Bread crumbs

I taught a class today on creating your personal vision statement, and I heard myself spinning quite a yarn about how important it is to align your values and passions to your vision of who you want to become.  Now I do truly believe in this advice and, in my own way, have been sharing it for many years.  But I am struck by how easy it is not to heed our own advice.

My students were looking at me intently and nodding their heads in unison.  One young woman even commented that her vision statement talked about that one thing she longed to do and how she would get to it when the money flowed.  I repeated some good advice someone once gave me about ‘not following the money’, and then — Wham!

There I was face to face with my own inner monologue about how one day — soon — I would be able to write and consult and teach — once the money flowed.   I had waited a long time to actually pursue these things, and as I face a future that includes all those things, I realize something really surprising.

I had been dropping “bread crumbs” all along leading me back to this personal vision.  I had pursued advanced degrees with abandon while working full time and raising my sons.  I had embraced projects that would teach me about the very things I wanted to consult about.  I had traveled across the state and across the world looking for relationships that would support my metaphysical road map.

I just didn’t know I was doing it or, at least, I didn’t realize I was doing it without conscious  intention.  But we cannot escape what truly interests and inspires us.  Our desire for a life that resonates creates subconscious “bread crumbs” that lead us right where we were going all along.

Making commitments

I traveled to NYC this past week to attend the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (www.clintonglobalinitiative.com).  Timing and fearlessness conspired to help me get there on a press pass.

No more than 200 attendees were shepherded by an equal number of CGI staffers to various break out sessions where non-profit leaders, business tycoons and Clinton operatives met to talk about five goals — harnessing innovation, strengthening infrastructure, building human capital and financing an equitable future.  On the day I attended, the focus was investing in girls and women.

I listened to a telelink presentation by a small-framed woman dressed in a modest sari who had secured micro finance to launch a vision business in India.  She started with a pedicab and grew her social enterprise to a fleet of scooters.  The premise — being able to see is crucial to earning a living wage.  As a result, Standard Chartered Bank committed to fund sustained eye care for 20 million people in 20 countries by 2014.

There were a parade of people entering and leaving the stage — from Visa Corporation to FIFA to the Carnegie Corporation to Duke Energy to Procter & Gamble (even Brad Pitt and Ben Stiller got into the game).  They were all there to make commitments to invest in and to lead specific projects that would help to achieve the  five goals.

It was particularly poignant to be at the event with a close friend, with whom I have had a long history of taking action for meaningful change.  We have marched in Washington together, bobbed about in the unpredictable seas of marriage and motherhood, and charted new courses as our lives morphed back to social and political action.

We sat together on the press dais, she was impeccably dressed staring intently at the faces on stage and I blinked through the tears as I watched story after story told by people with a belief, a plan and resources.

What struck me most about the day was not the chance to be with my friend listening to stories about women who reinvested more than 90% of what they earn back into their families (compared to 55% by men) — what struck me most was the call to action.  Investing in young women reaps economic, social and political rewards for their families, their communities and their countries.

Every story was followed by an investment of millions of dollars and countless hours by individuals, communities and corporations.  Check out the web site to see the full list of commitment made at the annual meeting.  It is awesome in size and scope — including 284 commitments valued at $9.4 billion and projected to impact more than 200 million lives.

Action has become intoxicating to me — because it requires courage and hope, because finding the will to act is often more difficult than acting, and because if a petite Indian woman can help millions to see then imagine what you can do.

Audacity

I was watching Bill Mahr on HBO this weekend, extremely amused, as usual, by his irreverent and all0-too-true take on the constipation we all know as beltway policy.

He challenged the president to move beyond the “audacity of hope” to just “audacity.”  Of course, I agree.

Even though the president has shown no end of energy and determination since being elected — confronting Wall Street greed, conducting triage on the auto industry, and communicating our desire to reengage the diplomatic process in the Arab world and beyond — it is time to be audacious in reinventing our economy.

Let’s start with health care and energy.

As for health care, employers are drowning in health care costs.  Insurance companies,  lawyers and providers are locked in a stalemate of high costs and spiraling litigation and consumers must balance economic realities with life and death decisions.

Be bold — let’s define what we want the health system to become and create it!  If we can fire Rick Wagoner at GM and overhaul Wall Street raises, we can scrap the current health care system and start fresh.  We don’t need a “transitional” system or a system cobbled together from the parts of the current mess.  Throw it out — all of it — and start over.

As for energy, the only thing standing in our way of creating a viable alternative energy economy are our own illusions about oil.  It will increase in cost again — at least the Saudi’s hope so.  Let’s engage global firms (like GE) with the innovation and resources to propel us toward portable and renewable fuel resources.

Audacity — fearless, daring, intrepid.  Doesn’t that sound like a solution worth pursuing?