Free e-book in 20 chapters for a better world
Free book (first chapter)
Back in 2004, when I was writing and editing my very first publication in Dutch (Title in English would have been: Handbook for the future Market leader) I introduced the 5K method or “the five keys to business success in the 21ste century. People asked me why I publish my book in Dutch and not directly in English for the global market? Good question.
Most business models came from the United States with very well known guru’s that made name with their publications. The universal business truth was often directly made synonym to the USA. It is a huge country with obvious post war business successes that had conquered the world. What had a small Dutchman to add to all this wisdom? Why would anyone accept a business theory coming from the lowlands of Europa that had known the golden age back in times of East Indies?
That was one of reasons why I was not too keen on addressing the world market immediately. Who would care?
The other reason was that I got insight and awareness on what I had to mention after returning to Holland with my family after 27 years of absence. The culture shock was tremendous as well as my amazement how my original country of birth had changed. The warmth that I had felt back in the early 70’s had totally disappeared. Instead I found a cold, materialistic culture of complaining people with a heavy, very authoritive and bureaucratic government that even ruled on the amount of balls you could have in your soup so to say.
So writing my book and looking for solutions I had a look first at Holland. The fact that all this coldness had cost me my second marriage and left me to take care of my two small children also helped to concentrate on anything but the chance to have to travel. Whatever happened I simply wanted to be home to take care of my daughters when school was out.
Gradually I got to understand that the issue that I was addressing was not simply a Dutch one but involved the entire world, the entire human species.
When in 2008 the credit crisis struck I had already critically analysed various business sectors s.a. banking, supermarkets and garbage collection. It became clear to me that simple consultancy work as an author would get me seated with powerful people with the advise to do something about it. These people would maybe listen to me but hardly pay to hear that they had to change mentality and the way they do business. These people would want to hear how they could get back to old profitability again as fast as possible. And that insight I could not provide to them.
It became clear to me that I had to address the Global Shift issue by taking responsibility myself. I started the STIR Foundation (STIR = Sustainability, Transformation, Indexation and Research) together with a friend from Belgium. It became an ordeal to find our way into developing awareness and enlightenment into true value based concepts and organizations. Belgium and Holland were totally different and soon my partner decided to refocus.
Only after two years and a lot of experimentation, tough decisions, differences in insight between people, struggles etc we got to the very first true results. We realised that true progress could only be made if we created environments where all disciplines for change would commit together. Having said that we also recognized the gigantic burden we had to deal with. How to get people with different agendas en priorities to work together on a specific higher purpose?
I realized that we were not to invent a system for global change but unite a diversity of people who would voluntarily offer their expertise and scope of professional responsibility to sit together and develop a joint purpose. It became clear that this could only be done by adding an independent, purpose driven environment where the encounters could take place. We created the basis for local STIR cooperations, first nearby in my home town.
My girls have grown up in the meantime, my freedom has grown to travel more but also my expertise on how to get things done in an extremely complex transformative environment. It cannot be done anywhere. It requires the lucky situation of people with a particular mentality and desire to make a difference. It requires the unique situation of finding such people in eachother’s vicinity and with enough authority and diversity to make it happen.
The world has become conscious also now that things need to change. But how to I reach those people who have the right attitude, network and insight to join forces in their comfort zone? It became clear to me that time was ready to make my book, practical methods, models, views etc available to the rest of the world. It is my sincere desire that the contribution to humanity would help to accelerate processes around the world and avoid that many people would have to “re-invent the wheel”.
So it happened that I decided that my own adventurous life to discover how to proceed did not just belong to me but to everyone. My writing I make available to the world totally free of charge. Not because I do not need the money, on the contrary, but because I feel that the process of the Global Shift and our chances together are much more important than trying to promote an article. I hope with this that the transformation gains momentum and in this movement I can fullfil my role of co-responsible for permanent change.
If one day I can look at my daughters and see that they have a sustainable future then I am satisfied and happy that I have been able to contribute just that little bit that made it happen, just like they and so many others hopefully do to make it last for ever.
Free book: The Global Shift, a quantum leap in human evolution
Today (13.06.2011) I made available the very first chapter. Every sunday a new chapter will be released for about 20 sundays in a row. The only thing I ask you is to send me an email. For me it is important to develop a network of people who are worried, curious or interested. Among you we will find surely enough people to take co-responsibility too for the global shift in your own direct environment.
Governments parasite on their own population
It is common knowledge that anyone who is dealing with money of someone else tends to be less careful then when it would be his own. That is in extreem the case of politicians and civil servants. Their funding seems to be unlimited. If they are short of cash they simply raise taxes by law and use their legal instruments to oblige the population to comply. The current complexity of taxation is so little transparent and so obscure that an average citizen has become reluctant to understand allowing him or herself to be plundered by the system. The public institutions have grown so distant from the real world that they have forgotten what their real purpose is and lack a sense of true responsibility around the resources they use.
Most countries have shown steady economic growth for decades mainly due to speculation on housing and public consumption, not on productivity. The same countries have shown at the same time double increase of government expenses. The latter shows a blind trust of government in continuous growth as well as a tremendous need for money caused by mismanagement and bureaucracy. In fact, government efficiency has decreased spectacularly over decades showing important deficiencies in all government dominanted organizations.
Since government works with money of others the solutions they seek for their lack of efficiency is by simply adding other layers of control but never by asking themselves about their purpose or need. In fact government becomes a heavy structure that learns to reinvent and support itself continuously without asking how this can be sustained. As one of our international partners correctly noted during a discussion on the social costs caused by increased health hazards through air pollution: “the first thing a new minister does when installed is to remodelate his or her office. They don’t care where the money comes from. It is not their money and taxation for them is an endless source of funding”.
In fact government has grown from a facilitating institution for the benefit of society to a parasite on its own supposed beneficiaries. Countries like Egypt, Lybia and other North African and Middle East countries have the possibility to stand up against dictators with a name and a face. They know who they need to fight to regain autodetermination.
Western society is equally being dictated, not just by individuals but by the system that keeps itself up with as much self-protecting efforts as those that we despise when they have a face. Dictators dominate their population through fear, some with bullets and legal others through the blackmail of unjust securities that can be lost (pension, social security, health insurance) and their own interpretation of justice.
When taxes cannot be raised the hunger of the parasite is stilled by placing its tentacles into those securities that were saved by law by the hard working population and placed in trust in the hands of public institutions, just like we had done with our savings in the bank. Also these securities are emptied by the thirst of the system that grew far away from its original purpose and now systematically kills that what created it.
When taxes cannot be raised anymore the problem is too late. The host is in crisis and the parasite desperately seeks for other sources to survive. The problem is that a government is supposed to be part of society not dominant over it. So when taxes cannot be raised anymore both the parasite’s host (the population) as well as the parasite itself get weaker. Time has come to redefine public servantship, government. You don’t ask a parasite to redefine parasiting. You ask yourself where and how you can continue without a parasite and become strong again.
The threat of weakening securities is a powerful argument to keep the voter close to the old ruling parties and accept twisted information and even lies as hot cookies. We tend to keep our own parasite in place.
When the taxes cannot be raised anymore bureaucracy needs to cut its costs. The parasite needs to eliminate parts of itself. This it never does. Living parasites tend to jump to other resources when the old one is too weak to be of further use. In government we have seen the same. When taxes could not be raised other resources were created to maintain sufficient flow of income to maintain and increase bureaucracy. Speculation of banks, housing and automotive was allowed and enhanced, saving funds were used and new funding created through creation of money out of nothing.
Only when all that has reached its already unacceptable limits one does not address bureaucracy itself but cuts first into the true public services that are provided by government. Costs are cut in the military, police, education, health care and social support and other operational facilities, weakening even further the population that already suffers all kinds of other weaknesses such as aggression, psycological and behavioral disorders, lack of backbone to stand up, fear of consequences, etc.
The legal parasite gives back the weakend host to itself with the challenge to cure itself. Now we see governments that have enriched themselves for decades over the backs of their people give back responsibilities to the same people. They demand people to take responsibilities but do so without truly stepping back themselves. Bureaucracy and the parasite are still there waiting to take over again at the smallest sign of recovery.
The real solution lies in the population itself that, despite overall weakening, gets itself together to use this little space of autodetermination, not to simply become greedy and individualized but to get organized to eliminate bureacracy and the parasite all together. In fact, this can be done when truly convincing oneself that the beast of dictatorship in this case has been created and sustained by ourselves. Even though it seems to live a life of its own it can be addressed and eliminated by addressing it through ourselves first and then joining forces among eachother to create a new society with vision and courage.
When government becomes a parasite of its own population it is high time to redefine again government. If political leadership is servant to bureaucracy and self supporting parasiting it cannot be trusted anymore as servant to society. Then we first have to learn to trust our own self-leadership in order to stand up and challenge the system transformative renewal. This we see occuring now with growing groups of people willing to be publically critical and united in their criticism. Just a little time is needed for new leadership to be born and accepted among them that stands up to take responsibility for genuin change.
Missing sustainability link
There are five master areas that influence our daily human life. That is entrepreneurship, the consumer (the market), the banks, government and science. Each of the areas are controlled by humans through islands of influence of their own. The interaction is one of need, regulation and interdependence, not out of common purpose or partnership.
Each of these islands are driven by control and power through highly self maintaining institutions. Over time the gap between the islands has widened and cooperation or interaction is mainly out of self interest. The function of each area is a black box that is not to be interfered with by anyone outside that box. The size of these power zones have grown so big and powerful that corruption, insensitivity to the consequences of hierarchies of power and openess to dialogue for transformative change is impossible.
Together these five areas are so much dependent on eachother that they form a solid global operational system called the global economy of growth.
Another few master areas of influence have appeared that are beyond human control: natural disasters, our finite environment and unexpected system interruptions. These areas interfer increasingly with the big five causing the system to collapse and rebuilt with great effort, fear and anxiety.
One would think that with the impressive evidence of the ending of the system that people in power would sit together and try to solve it for the benefit of continuation. But this does not happen, at least not all five sectors together. And as all five are interrelated it is a key requirement to get them all to work together. But out of free will they will not! Who would be leading?
Governments have their own perception of reality and so do bankers and business people. Science wants to understand no matter what we do with the understanding and the average consumer simply wants to remain in the position to keep consuming. If you put the five together voluntarily they won’t even turn up for the meeting. The word sustainability for the five means as much as “keep the system going” and “do not interfer with me or the system will crash”.
Invariably the system will crash no matter what but not until the five in power have done everything they can to get the last bit out of it. Meanwhile the amount of system interruptions will grow and cause crisis after crisis. Sensitivity for change is growing and true sustainability is defined to be much more of the kind of human survival and if possible, some quality of life for all of us.
The problem is that each of the five will not take leadership for change. They depend to much of eachother to let any take the lead for a transformation that will redesign the entire human organization. If one would start it would necessarily need to question the viability of the other. And for that it has no authority.
To bridge the independent yet interrelated islands a new island is needed, the island of partnership and trust. This island is governed by an independent purpose (not money) driven institution such as the STIR Foundation. It bridges the other five key areas that remain functioning as usual on their own with the same interdependence but lack of cooperation and trust.
On the special STIR island they get together with their competences to take responsibility for a common higher purpose. On this island the column of values rules and are safeguarded. The higher purpose is true sustainability but redefined in manageable sub issues. The independence of the island, its own internal purpose driven governance and the supervision as well as responsibility taken by the non governmental and non business and non scientific independent authority make it the missing link for defining and introducing true and complex sustainable progress without the need for war or chaos.
One example of such independent value driven cooperation is the AiREAS company that works on a local for local basis within the global context. Experimenting with the delicate process of bridging the feeling of safety when addressing a higher purpose without the stress of the hierarchy of power is highly desirable by all involved. All are intelligent and understand the need for change but feel trapped in their own maze of interrelated interests. By disattaching the competences from the system they can be united around a purpose and act together to determine new processes of value that can be rapidly put in place without putting the old hierarchies under pressure.
Using the missing link the transition can take place gradually but insistantly with the key parties involved taking joint responsibility and taking the universal issues also in consideration. By applying science and innovation in the complexity of our current civilization through small but highly visible steps we will get us step by step back into a new but different comfort zone allowing the power positions to transform without necessarily crashing the entire system.
One day the transformation will be business as usual and the missing link may disappear again as true catalist of a complex process.
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 