the World
by Elizabeth Debold
Intra Orginizational Change: Transforming Consciousness and Culture
It's after midnight and Michael Rennie's face is bathed in the bluish glow of his laptop screen. Rennie and I have been talking for hours. Now, perched on the edge of a desk belonging to one of his partners at McKinsey (because Rennie's office is floor to ceiling with the evidence of his having just moved to New York from Australia), he is showing me one slide after another, graphic displays ofand testimonials to the dramatic changes from McKinsey's Performance Leadership Program the program that had its debut with John Akehurst at Woodside Petroleum. Tall and lanky, and appearing every inch the polished corporate executive, Rennie only just now loosens his tie a bit as he excitedly explains each PowerPoint slide. We've begun a bit of a duet. He clicks on a slide, says a few words,and then I chime in with Wow! And it's a genuine Wow the work that Rennie and his partner-in-transformation, Gita Bellin, have done with one company after another is remarkable. With each softclick on the computer, I can almost hear the hard metal plates that create the rigid structures of the traditional corporation crashing to the floor. Rennie smiles at me, his face lit with delight. It's really subtle, isn't it?
Subtle wasn't the word that came to mind. Rennie who is something of a miracle himself, having cured himself of a rare cancer that had literally riddled his body with tumors has been working with Bellin for the past eight years to realize his life's mission: shifting consciousness in business. His personal transformation, which he attributes to a dramaticmindset shift that enabled him, just by choosing to heal himself, led him to experiment in the field of his own expertise business. Why business? Because he recognizes that business is the most powerful force on the planet. And in these corporations that network thousands and thousands of people, Rennie sees the potential for a delivery system for a higher consciousness, more effective ways of thinking that could bring life on earth to a new level of cooperation and innovation. Currently, however, he believes that these large organizations are actually a lag on the consciousness of theplanet, because they are at odds with individuals who are searching for a greater awareness with which to navigate our chaotic and confusing world.
Organizations don't change; people do, is Rennie's entry point to creating intraorganizational change. He and Bellin use personal transformation to create the energy for changing an organization's culture. Transformation, says Bellin, is ametamorphosis. A true transformation can never return to what it was before. So the work that we're doing a shift in root perspective is like becoming a frog that can breathe through lungs. You can never return to being a tadpole that breathed through gills. By teaching a combination of interpersonal skills, meditation practices, and personal mastery techniques, they release the desire for authenticity, dignity, and real human connection within a critical mass of individuals in a given organization. They then use these values to dismantle the policies and internal structures in the organization that have helped keep the machine's consciousness-numbing hierarchies in place.
Bellin teaches the concept of creative cause total responsibility for one's life because until you turn people's vision around and get them to be absolutely one hundred percent accountable for their lives, their choices, and their experience, the transformation process won't happen. You will not get the shift in root perspective. Moreover, she says, you can't make a permanent shift unless you reprogram, through meditation, the neural pathways that developed during the preverbal stage of life. Ultimately, the purpose is to get individuals to develop three abilities simultaneously: where they can be a player in life, they can be aspectator in every moment, but they're also the referee so they're constantly, moment by moment, consciously at choice in regards to what they do and how they respond. Rennie comments that thereason the work is so powerful is that we're actually working with individuals fully as energetic beings as well as physical and mental/emotional beings. But as you work with those three, there's a deeper thing that happens you're actually shifting the energetic or the quantum level of being.
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Zentrepreneurism on the Air and IN the Street
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Since our launch in late June we have been busy getting the message out!
AUGUST
Breakfast Television CITY TV in Edmonton
Article in Edmonton Journal
Book Signing Chapters West Edmonton Mall
Book Signing Chapters Southgate Edmonton
Book Signing Chapters Granville & Broadway
Book Signing Chapters Robson & Granville
Feature Story in Shared Vision Magazine
CKNW The World Tonight with Gord Macdonald
Article in Vancouver Courier
Interview CFUN The Pia Shandell Show
SEPTEMBER
Interview OMNI TV The Standard with Andrew Dawson.
Interview Urban Rush TV Channel 4
Chapters Book Signing (Broadway & Granville)
OCTOBER
TORONTO
Toronto Board of Trade Oct. 5 8-9 A.M. Presentation and Book Signing
(Members and Non-Members welcome)
CHAPTERS/INDIGO BOOK STORES BOOK SIGNINGS, READINGS
-Oct. 4 7-9 p.m. Indigo Yonge & Eglington
-Oct. 5 5-7 p.m. Indgo Eatons Centre
-Oct. 6 12-2 p.m. Chapters Festival Hall
-Oct. 6 7-9 p.m. Indigo Yorkdale
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Every group, every organization, every cluster of human beings on a mission requires a group of individuals that share the same consciousness. I am pleased and blessed to introduce the members of our Zen Team who are helping to spread the word of Zentrepreneurism.
Deirdra Rowland, Publicist, c-me Publicity media@publicity.com
David Litvak, Book Liason specialist, Cascadia Publicity, djlitvak@cascadiapublicity.com
Jaret Forman, Zen Web Guy, Rogue Republik, jaret@roguerepublik.com
Special thanks also to Rogue Republik for their technical energy and assistance.
E-BOOKS & AUDIO BOOKS
Thanks to our creative producer Jim Ptycia of One Stop Voice Shop www.onestopvoiceshop.com We are now pleased to offer Zentrepreneurism in an e-book and audio book format. Just go to our website at www.zentrepreneurism.com and click on the icon to order from PayPal, our secure server and you will be able to download both.
GLOBAL CONFERENCE
The first historic global conference on Zentrepreneurism will be both live and virtual and highly interactive. We are in the process of finalizing with a provider of software technology that will be state of the art. Watch for updates in the Zen Messenger and see how you can attend live in Vancouver or from your computer anywhere in the world.
ZENNERS GROUP
If you would like to start a Zenner group with like minded zentrepreneurs in your area, you will soon be able to communicate with each other in our members area of the website. If you live in Vancouver, a Zenner group has already been formed and if you would like to join them e-mail allanholender@shaw.ca and I will put you in touch with the coordinator.
Voices of Zentrepreneurism
Inspiring Visionaries in the New World of Business
Business in the 21st century is changing. Today's business leaders are seeking something beyond what the world has offered to date a higher level of business that goes past mere capitalism. This new world of business is one where partners, families, businesses, and efforts merge into a single, harmonious whole, where success is measured in more ways than just the balance in our bank accounts.
In this groundbreaking DVD, hear from actual Zentrepreneurs as they sit down with the founder of Zentrepreneurism , Allan Holender, to discuss the impact their newfound practices have had on their lives and their enterprises. From real-life stories of inspiration to hilarious anecdotes, Allan's conversational interview style allows this new breed of "social entrepreneurs" and visionaries to share a message that is both revolutionary and immediately applicable. As you are introduced to these zenlightened entrepreneurs in action, you will realize that you can have a life and business together that it's not too late to live the richest, fullest life you can live!
VOICES OF ZENTREPRENEURiSM will feature in-depth interviews, documentary features, testimonial vignettes, and round table discussions with leading Zentreprenuers from around North America. With an emphasis on practical application, host Allan Holender allows the voices of Zentreprenuers themselves to attest to the life-changing power of combining ethics and business for financial and spiritual success.
Premiering in Vancouver Spring 2007
LETTERS TO THE SCRIBE
The Editor invites comments, suggestions, ideas, articles of interest and any zenful thoughts you may have to allanholender@shaw.ca
VISIT OUR NEW WEBSITE AT www.zentrepreneurism.com
NEXT MONTH IN THE ZEN MESSENGER
Next month we take the message on the road to Toronto. Lot's of good things to report. Until then keep on zenning!
"If you meet the Buddha on the path, show him the photos of your grandchildren"
-David M. Bader, Zen Judaism-For You, a Little Enlightenment
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