Learning the Right Life Lessons

A conversation about the value of the past

with David Melnik, Q.C.

CG: The famous philosopher, poet and novelist Georges Santayana said: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. How is this point relevant today?

DM: To have a good view of how you should live your life, and how best to contribute to your community and avoid some of life’s large pitfalls, you should learn a much as you can about what happened in the past. About what made and makes the world go round.

That’s why the study of history and philosophy are more important than anything I can think of. Whether you do it formally or informally.

CG: When you look at your own life, how did this serve you?

DM: Over my life I learned a great, great deal about the past, and it helped me move forward. I took aspects of it I felt were workable, worth copying or following, and used them in new and constructive ways.

When we look not just at individuals, but also at companies, we see opportunities to take what worked well for others in the past and use it to improve the present and future.

However, the problem with business today is you’re often dealing with political instead of purely economic agendas: driven by getting votes instead of doing the right thing. An environment where politics rule or overrule common sense.

As a result, we have witnessed the insolvency of a company like GM, once one of the world’s great industrial giants. And, its ownership being forced by the US Government onto the shoulders of America’s taxpayers.

CG: What can we learn from this?

DM: Several things. That governments have powerful agendas of their own, like getting re-elected, and because of this they often forget or ignore the wisdom of the past; which was to have businesses run intelligently and profitably, or let them fail if they didn’t succeed on their own merits.

That we have to take careful note of what our leaders say and do, then hold them to account.

And, that Santayana was right.

I served at one time in my 50+ year career as a senior advisor to the Premier of Ontario, Canada, so I have both an outside and a very inside perspective of government and politics at work; likewise of law from leading a law practice, and of business from running a bank and serving on many corporate boards.

CG: But we don’t need university degrees to glean the wisdom and folly of the past.

DM: Well I have five degrees, but I still have to pay to go on the streetcar as they say. The key is working throughout your lifetime to acquire meaningful knowledge and experience – and the ability to seriously analyze and discuss issues.

CG: In your view, most governments are operating more from self than public interest, and exerting counter-productive control over the marketplace. So where does capitalism fit in today?

DM: I don’t have many heroes, but the great economist Milton Friedman was certainly one. Years back, he gave an interview. When asked if capitalism was a selfish thing, Friedman, like Adam Smith before him, said no, that private, free market achievement was the basis of creating wealth for more people than would otherwise be the case in any dictatorial or totalitarian state (like Stalinist Russia).

I think it’s still true; and more essential than ever that we work to restore a free market.

CG: What one book has influenced you most significantly?

DM: Perhaps British economic historian Robert Skidelsky’s acclaimed three-volume biography on John Maynard Keynes. Fifty years later, we’re still struggling with the effects of Keynesianism. In essence Keynes theory was when things go down, let the government print and pump money into the system and all will be well. Which isn’t the way a free market should work, and we – especially you in the U.S. – have paid dearly for it: tens of trillions in debt and obligations.

I did not admire Keynes in any way, because I think his theory of government involvement in the economy is wrong…but I had to study him to really understand this.

CG: Richard Maybury, publisher of the always insightful and compelling US & World Early Warning Report, has a lot to say about the crushing losses that have come from Keynesian economics -- and about what 2,500 years of economic history tell us to expect ahead in our markets.

But why aren’t we thinking more about these essential issues?

DM: When they’re working all day long, most people are tired and want to relax. The last thing they are likely to do is read Skidelsky’s biography of John Maynard Keynes, or study the meaning of history or carefully analyze where their country is heading.

CG: Yet don’t we all have a higher responsibility, to learn life lessons? To be mindful and helpful, and do the right things in our world by and for each other?

DM: Yes we do. Socrates felt virtue was the most valuable of all possessions, and that the ideal life was spent in search of the good. His ancient wisdom is as timely as ever. It’s something we can seek every day.

CG: You may remember the conversation piece “A Time for Questioning” I did last year with world performer/director/ethical business catalyst Yannis Simonides about Socratic wisdom.

DM: On a larger plane, people also have to be free to make their own decisions about how to conduct their affairs, with as little outside interference as possible. When you go back to the past, you’ll see it was the free market that worked – when it was allowed to work; while government-run or government-influenced economies were not so successful. You’re seeing these dynamics play out again in the present.

CG: So what’s your best advice?

DM: Study. Read. Think. Find people you can talk and exchange ideas with, who will listen…and respect what you have to say; and will offer other viewpoints you can appreciate.

Learn. And keep learning.

I have traveled to over a hundred countries in my 78 years; worked in business, academia and government, and sought out other ways of thinking that helped me evolve my own. I have never stopped learning.

I believe our individual capacity in modern times to transform knowledge of the past, of history and philosophy, into vital new ideas and action for tomorrow, is as great as it ever was. But we have to seize the opportunity, each in our own best way. Our own lives and our future well-being as a society depend on it.

CG: Thank you so much, David.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and senior-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. Learning the Right Life Lessons is the 22nd in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com. Colin's Linked In profile is www.linkedin.com/in/colingoedecke

David Melnik, Queen’s Counsel, is a leading international legal and financial consultant; who sits on many company boards. Former CEO of Canada’s Vanguard Trust, he also served as policy advisor to the Premier of Ontario, and as professor at both the University of Toronto and York University business schools… dm1976cp@allstream.net

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Choosing a Nuclear Freer Future

a conversation about the surprising realities

and costs of nuclear energy with Claus Biegert

CG: Our world has been nuclearized over the last five decades, for energy and atomic weaponry. And the production, from the mining of uranium for both, to the storage of radioactive waste from both, you say has come at immense environmental and social cost, cost that much of the public is still unenlightened or unconscious or uncurious about. Despite all the hard evidence out there. What’s the root problem?

CB: Few people question where nuclear material comes from in the first place, or whether it’s wise to use it. It’s uranium, and it comes from the earth, and usually from the traditional homelands of indigenous peoples. Most of these people live in vital relationship with the earth, and these surroundings wind up destroyed and with them, their cultures. Making these mining activities a clear and ongoing violation of human rights.

CG: Why is the process of taking uranium from the earth so destructive?

CB: Because enormous amounts of rock have to be mined and milled to produce a tiny amount, just 0.1% or less, of uranium ore, that’s turned into yellowcake. Most is waste, and 85% of it radioactive in the extensive tailings left behind – that can be the size of small mountains (the largest is over 80 million tons in Europe; and in the US and Canada some approach 30 million tons) or submerged under vast areas of hazardous, dammed-up water. These toxic messes will remain contaminated for generations to come.

CG: So while an epic environmental disaster is unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, around the world the nuclear industry has been knowingly not accidentally poisoning many parts of the planet’s ecology and its people for decades, from Asia and Africa to Canada and the US?

CB: But none of this is referred to publicly or officially as anything disastrous because it’s a widely accepted aspect of the uranium mining business. Even though scientifically we know it’s highly toxic; that the nearby radiation indigenous people are exposed to are related to many cancers and other debilitating diseases, and to the unnatural sicknesses of local animal and plant life.

Likewise, uranium enrichment, a process that produces depleted uranium – which is only considered “raw material” by the marketplace and not radioactive waste. Some of this goes into the weapons industry, and some into the iron and steel industry where it winds up recycled into parts of structures people move and work in.

Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

CG: Clearly we need to realize and become actively concerned about where nuclear energy is coming from; how it is extracted and handled, and where nuclear waste is going to. Not unlike the way we’re concerned these days about how safe our food is, and where and how it’s grown.

CB: We must, and we must also face ourselves in the mirror, and ask how comfortable we are living with this situation.

CG: But isn’t nuclear an essential part of the world’s energy supply?

CB: Despite many world leaders suggesting this is the case, it’s only about 2.5% of total energy production, and electricity alone is only about 17%. Making the level of destruction to produce it far out of proportion; wholly unsustainable; unacceptable. To say nothing of the fact that a half-century later there’s still no place to permanently store all the nuclear waste that has been and is still being generated as we speak.

Imagine creating an entire industry with no solution for the back end of the process. No real answers; no real antidote. That’s the world nuclear business.

CG: When I was an Official Listener back in 1992 at the World Uranium Hearing that you held in Salzburg, one of the greatest revelations from the leading scientists present was that there’s no safe level of ionizing radiation, despite propaganda to the contrary.

I also heard first-hand from the indigenous peoples affected, from the immediate victims of the world’s nuclear pursuits; many who had never left their villages till then. Who told their stories, revealed the truth, sad truth, that brought so many of us there in Salzburg to tears.

CB: The Hearing was successful in opening a lot of eyes and minds to the dark realities, and in empowering these indigenous people by giving them allies in their struggle to preserve their lands, livelihoods and cultures. As well, in publishing their testimonies and sharing revealing scientific presentations and conclusions.

As you know, we also had a Declaration of Salzburg adopted by the United Nations, which I encourage your readers to look at. It’s something vital we can all stand for. Especially for the benefit of our younger and next generations.

CG: What other illusions or myths are we operating under?

CB: Generations of people were told by the nuclear industry, especially in the 1950s and 60s, that nuclear was a panacea and science would take care of everything. So most people stopped worrying about the profound issues and problems of going and being nuclear. But the industry and nuclear-driven governments have failed to protect us or the planet, and they still have no worthwhile answers.

We need to worry.

CG: Aside of course from what happened so chillingly in Chernobyl, the worst nuclear power plant accident in history; and Three Mile Island, which people have forgotten about. These raised red flags for a while, but all that urgent concern seems to have faded away from the mainstream consciousness.

CB: Unfortunately yes. And the industry and governments talk today about a nuclear energy renaissance. But this is just PR, because there’s a finite amount of mineable uranium left, which will be exhausted in 70-80 years; and in less time if many new reactors are built around the world. Why should we say yes to an industry that is so lethal, and one with such a short shelf life?

They even call it green energy because it doesn’t emit Co2.

The fact is, there are many countries in the world, like Austria, Ireland, Portugal, New Zealand and Denmark, who don’t have and don’t want nuclear energy. And get along fine without it. Australia is rich in uranium deposits but has no reactors.

CG: So why did you create the Nuclear-Free Future Awards in 1998?

CB: All over the world there are courageous, inventive and inspired but unsung people standing up against this destruction; "counter-nuclear" champions who are working hard to educate and motivate the public.

These are people with great visions and smart solutions; who often risk their careers, even their lives to achieve a nuclear-free world. Our goal is to shine a light on them and their efforts; to recognize and financially support their work, because it’s important for every single one of us on the planet. They deserve our thanks.

We say nuclear-free instead of anti-nuclear, because we have a vision of a wiser future, one that uses safe and sustainable energy. Even if the world will never be fully nuclear free, it can be much freer of nuclear than it is. Including weapons. Our society started the Nuclear Age. Our society has the power to end or seriously diminish it.

CG: The next Nuclear-Free Future Awards are going to be presented in New York City, this September 30^th at Cooper Union; open and free to the public. Can you tell us more about the event.

CB: We will recognize the following laureates and award them each $10,000: Oleg Bodrov in Russia for Education, Bruno Barrillot in France for Solutions, and The African Uranium Alliance for Resistance, as well as two individuals honorarily: Henry Red Cloud, from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the Lakota Nation. He’s the fifth-generation grandson of famous Oglala Chief Red Cloud who was the first Indian to speak at Cooper Union, 140 years ago. And actor Martin Sheen, who has dedicated so much of his life fighting for peace through a nuclear-free world.

They will tell their front-line stories to the audience in Cooper Union's Great Hall and to all the people tuning in from around the world to the planned podcast.

CG: What should we all be thinking about right now, Claus?

CB: About why we allow the production of energy that is harming our lives and that of our children in visible and invisible ways, and seriously damaging the near and long-term health of our planet.

We should be thinking about how we can be more aware – and more responsible – as citizens of the wider world; and as protectors of the Nature that sustains us all. Become defenders of the purity of the natural resources like the oceans and skies we share: the world’s commons.

Everyone has a responsibility, a voice, and the ability to act.

Will we wait for another Chernobyl, maybe an even larger one, to get us to think and behave differently? Or will we take some initiative now.

It's time to realize that there's nothing safe or peaceful about nuclear.

CG: How can we be more enlightened, or helpful?

CB: Learn the truth. Also learn about groups like ours, and support some of them by volunteering or donating. The Nuclear-Free Future Awards directly supports individuals working for these essential goals with awards of money. You can also listen to the awardees in their own words on our site…or by coming to the September 30 (2010) event, or listening to the podcast.

Engage in conversations about these topics with your circles of friends and family and colleagues.

Take personal responsibility, and tell your elected officials this nuclear state of affairs that sacrifices so many innocent lives and precious parts of our natural world is unacceptable.

CG: What’s the greatest opportunity we have as a society?

CB: To wake up and work together in whatever small or larger ways we can to change course from our unwise ways of treating the earth to much wiser ways.

A message and spirit to take to heart is what the great Native American Chief Seattle said back in 1854 to President Franklin Pierce: The earth does not belong to man: man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood, which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

And John Mohawk Sotsisowah, the great Iroquois philosopher, who said in 1979: the war of the future will be between destroyers of nature and defenders of nature.

CG: Thanks so much Claus for all your thoughts and all your vital efforts.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and high-level interviewer, with a 25-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their stories. Choosing a Nuclear-Freer Future is the 21st in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Claus Biegert is a long time radio host, documentary filmmaker, author, and journalist in Germany since 1973. He co-leads the Nuclear-Free Future Awards (NFFA) www.nuclear-free.com An independent group founded in 1998, the NFFA works closely with The Alternative Nobel Prize among others, and has been called by Berlin newspaper Taz “the most important anti-nuke award in the world.” Each year’s laureates, from grass-roots activists to enlightened politicians, are nominated by a distinguished advisory board and selected by an international jury.

For more information about the September 30^th 2010 Nuclear-Free Future Award ceremony, at the Great Hall of Cooper Union; free to the public, email info@nuclear-free.com

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The Rise of the New Entrepreneurs

a conversation with rachel minard

about the age of meaning, proof and authenticity

CG: You see the world entering a new and important entrepreneurial age, different from what we experienced before.

RM: Yes. A classic definition of entrepreneur is someone with a new business idea willing to accept commercial risk for profit. And being entrepreneurial has been, to most of us, a cocktail of smart ideas, naïveté and fierce determination. Now it’s more akin to the definition of a hedge fund, which (misperceptions aside) is about “unconstrained active management.” About developing and challenging ideas holistically, and evaluating all the permutations of risk and reward.

Most of the entrepreneurs behind resilient businesses in the last few years started by envisioning the entire opportunity, then laying the groundwork, then taking all the pragmatic steps to realize it.

Their business objectives, while infused with passion and conviction, were based on much more: on hard realities: they studied the fortitude of the markets they were targeting, and all the impediments. Becoming famous or making a lot of money was just a possible luxury, and secondary. While seeing the path forward clearly, and having the resources and resourcefulness to travel down it was the necessity, and primary.

This defines an emerging new breed of entrepreneurs. Those looking holistically and presciently at the environment their ideas will germinate in. Making sure they are the right and most conducive environments. And, identifying and understanding the multitude and interplay of macroeconomic forces and external risks that might dilute or derail their vision or venture.

CG: So how do they create something that can be monetized and sustained?

RM: By doing a lot of research, to fully understand everything necessary to not just start but also fully sustain a business. By being acutely mindful about the operational, market, headline and investment risks. By seeing the entire landscape – and by not backing down or away from an idea and conviction that’s valid and well supported.

CG: What about the role entrepreneurs have played in building large enterprises, like Bill Gates did with Microsoft, or Steve Jobs did with Apple?

RM: Apple’s advertisement years ago forever changed the industry: Think Different. Steve Jobs made a difference in the world. He created a brand and product around the geeks, outliers, artists, creatives, knowing it was this group that would reshape the world. He made a thoughtful tool for them; which also made the world closer, and made personal computing technology more accessible and less intimidating for millions of people.

CG: Would we all be better served by smaller, nimbler, and truly entrepreneurial companies?

RM: Yes. Eventually, we won’t even need the giants. If you spend any time in San Francisco, you know about Alice Waters and her Edible Schoolyard,and her local cooking movement that gives people incentives to produce healthy organic food locally, to sustain those in the neighboring area. It works wonderfully.

But look at any high tech, high touch company. You’ll be hard pressed to find any that are massive. Quite the contrary. They have an intimacy big companies don’t. And a level of quality, passion, attention and adaptability, that few if any very large companies truly possess, let alone could sustain.

Still, we’re witnessing huge consolidation; many companies getting bigger, more powerful and less conquerable. There’s a widening divide between the boutique and the monolithic, the Davids and Goliaths, and it will be interesting to see if and what each learns from the other. I’d like to hear what your readers think about this.

CG: What’s behind the rise of these new entrepreneurs and new style of entrepreneuring?

RM: A deep desire for meaning and authenticity. After the crash of 2008, including the Madoff scandal, an authenticity movement of a kind emerged, a drive to re-find the authentic and meaningful in business. New-style entrepreneurs began in earnest here, and started showing how to achieve this and be honest, clear, transparent, accessible and good partners in the process.

CG: If you had to name the business age we’re entering right now, what would it be?

RM: The Age of Meaning, Proof and Authenticity. In the past, you could largely succeed on reputation, image, pedigree, even performance. That’s not enough any more. Now you have to prove substance and sustainability across the board. From having a clear business vision and a structure that can support and advance it, to creating true and needed value. You’re not selling pet rocks anymore; not selling concepts. You have to prove you have a meaningful solution, and show you can not only deliver it but also keep delivering it.

CG: Are these newly-emerging entrepreneurs going to become our heroes?

RM: They are, but in clusters not solo. Most of the great entrepreneurial stories of the past were about one person or one big idea. Going into the future they’ll be based on a lot of teamwork and a rich exchange of ideas. You see it at TED, and at hedge fund industry events. I see it there, and also as a board member of various organizations. It’s forming constellations of ideas and talent with common goals. Why? Because it’s too costly to go it alone in this market. And because there’s no capital to back a great idea unless the monetization of the idea is established and vetted, and factor modeling maps out exactly what’s achievable.

CG: So it’s not the solo achievers to look to for inspiration, but groups of collaborators?

RM: Yes. Farewell to the narcissism of the nineties and early part of 2000. These entrepreneurial clusters, this actively collaborative model of entrepreneuring, are forming in many areas, from biotechnology to global warming. Niche talent is coming together in highly-focused groups, sharing thinking and resources and creating extremely meaningful and sustainable long-term businesses. Of course, there are still individual thought leaders and visionaries out there, but delivering on a big promise now involves much more than “two geeks and a Gateway” with a great idea.

CG: How do those of us who want to work as or with these kinds of collaborators succeed?

RM: You need an incredibly clear and meaningful vision. You need to figure out how to realize it sustainably (including who best to join hands with). And you need to be authentic: you cannot succeed without being genuine, regardless of the worth of your idea or the image of your brand.

CG: Is the business world becoming more thoughtful now? What about our financial bubbles and excesses? Paul Hawken says “At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product…We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation.”

RM: 2009 taught us a great deal. Some call it the last 20 Years of a Ponzi Economy, when we lived off credit – which we did. Well that party is over, and the bills have to be paid – though no one has the cash to pay them. We have to be far more thoughtful now.

Fortunately, our new entrepreneurs are going to lead the way with original thought and passion combined with wiser approaches to constructing and running businesses. They will change the landscape. They’re beginning to already.

CG: I’d like to expand your point here, about building and running businesses in wiser ways. To include being more authentic and meaningful (on and below the surface) in the stories we as enlightened or evolved entrepreneurs shape and tell the world about our businesses. A subject I often write and talk about, and work with companies of all kinds to seek and achieve in their marketing and communications.

CG: And speaking of communication, how is it changing in this new Age of Meaning?

RM: We communicate now as a society more than ever before. This revolution has enabled more people to express themselves; articulate their ideas; and connect with each other more easily and widely. But the key is managing and making sense of all these communications, and prioritizing them, in order to solve problems well and efficiently…and to build business relationships that have real meaning and purpose.

CG: What about finding time and space for reflection?

RM: I know some companies that encourage daydreaming. Including Google, 3M and Gore-Tex. There’s no question: we must make room for original, meaningful thinking in our work and personal lives.

We also need to find opportunities to connect with like-minded people, and really talk. It’s the fundamental way we gain insights, and arrive at creative solutions to problems and opportunities.

CG: Where do you see examples of this in action?

RM: More than anywhere, I’d say in the movies. Influential ones like The Road or The Hurt Locker or Jane Campion’s Bright Star. They all have to do with some form of hope; with coming together to solve some universal need or problem. They also have lead characters with deep authenticity.

When you step back, you see that what worked for the last 20 years in business doesn’t work now. Sales for example is no longer about selling but about empathy and educating, engagement and partnering. The old approaches have given way to new starting points for discussion, for truthful, useful discussion and exploration.

CG: Thank you, Rachel.

Colin Goedecke is a strategic story developer and high-level interviewer, with a 24-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their marketing stories. The Rise of the New Entrepreneurs is the 20th in a series of thought pieces to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Rachel S.L. Minard is a Partner and Managing Director of Optima Fund Management, and an active industry orchestrator and thought leader. She has been building and raising assets globally for hedge fund-of-funds firms for the past 18 years, and is based in San Francisco. www.optima.com

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What Makes a Compelling Story?

A short video interview with Colin Goedecke
by San Francisco brand strategist Russell Volckmann

About this video:

"How does a brand or business tell a story, and tell one that really matters—one that people relate to and find compelling. What's essential— yet often missing — from many communications? Brand strategist Russell Volckmann of Volckmann and Friends interviews long-time strategic story developer Colin Goedecke on shaping meaningful stories for leading and emerging businesses."

Click on either link to see some or all of the 6-minute interview...

http://vimeo.com/7719983

or

www.youtube.com/volckmannfriends

Colin Goedecke is strategic story developer for leading and emerging businesses. What Makes a Compelling Story is the 19th in a series of thought pieces, to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Russell Volckmann, principal of San Francisco-based Volckmann and Friends, is an award-winning brand strategist, designer and creative director; who has worked with a range of companies in Asia, Europe and the US, including LÓreal Japan, Ziff-Davis, HP, Geffen Records, Pink Floyd, E*Trade, Landor and Bank of America. www.volckmann.com

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Our Most Valuable Assets Are On the Line

An urgent conversation about the state of our health and the disappearance of our GPs  with doctor daniel carlin


CG: We tend to think about our most valuable asset as our investments, our homes, our jobs, but there are far more valuable ones, one we don’t pay enough attention to let alone actively manage and appreciate…until there’s a problem.

DC: Yes, one is our personal health, our physical well being. The other, related one is the vital yet vanishing role and number of our country's primary care doctors.

I work as a medical consultant with some of the world’s wealthiest people. Individuals and families of all kinds, including senior executives. Many of them take smart, active and holistic approaches to managing their financial risks and assets, yet put little priority on their health and health risks.

Surprisingly, they fail to see their own health as a priceless asset, as a key variable in their enjoyment of life. They rarely give it the profound attention it deserves. They’re also challenged – as many of us are – in finding doctors who can help them tend to their health, prevent problems and facilitate decisions. Doctors who’ll talk candidly with them; caringly, and at length.

Of course without good health all other wealth is meaningless. It’s true on a personal level, and it’s true on a national level, meaning the health of our population as a whole.

CG: Is this what led you to a more enlightened approach?

DC: I got into the niche of 24/7 personal doctoring and started World Clinic because the system was becoming so impersonal; revolving so regressively around procedures and images.

I went completely outside the system; straight to very intelligent and enlightened people and said: you’re an expert on managing your financial assets. I’m an expert on managing physical health. The return on investing in someone like me directly will be greater well being and peace of mind…and likely greater longevity. What’s the value to you of more well being and time for your philanthropic work, family and friends, joys and passions?

A vital part of what I do as their medical advisor and point person is think. I serve as a seasoned guide, quality judge and risk “manager” for whatever’s going on with their health; for any care they’re seeking or receiving from the system.

On the most fundamental level, I help bring their awareness and attention to their greatest source of wealth: their physical well-being.

CG: You’ve said “locus of control” is a central concept, that impacts pharmaceutical marketing and helps or hinders our personal care.

DC: Yes, and this means who’s making the decisions: who has the control, you or your doctor. This affects everything. Including how drugs are currently marketed by companies, which is psychographically. From Viagra and Ambien, where marketing messages are direct-to-consumer and all about you being in control, to blood pressure medication where, because of the complexity of the condition, they’re all about your doctor calling the shots (which assumes you have a good doctor to make the right choices for you).

There’s also a strong generational dynamic at work. We have Baby Boomers who feel they’re in charge of their health decisions, and seniors who feel their doctors are or should be in charge.

My first question to a hedge fund owner or rock-and-roll entertainer client is: why did you hire me? My second question is: tell me who’s in charge of your health? I’m absolutely amazed at the answers. Many masters of the universe don’t have a sense of their own mortality: they believe they’re invincible.

Most of us need to do some emotional homework. How do you feel about your health? How invested in well-being are you? Are you empowered, and making confident choices – or do you automatically defer to your physician?

CG: Don’t most physicians help people make decisions?

DC: Sadly not really, because modern medicine is now governed by an almost pervasive fear of litigation. Physicians are reluctant to provide anything beyond basic, objective facts that can be supported in a courtroom. They’re rarely if ever willing to say to a patient is if this was me, this is what I would do…

In the specialist-driven world we live in today, we’ve lost the country and town doctor: the family doctor who knew and looked at your big picture. Who had the luxury of a real and honest relationship. Instead we have a predominance of specialists who look at and diagnose and treat you narrowly, without this vital view: without these wider, wiser insights and personal connections.

CG: How and when did we get into this worrisome situation?

DC: Going back to about 1965, the world of medicine was made up of mostly primary care doctors and general surgeons. When science started unlocking the ‘big secrets’ of the human body, the age of specialization began. As a result, internists started becoming obsolete and replaced by field-specific specialists, from cardiologists to neurologists. Advances in technology led to specialist surgeons doing only one, extremely specific kind of surgery.

More and more money started going toward procedures and less and less to office visits. The healthcare system has since favored and now richly rewards the procedurists and technologists; who rarely if ever talk to patients. All of this at the expense of the essential yet much lower paid general practitioners who do the heavy lifting with patients: who spend the time to consult with them, interpret their histories, and point them in helpful directions.

To me, there’s something very wrong with this picture.

CG: What’s happening as primary care doctors disappear, as they throw in the towel?

DC: Their essential value has become more obvious. There’ll be fewer of them to keep us on the right and best path to wellness, diagnose serious illness, be fairly immediate resources to call on with questions, knowledgeable people to tell our story to. And fewer of them out there to listen and care about us.

Technologists and procedurists don’t, can’t play this role. And none of them are engaged or invested in long-term relationships with patients. That’s the nature of the system we have. Specialists even talk about patients as organs or diseases, not as people, which says a lot. I’ve been a doctor for over 25 years, and talk about all of mine by name. I know and relate to their personal stories, to their larger life situations.

Another root problem is how we pay doctors on the basis of 7-minute primary care visits. By the time they say hello, how are you, have a chat, most of that time has elapsed. So there’s no time left for them to think properly. Or, they might quickly scan your information, say here’s the story and see you in six weeks or six months. You the patient are sent out the door unclear or unhappy or both. Even for me, a doctor inside the system, dealing with my own health issues, even I encounter this.

CG: What should we all be asking?

DC: Is there a doctor in the house, a doctor out there who truly cares about me?

CG: What’s our greater social responsibility?

DC: We need to support paying doctors properly, to do the critical thinking that gives a clear and meaningful context for patients and their medical issues. Likewise, give doctors enough time to connect with their patients in order to help them preventively, proactively. All this would go a long way to stopping or slowing the endless, wasteful merry-go-round of consult/image/lab-test/procedure, where too few are doing this thinking for too little money while too many down the line are getting richly and overly paid to do a slice of disembodied informational work.

At the same time, we have to stop compromising our personal health with poor behavior, behavior we flat out know is unhealthy.

CG: How do we keep physically healthy, individually and as a population?

DC: There’s the fledgling concierge model, where you pay a small retainer so your provider can make a decent living. In return they care for and about you. You might pay $80 a month for a doctor like this. Well I’d take that deal, it’s a good one; especially when you look at how many of us pay $1,000+ a month for health insurance with large deductibles.

Staying healthier personally? It’s not rocket science. There are basics: your weight, your blood pressure – and your general attitude of happiness and contentment with life – which I believe is the most important component of our well being. If you’re very heavy, or your pressure isn’t well managed, or you’re depressed, it’s straightforward: you’re not healthy.

Staying healthier as a country? Imagine if we had an earthquake every year that cost the U.S. 17% of its GNP. Wouldn’t we be spending money on preventing earthquakes? And moving people out of earthquake zones? Of course. Yet we have a similar situation: collectively epic medical earthquakes, from heart disease and lung cancer to stroke, most of them self-inflicted. These “man-made” disasters cost our country a massive amount of national resources year after year after year. Yet there’s no seriously productive spending on preventing them or on changing people’s unhealthy behaviors.

CG: How does consciousness change in desired directions?

DC: The national consciousness is starting to change. At the end of the day, though, money and political interest will shape the outcome.

What we need to raise first is our own consciousness. To realize there’s no healthcare coming to save our bacon. Most facilities across the country are overburdened, and are hard pressed to deliver a high caliber of care to everyone. We must also be acutely aware that good general and family practitioners, internists and pediatricians are an endangered species, a vanishing species.

Here are three rules of personal responsibility to live by:

Rule one. Make a commitment to wellness, and avoid getting sick if you can help it.

Rule two. Find a way to acknowledge your doctor for caring. Don’t take it for granted. They made a decision to care on a professional basis with no expectation of reward. So be the thoughtful, appreciative kind of person they look forward to seeing and helping.

Rule three. Vote, make your voice heard, be part of the political process, to save the good primary care doctors from becoming extinct or demoralized. It’s in your best interest.

CG: What kind of primary care doctors should all of us look for?

DC: GPs who are profoundly competent, understand the human condition, and can connect clearly and quickly with you as a patient. An individual who’s emotionally-wired and committed to care, and will go the extra mile as the rule not the exception.

Though diminishing in number, GPs like this do exist.

CG: What do you see as our biggest opportunity?

DC: Making patients an active, central part of their healthcare experiences. The key variable is not the doctor and not the medication or the test, it’s you, the patient. Each one of us needs to be actively involved with our well being. To be taking charge. To be wisely managing our greatest asset, our health – and getting a good, caring, committed physician to manage and enhance it with us.

CG: Dan, many thanks.


Colin Goedecke is a senior marketing writer, messaging strategist and interviewer, with a 23-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their stories. Our Most Valuable Asset is On the Line is the 18th in a series of thought pieces, to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Daniel Carlin is a 25-year-long physician, clinician and thought leader in medical change. He’s a former US Naval officer, and founder and CEO of World Clinic, www.worldclinic.com, a unique, global, 24/7 medical and telemedical practice serving a select group of senior executives and wealthy individuals and families.



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The Importance of Silence

a conversation about why we need silence with stephen chinlund


CG: Why do we need silence?

SC: We need it for our well-being; for slowing down, for understanding what life is about, for being happy in the world as we encounter it; to tune in to what’s happening inside our own bodies – which we hardly pay attention to; for being creative; for savoring important moments; for being thankful for the people in our lives…and much else.

CG: So part of silence involves pausing.

SC: Yes. Silence is an antidote for our speeding.

CG: A remedy, for our state of overdrive or perpetual motion, which is an occupational hazard for many of us; especially in 24/7 cities like New York.

How or when can silence be most meaningful, Steve?

SC: Wanting it is the thing. If you truly want it, you’ll find it and make regular places for it. If you haven’t experienced silence before, it’s a bit of a Catch-22. Because you have to allow time for it first, in order to discover and appreciate how incredibly meaningful it is.

Being afraid of or bored by silence prevents a lot of people from trying it. They actively avoid it. And getting past this anxiety – which is often a fear of having uncomfortable thoughts or memories rush into that “empty” space – or getting past the expectation of boredom, can seem like a big step to take, sometimes too big.

CG: Hence the tendency to fill up the silences with activities, busy-ness, or the sound of our own voices. Which doesn’t allow room for other, very important experiences to enter.

SC: Yes, because when you’re truly silent, and taking the time to be quiet, whether it’s for a half-hour or a whole morning…or even a whole day, vital new things come. They don’t always come in the first five minutes. It takes time for them to arrive, and unfold. But they come.

Whole libraries have been written about silence, including books by the German philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart, the mystic-poet Angelus Silesius (The Cherubinic Wanderer), Francois Fenelon, the main advocate of “quietism” in the late 1600s, Thomas Merton and others.

CG: I’m sure we’d all be wise to develop our “third ears,” to hear what’s being said not just in the lines of conversations but also in the silent spaces between them, where there’s a great deal happening; where what’s unsaid is equally important to understand. I’d extend this to marketers, who could better relate to the people who buy their products and services by adding or using a well-tuned third ear.

SC: The Quakers listened in the silences, and to what was underneath what was being said. They were also a canny bunch of businessmen, and even used the power of silence in the boardroom, when they were running companies; especially when things got contentious. It worked well for them, their disciplines of silence and consensus.

There’s also a new book out by the novelist Anne LeClaire called Listening Below the Noise: a Meditation on the Practice of Silence. It’s about the promise she made herself to be completely silent all day, every other Monday. Out of this commitment, she discovered many new and wonderful things about her life and potential.

CG: Let’s come back to this key issue of commitment, to not just wanting silence but also dedicating ourselves to it, for however long or short a period of time we choose.

SC: If we’re really committed to being inside it, we’re able to drift into less active and non-verbal ways of thinking, feeling and being. To let go of all the stuff floating around in our heads. Then it becomes very exciting.

This happens for me when I paint: magic happens, once I move past all the “frontal” thinking and enter into whatever I’m painting; enter into a noiseless flow. When I engage the silence this way is when I create the most satisfying things. It’s an experience second only to sex. Blissful.

CG: How would you describe a clear state of silence as a room or landscape? What would it be like?

SC: A place full of life, of sunny and dark places, flowers and caves, pleasant and unpleasant aromas; things beautiful and strange; a place that’s endlessly rich. An intimate place you enter into; merge with.

CG: How do we set the stage for this?

SC: I’d encourage each person to do it their own way. You might go to a Quaker meeting, which has a special kind of power. Or into a church – a cathedral of silence. You might draw or paint, and make a commitment to be silent when doing this. Give yourself the luxury to sit somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, and promise yourself you won’t say anything for an hour or two, and see what happens. Go wherever it’s quiet and congenial for you.

And if you find yourself wavering, don’t get sidetracked or give up too quickly from exploring silence.

CG: Slowness and silence for all of us, and time for these, aren’t luxuries, but necessities; enriching and revitalizing.

SC: All kinds of people in this wonderful town [New York] that I adore feel if they had two or three times as many hours of the day it wouldn’t be enough to keep up with all that’s happening personally and professionally. This isn’t the answer.

CG: If we don’t incorporate silence into our lives, as a way to connect with our interior landscape, do we risk living incompletely, too much on the outside of things, outside of ourselves? A theme Robert Sardello focuses on in his book Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness, and a fount of healing for Carl Jung.

SC: The fact we spend so little time in silence, inside the quiet of our beings, and don’t even expect to spend any time, is a terrible deprivation. It’s like being malnourished or unloved.

There are cultures, especially in Asia and Muslim countries, that are far more comfortable with silence than our American one. Even in Europe you sit back after a long lunch not having to talk, and you quietly savor the experience.

Zen Buddhists are great models, partly because they’ve carried the thinking about it to an almost baroque level: Zen and the art of archery, of painting, tennis, even motorcycle repair. The root is silence.

CG: It’s also fundamental to achieving mastery, creative silence; and going back to what you said at the start, to achieving a deep state of well-being. Most of us might be surprised to find out just how deeply we can go, what do you think?

SC: Definitely. I guarantee that if you promise yourself to be silent for just five minutes each day, each week, and honor that quiet time – silence without distraction – you’ll have a deepening experience. It yields all kinds of welcome surprises, from peacefulness to creativity.

Silence is also necessary for reflection, and for pondering important questions and issues.

CG: In our virtual and digital and social networking age, where it’s about action, interaction and transactions, how is silence let alone meaningful silence possible?

SC: A good question. When two people are together physically having a conversation, there can be a shared silence, whereas in virtual conversations people feel insulted, confused, upset if there’s silence.

I think noise and speed and chatter and twittering are substitutes for vital interior explorations, internal explorations we need to engage in.

I have a character in one of my plays who says when I was a kid summer lasted forever, then I started to grow up, got married and had kids, now suddenly I’m an old man. Part of this speech reflects the absolute pell mell character of many lives, that are lacking in deeply quiet introspective time.

CG: What’s the most important aspect of silence we should be contemplating right now?

SC: That there are treasures inside us, wonderful treasures, that no other person can tell us about; that we can only discover in and through silence.

If we can get ourselves past any anxiety or boredom, and just let the silence be there; let ourselves be in it, then that remarkable hidden room, that rich hidden landscape each one of us has within will be revealed to us.

CG: Steve, thank you.


Colin Goedecke is a senior marketing writer, messaging strategist and interviewer, with a 23-year history helping leading and emerging companies worldwide platform and tell their stories. The Importance of Silence is the 17th in a series of thought pieces, to help us think, act and communicate in wiser ways. Others can be found at www.tenowls.blogspot.com

Stephen Chinlund is a painter, playwright, minister (and Harvard man, class of ‘55). He’s a former Executive Director of Episcopal Social Services, Rector of Southport Connecticut’s Trinity Parish, and Chairman of the NY State Department of Correction, among other dedicated positions in his abundant and still unfolding 40-year career. www.chinlund.com



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