Archive for the ‘Positive Deviants’ Category

Crisis? What crisis?

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

As a student of history (and I mean a home grown student, not a graduate of any school of history), it occurs to me that there have been many times in the history of Universe, and specifically in the history of human kind in Universe, when we have been faced with unprecedented crises that portended the end of life as we know it.

Currently we have the impending event of 2012.  Whatever this date holds, it correlates with  the other major issues such as the  converging crises of the economy, the environment and peak oil.

Yet I wonder what it felt like in 1941/42/43/44 for millions of people around the world? Did this not seem like the end of the world? Son’s and daughters dying in strange places, the threat of take over of nations by Germans or Japanese, (not to mention how life was experienced by the Japanese and Germans) rationing, bombing, fear 24/7. I cannot imagine it, but I could imagine that it was very scary.

Then the cold war, and the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Children trained at schools to ‘duck for cover!’

We can wind back the clock to many points in history and find apocalyptic events. How would life have been when the black plague was killing millions? Or when the inquisition was in full assault? Some estimate up to 6 million women and girls were killed over a period of history for being witches! (using intuition, herbs to heal, regular women’s stuff.. etc)

I am not saying we are in unprecedented times. Each crisis is unique. However, it seems to me that in each critical period there is an egoic response that owns the crisis as being the very biggest, most serious of all of histories crises.

If we truly believe we live in an evolving, emergent Universe, then expecting and experiencing change is the norm. The difference with our current era is that for the first time we are becoming conscious of our consciousness.

This is a good thing, a healthy next step. It offers more hope than ever before, not more fear.

If I were God, and if the role of Universe was to determine if humans could evolve to a level where there was 100 percent success for all in eternally regenerative Universe, then I would probably create a confluence of such events that demanded that we transcend our “I”, our individual survival oriented small egoic self, and discover that the only way we can actually rise above the potential impending disasters, is to collaborate.

Therefore I look upon this era as an exciting time. Pandora’s box has been open for a long time now. The contagion and pestilence has been running riot for thousands of years. And the whisper of hope is calling from the depths, stronger than ever before because it now brings with it consciousness.

Enough talk about the crisis in this and that. This is fear talking. And the perpetuation of fear. We do not need any more fear, unless it serves to motivate you.

Yes we have work to do. Its good work. It learning from our mistakes and building new models that render the old obsolete. Let’s focus on the opportunity and creativity that this time brings. It asks the best from us. We all have something to contribute that is of value at this time, whether it is raising healthy, resilient children, or finding a cure for malaria.

Instead of getting sucked into the noise of fear and impending doom, let us roll up our sleeves and get to work on creating the kind of systems, structures, tools, businesses, communities, families and relationships that support the whole.

And when we are done, and have grown lazy and complacent again, as sure as the sun rises, there will be another crisis. Hallelujah. Its called evolution!

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Take Your Time – Challenging the way we see

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Beauty

On my last trip to Sydney I was given a gift of experience. One of my teachers often said that great gifts come in small brown paper packages. This was one of those small brown package gifts. Meeting up with the awesome Gavin Blake, Graphic Facilitator extraordinaire, he invited me to go to the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art , and the exhibition of the Olafur Eliasson. (Surely a Positive Deviant)
The world of contemporary art has never been my thing. I like certain art, but I have never grocked contemporary. Give me a Manet, or Renoir. I am a BIG fan of photography. But a huge picture of red paint with a small blue dot placed somewhere has escaped my Virgoan  sensibilities.

I am learning to say yes to more in life, and be open to seeing the world through the eyes of others, suspending my own view completely, if I am able. “If I am able” is the challenge. Can we jettison our own view and take the view of the other? This is what I ask the people I work with to do every day, so teacher, get to work and do the same. (As in, I better walk my talk!)

If I had of wandered, on the off chance, into this exhibition on my own, it would have taken me all of 5 minutes to view and I would have walked out in some form of disgust. Art! That is not art!.

Thank God for Gavin’s eyes, and his leadership and guidance.

As a die hard Buckyphil, I was delighted with some of the very impressive structures, but walking into a blank room bathed in yellow light and nothing else, well, I was feeling conned. Then Gavin so delightfully said, “Great art cause you to ask…what the F??”

Yep, he was reading my mind.

He kept talking me through each room, challenging my thinking, my reactions, my experience. Inadvertently, almost against my better judgement, my rigid Virgoan mind started to crack open, even just a bit.

Then I found myself asking a question that is quite a central question to my passion and curiosity. “What was the intention behind the artist? What was he hoping would happen to the viewer?” “What message, or story, or experience was he seeking to convey?” If any?

I became fascinated by his process. (You can’t take the Virgoan analysis out, even if you do crack open the mind.)

At some point I surrendered that, and just allowed myself to be with the experience. The last two rooms, like a great piece of music, reached a critical crescendo. The final room, entered through a dark brick lined corridor, was breathtaking. Titled ‘Beauty’ a blackened soundproof room with high ceilings had one single fine mist fountain falling from the ceiling with a spotlight directed through it. The rainbow mist changed in appearance with every different position taken in the room, and the sound of the water, very soft, almost inaudible, added to the beauty of the experience. It was Beauty.

As I learned a few months ago working with Remco the photographer on my new site photo’s, we can be looking at exactly the same view and seeing something completely different. I find that fascinating, don’t you? He was looking at a scene and seeing the light and colours through an experienced photographers eyes. I was looking at it through my  all too quick scan eyes. I mean, how perfect is life that no two people look at anything with the same eyes? Sure, it means we have to work harder on being clear with our communication and message delivery, but what an incredible world that we can sit for hours watching a panorama and challenging ourselves each moment to see it with new eyes.

I am not sure I will become a raving fan of contemporary art. However, I am up for the experience of it opening me to new ways of seeing. I am willing to take the plunge into this brave new world. I am certainly willing to challenge my own view, and to have it be challenged. Thanks Gavin.

By the way, the exhibition was titled, “Take Your Time”

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Living in the Mystery

Friday, November 20th, 2009

footprintsonsand

All my life I have been motivated by curiosity. If I do not understand a word, I look up the meaning straight away on Dictionary.com. Google is my best friend, as is Wikipedia. I love love love that we have the internet and that answers to my questions are at my finger tips.

Of course some answers are not so easy to find. Like “Why am I here?” “What is the meaning of life?” Specifically, what is the meaning of my life?” And..”What exactly, is the point, anyway?”

While I have never got sucked into the vortex of these questions and fallen, like Alice, down the rabbit hole, into a dark and twisted existential crisis, lost in the impossibility of the answers, I have held these questions as a kind of beacon, their light shining just ahead, pulling me forward to continue my own inner journey, and in the process finding answers that bring peace, if not certainty. Sure, there have been days where it has seemed pointless. But these days for me have been rare. Mostly, I am in love with the mystery of it all. And in awe.

I am not sure why I respond to life in this way. In love with the mystery. Maybe it is because I am an adventurer at heart, and the inner adventure is as much fun, for the most part, as the one in the outside world. My curiosity pulls me. “Why did I just agree to do that?” “Wow, that was an interesting response Christine. What’s going on with you girl?” I find myself observing myself with fascination. And my quick little mind is happy at work, analyzing, finding meaning, making sense of.

Of course there are some things that simply do not make sense at all. Like why, exactly, are we so attracted to THAT particular person? Or why this happened? Or that?

And here in lies the beauty of life. Are we able to stand living in the mystery? Can our rational mind be allowed to relinquish control about some things, and not have all the answers available, lined up in neat little rows? For many people, this mystery unravels them. Their need to have a rational explanation, to be in control of their world, is so great, that the burden of not knowing truly sucks them into a dark rabbit hole. The impossibility of finding a rational answer to the questions pecking at them becomes so unsustainable, yet like an addict, they keep asking, lost, lost in their need.

Living in the mystery allows for the adventure to continue. If we have been everywhere, and experienced everything, why have an adventure? If we know all the answers, and have no more questions, what happens then? Does life stop? I think not. I think that that is the point. First, that the beauty of the ever unfolding mystery of life is the main adventure, and our not knowing is the pull, like the eternal seeking for that one lover who really does complete you. And that when we reach a place of inner knowing, when our questions stop because we have found the source of truth, that doesn’t mean the adventure stops. It means that the adventure now is all about observing how this allows life to unfold around us. Rather like going to an fabulous movie and being swept up in the story. (As I haven’t reached that place I can only conjecture.)

The tragedy is when people loose their love of the mystery. For whatever reason, life wears them down, and their inner fatigue and exhaustion is so overwhelming that they loose all interest in living in the mystery. They become buried in resignation and hopelessness. Many times we have confused clinical depression with a spiritual crisis. A spiritual crisis demands that we go inside and do the work. A spiritual crisis is usually brought on by the loss of something that makes no sense. It could be the loss of a loved one, or a job, or something a little more subtle, like the loss of our sense of self. Whatever the trigger, the demand and requirement is for us to go inside and sit with some of the questions that define us, and to preferably do this inner work with the support of someone skilled in staying with you as you loose your rational mind to be reunited with the mysterious. An Amchara coach for example. Someone how knows the nuances of the terrain on the inside, the need for silence, the need to be in nature, then need to rediscover beauty. Who has the ability to ask the gentle and hard questions birthed in infinite compassion, all the while responding to the unfolding unraveling aware of the majesty of kairos time.

What I have learned in my own inner journey are the essentials to pack as we embark, or continue on our adventure.

*A curious mind.
*The willingness to not know and surrender to the not knowing.
*A exquisite love of beauty, be it art, or music, poetry or nature. These things transcend the rational. Art, music, poetry capture what we are not able to capture in words. Sitting in nature and really looking at its incredible complexity and infinite beauty takes us out from our small mind games.
*The support of an amchara or two, or a teacher or guide.
*A daily practice that keeps us grounded, earthed, embodied.
*An open heart.
*Courage
*A good sense of humor. Learn to laugh at yourself and the shear paradox of it all.

In 1995 I held my own weekend retreat, attended by myself and an extensive list of questions. At the end of that journey of inner contemplation, I wrote my personal mission statement, which I very slightly amended in 2002.

Here it is. It doesn’t speak of who I am as much as the place I hold for myself. Sometimes I do not get it right. No matter. I come back and start again. This is my inner guide. More than anything, this mission statement reminds me of the beauty of living in the mystery.

MISSION STATEMENT
CHRISTINE MCDOUGALL
3-1-95, amended Jan 2002
To live my truth at all times, allowing my spirit to shine forth graciously and inspire others to acknowledge their own magnificence.
To be humble and open, in surrender to God’s grace.
To trust in the Divine Energy.
To love comprehensively.
To respect and honour the physical Universe and my own physicality.
To be, joyously, all that I am.
To laugh often, and share my joy abundantly.
To be a willing and gracious disciple of life’s lessons.
To openly receive the abundance of the Universe, to give gratefully.
To be a wise steward to all the wealth that comes to me.
To be Bold.
To embrace life’s adventure.
To be a loving and present mother, an intimate and committed lover, a compassionate and available friend, an honourable and loving daughter, a courageous inspirational leader, a responsible citizen of our glorious Earth.
To acknowledge the source of my creative intelligence and my responsibility for all that exists in my Universe.
To embody the essence of integrity and inspire integrity in others.
To be my truth, my spirit, my love…..
Unbounded
Timeless
Eternal

I would love to hear from you about how you live in the mystery….

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Creative Integrity

Friday, September 25th, 2009

bottlenosedolphins

The future will require creative integrity from those of us who aspire to move ever more towards comprehensive consideration of the natural design of Universe.

We are in between worlds. The death of the old and the birth if the new. In this place of great change and upheaval, there also exists the crucible of creativity.
Positive Deviants know this is occurring. They can feel it. They are perfectly primed to handle the cross currents, and to hold their nerve during the maelstrom. They know they must access their own creative integrity in ways they have not accessed before.

One of the models that is being uprooted and turned on its head is the model of value, and of how value is measured. Many people have written about this, from Hazel Henderson and Rianne Eisler, to Bernard Lietaer, James Qulligan and David Martin.

Our old model of value is the accumulation of surplus of money, stocks, real estate and stuff. For a great video clip on the story of stuff, follow this link.

In the new world we have the opportunity to value different things. Like the Kingdom of Bhutan, we might find ourselves with a happiness index, or a health index. (If the USA had a performance indicator on health, their score today would be pretty dismal.)

Just imagine if we did put front of mind the measures of such values as..

happiness
health
families and community
quality education for all
quality nutrition for all
clean air
clean oceans…..

And if we counted in our productivity such things as the work of mothers to care for children and keep house, the work of volunteers to contribute to community, the care of land, animals…

… and if we considered school teachers and carers of human beings as being one of the most valued members of our society instead of the lowest paid?

How different would we be in a world that values things that we all know, when we get down to it, matters more than anything?

A big bank account full of cash cannot save anyone from the terminal disease they have…they might be able to pay for the best treatment, but they cannot pay for the terminal disease to go away, and at this point most people would give all their cash, all their stuff… for health. Its value is only ever considered, tragically, by most people when they are on the edge of the abyss and it is too, too late.

The question that is causing many Positive Deviants I know stress right now as we move from the old world of value to the new world of value…is how do we manage to bridge both worlds? The old world requires we earn a living. Yet the work of the new world doesn’t always pay, or if it does, the pay is low. This is where we need creative integrity.

I go to my mentor Bucky Fuller who demonstrated creative integrity. He did this using an extreme example. He literally decided that if he committed his life to only doing what was spontaneously arousable within him, for the highest good for the highest number of people, and if he did this with impeccable creative integrity, by not working for money as the prime motivator, not marketing himself, or selling his soul, then precessionally the Universe would take care of him. That in nature, bee’s don’t have to earn a living, they simply get on with the task of doing bee things, and in the process, nature cares for them. (Most of the time, and if human beings don’t interfere!) I wrote about this example of creative integrity in the introduction to my personal blog, Guinea Pig C. Bucky had exquisite trust that his experiment would work and that if he did this, nature would provide. And it did. Often only ever in the nick of time. He would emerge through emergency. Nature always operated in the most efficient manner, he would say, and hence, would provide, only in the nick if of time.

This model of creative integrity is not for the faint hearted. In order for you to be able to stay breathing and moving you need to trust and stay in your own highest integrity within this model. I suspect it is the model Mother Theresa worked by.

In my own journey with working with creative integrity, I have learned so very much. It has not been an easy path. It has certainly been the path less traveled. Considering in my 20’s I was hanging out with Robert Kiyosaki, of “Rich Dad” fame, who incidentally, was the one who introduced me to the work of Bucky, for which I will be forever grateful. I have no doubt that Bucky is as humoured by the mysterious  precession of me working with Robert to pursue wealth, only to be diverted to the pursuit of creative integrity and to be one of those people who have to learn to travel this road to support the navigation of others who will be, or are now, traveling along it.

To date, this is what I have learned about creative integrity as a model for a life’s work;

* I no longer want stuff. Stuff just needs managing, and I do not want to spend my time either managing stuff, or managing people to manage my stuff.


*That when I truly follow my intuitive guidance, and trust, I live with miracles daily.


*I have learned how to surrender. I still have to work on this one, as sometimes fear gets to me and I contract, which means I shut out the flow and connection with the source of all creation.


*I really appreciate true value. When someone does work of quality, no matter what it is..from cleaning toilets to serving me in a cafe, I am grateful. Work done with great love and care blesses me and the world.


*I feel a sense of gratitude almost all day long. For the sun on my face, the wind in my hair, the birds singing, my wonderful clients, my partners in business, my family, my health, the path I have taken, the path set for me…there is no part of my life that I do not feel gratitude for…even the bits I am still working on changing, or the places where I still feel pain and constriction.


*I have learned about money, the global economy, the global casino, the illusion of wealth, the deception, lies and ignorance….


*I have moved from paralysis to creativity. I have a deep sense that people who have creative resilience in the way they emerge through emergency will be the people in the future that others look towards for support and leadership.


*I have learned that I would rather play the game of service and giving value than any other game in town.


*I have learned that getting comes from giving. And that the more I give, with gratitude and joy, in acknowledgment of infinite abundance, the more I receive. Not necessarily as money, but certainly as joy, love, adventure, happiness and relationships with incredible people.


*I have learned to give-and that giving is not defined by the form–giving can be our love, our kindness, our care, our compassion, our energy, our gratitude, our smile, our laughter, our warmth, our excess stuff….and that I have so very much to give every day, and that when I give with joy and knowing my source is limitless, the Universe gives back in multitudes.
That even if I do not have much stuff, I have so much to give and in the giving is joy unlimited.

I have a deep intuitive sense that in the near future people are going to walk the path Bucky laid down, and do work for the value of the work, rather than to work for money. Many have already set upon this path. People are learning, like me, to make this path provide for them in the most elegant of ways. People like Chris Guillebeau, Jonathan Fields and Brian Johnson.

The path of creative integrity doesn’t mean “poverty” in the measure of the old world. It may not mean you have lots and lots of stuff. But I am leaning that the truer you stay to this path, the more real wealth you have.

And yes…. the more you are able to live in creative integrity with the Universe, from moment to moment… It is a journey I would not trade for all the stuff in the world.

Please share with me your own experience of creative integrity…

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Leadership Alchemy

Friday, September 11th, 2009

iceberg_6

Alchemy= “A science (no longer practiced) that sought to transform one chemical element into another through a combination of magic and primitive chemistry. Alchemy is considered to be the ancestor of modern chemistry.” The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy

The wonderful books I have been reading of late, such as Joshua Cooper Ramo’s “The Age of the Unthinkable” and anything by Nassim Nicholas Taleb “Black Swan” and “Fooled by Randomness” speak of the unpredictable world we live in.

While the world has always been unpredictable, my sense is that it feels like it is getting more so by nature of our ever increasing complexity, and the accelerated acceleration we are undergoing, plus the alarming stress we humans have placed on our environment.

These authors and others, plus my observation of the nature of humanity has affirmed for me that in our times, the solutions to our current problems will not come from the obvious places. They will not come from our elected leaders, or our government, nor from the corporations and industries that have been around for a while. We need to give up any expectations of these people and organisations to move us forward significantly.

It will not work to take the best of the scientists, the theoreticians, the politicians. They have had plenty of time and their solutions are like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Same order thinking producing same order results with some minor tweaking.

We need to add to this mix of the usual suspects the fringe dwellers and positive deviants. The musicians, artists, performers, athletes, children, elders. We need to shake things up. It is the wonderful principle of alchemy, in our case, leadership alchemy. To bake a cake you take some ingredients that on their own taste horrible…raw eggs, butter, flour, baking powder, cocoa, salt!  But put them together in the right amounts, with the right environment, and the right temperature, and you get a delicious creation that leaves people begging for more. It really is quite magical.

What is required is a form of leadership alchemy. This new science of taking a diverse groups of leaders, both recognised and acknowledged leaders and lesser or unrecognised  leaders from the arts, education, sports, emerging businesses; and through a combination of mixing them up, spicing then with some dialogical processes, the right environment, the right questions, plus some deep contemplation and mythical/magical/mystical experiences, plus a bit of heat and stress through provocation; to create a new order of thinking and leadership that will be able to create the bridge from here and now, to a future that considers the whole first, for the care and support of the whole of humanity and our environment.

Leadership alchemy doesn’t fit the classic mold of leadership. Its not about hierarchy, authority or status. It doesn’t rely on one person. There is a deep recognition that we are all in this together, and today it might be my turn, but tomorrow it is yours, and the next day it might require four of us. Or a whole community.

Solutions will come when we bring the fringe to the table. When we introduce the positive deviants into the system, and allow them a place to speak and contribute. These people and systems and communities who have refused to live in the model of the traditional way of being and doing. Those people and communities and systems that live in the questions…like…how can we…


…harness the endless energy of the sun, wind, water…in an affordable way?


…develop the capacity of people and leaders to thrive in chaos, to step up when required and down when no longer needed, to not need leadership to satisfy a bruised ego, or to to inflate their coffers?


..meet people where they are at and provide elegant solutions that support them for them and not so we feel better?


…provide ways for children of rich nations to live in gratitude and not entitlement?


…build an economic system that puts at the centre the value of production of any goods or services for the intentional enhancement of the human race, the ecology, the whole, and not just to make a buck?


…at the same time build an economy that respects the global commons…the air and water and forests and minerals, and IP that belongs to all of us?

Leadership alchemy requires sitting in these questions and more…with the willingness to find the elegant place between  the tension of the need to provide solutions quickly and the compression of  habit to resort to old models of thinking…we need the positive deviants, the artists, creatives, left of centre’s…to challenge our every thought, to ask us provocative questions, to throw our own process of thinking into chaos. And in that as well we need silence, a space and place to integrate, reflect, not think. Plus some stress and heat, for this is how nature grows. It is not a passive process.

Leadership alchemy does require an element of the transrational.  We have to include the synchronous, the perfection in chaos, the elegance in the mystical, and the ability to let go to the unknown.

A leadership alchemist in training has to learn, as one of the most critical steps, how to thrive and live in chaos, uncertainty, change. They need to be revolutionaries, able to think at the highest level of systems, with the biggest view, and at the same time, speak, act and live with infinite care and compassion, considering the unfolding effects from the micro to the macro. And they must be able to speak at a level of truth that we simply have not heard for a long time. They must be able to risk, and yet have the consciousness to risk with the integrated perspective of wisdom. And they know without any question, that they work as a network of leadership alchemists, rich in diversity, open and curious, flexible, humble, and intrinsically aware of their connection to the whole.

How do we support the development of  leadership alchemists? This is the very question that I am sitting in with a group of my wonderful friends and colleagues from around the world. Richard Hames, author of the great book, “The Five Literacies of Leadership”, Cynthia McEwan and John Schmidt from Avastone Consulting, Michael Hann from Oberon Consulting, Laurent Larbourmene, and others…its is an extraordinary conversation.

I would love to hear your views on what it takes to become a leadership alchemist…

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Positive Deviants

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

After years of working in the world of coaching and personal/team development I have finally clarified who I really add value to. There is even a new category for these people. They are called Positive Deviants. Check this out and see if you are a Positive Deviant. (This is my interpretation of who a Positive Deviant is)

 

Who are Positive Deviants?

 

A deviant is someone who departs from the norm. They don’t do things the usual way. A positive deviant is someone who departs from the norm in a way that adds value versus creates pain.

 

Characteristics of a Positive Deviant.

 

Very open, curious and willing to explore ideas. A positive deviant knows that staying in the question will, with time, provide an answer. They are always looking for better, faster, less costly in time, energy and money- ways, to do things. Their minds are like eternal antenna’s, tuned frequencies that most people miss. They surrender their own way/idea/process in a heart beat if offered something that will work better, faster, cheaper and for the greater advantage to all.

 

Daring, courageous, motivated by adventure, what’s next? A positive deviant is bold enough to initiate new idea’s. They don’t need the idea to be perfect first. They will continue to work with the prototype until they get the major kinks out. Their motivation is about giving it a go, versus being afraid of failure.

 

Receptive to feedback. Positive deviants want feedback, from others and from the environment. Feedback is their altimeter, allowing for subtle or overt corrections as they move forwards. If the feedback is delivered in an ego attacking way, they move through their ego issues far more quickly than most, and take the personal out of it, asking if the feedback has use and/or truth.

 

Intrinsically motivated to do extrinsic “value to society” activities. The positive deviant has a very strong intrinsic motivator that is about service to others, the environment, community. They no longer work for a living. They work for the love of their work and the value it adds to others. They have a comprehensive perspective of their place and part in the world. They are plugged into a far greater game than the game of work for money, status and stuff. They have their egoic self on a tight leash because of their highly developed self awareness.

 

Passionate, energetic, vibrant, enthusiastic, dynamic. Positive deviants seems to have a well of energy that explodes into everything they do. Their view is about what is possible, how can we do this, what can I do, what do I need to see that I am not? Speed bumps and road blocks are perceived as opportunities to make course corrections and  keep going.

 

High cognitive development. Most positive deviants have a quick and agile mind, and can see the META meta perspective. Because perspective is relative, positive deviants are able to go to the highest altitude perspective with ease. They grasp complex issues, integrating them and staying within the issue until they have found the simplicity on the other side. They like to be challenged in their thinking, and to practice daily, mind expanding activities, such as dialogue, learning and practical experimentation.

 

High morals and ethics. By nature of the word positive in the positive deviant title, positive deviants have a very sharply tuned integrous compass. They have an awareness of the affect of their actions, thoughts, and words, and seek to only contribute in a positive way. Integrity is their code. They are constantly practicing Integrity, on an ever increasing basis.

 

A Sixth Sense. Positive deviants have a high degree of self esteem, universal trust, and intuitive respect. Therefore, they seem to be tuned in to a extra sensory compass. This shows up in different ways for different people. For some it is a highly tuned ability to read people, for others it is a very agile grasp of structure, form and systems. Others have a very highly evolved sense of time and space. Whatever the skill, it is based on an ability to tune into the intuitive and have the courage and grace to act from this, with humility, not righteousness.

 

You will know from reading the above list if you are either a positive deviant or moving towards being a positive deviant. Positive Deviants can  be found in all walks of live. Generally they tend to keep a fairly low profile. They want their actions to do the talking. In Integral Theory, you could describe positive deviance as being second tier, integral thinkers and operators.

 

 

There is also such a thing as a company or team within a company who chooses to operate as a Positive Deviant organisation.  For example- Google, Apple, Virgin all demonstrate signs of positive deviant behaviour.

 

My work is to teach/coach/facilitate positive deviants in support of their comprehensive Integrity.

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