Featured Articles | Money and You Worldwide

A Conversation with John Mackey of Whole Foods Market – an Entrepreneur With Heart

A Conversation with John Mackey of Whole Foods Market – an Entrepreneur “With Heart”…

As I am preparing to attend John Mackey’s C3 Summit, a ConsciousCapitalism.com event empowered by John Mackey, I wanted to give you a glimpse of this wonderful entrepreneur’s mind (and heart) set…

John has devoted the better part of his 56 years to the seemingly friendly and peace-loving world of selling natural foods. He has lived in a vegetarian co-op and studied yoga and meditation. He is a leading practitioner of empowerment management. Yet, as CEO of Whole Foods Market, Inc. he has built an $8 billion Fortune 500 company that is now one of the top 20 supermarket companies in America. He has out-maneuvered nearly every other entrant into the natural foods marketplace, eventually purchasing most of them. No wonder Business Week entitled its 1998 profile of Mackey: “Peace, love, and the bottom line.”

Responsibility Can Really Suck…

responsibility

by Bill J. McCarley

In December 1983, I decided to venture out on my own and left my job at Texas Instruments. My wife, Linda, had finished her doctorate program and had started a psychotherapy practice. We had a 9 year old daughter and a 7 month old daughter. After beginning my consulting practice, Linda’s business partner told me about a program being presented in Colorado called Money and You. It seemed like a good idea to do this program, so in March 1984 I flew there to attend it.

To my surprise, I discovered the most important information I have learned in this lifetime… The Responsibility Flipchart!

On Thursday night we played a wild game with Xs and Ys called, “Win as Much as You Can”. I knew the purpose of the game was to play Win-Win and that is what I did! When the game ended, Marshall Thurber, the program originator, collected the scores. He took a slow look at them; then turned and asked, “who got this minus 66?” My partner and I raised our hands and got singled out as the ones with the biggest losing score. Marshall next asked, “What happened?” I proceeded to tell him what was wrong with the other partnerships in my group, and he pointed to LAY BLAME on the chart. I moved up the chart to JUSTIFY and told him why I had played the game the way I did. He wrote the word RIGHT on a new page and let me know I was right.

For a moment I felt better knowing I was right, but then he added a few more letters… RIGHTEOUS. Now this guy I didn’t know was calling me righteous in front of the entire group. I was not happy and felt very agitated. The evening went on and eventually I was back in my room, pacing back and forth and ranting about how Marshall had mistreated me. Like a bolt of lighting, it hit me that he was totally correct, and I was being righteous in that very moment.

I lost the game… but got the lesson!

I became completely committed to the practice of personal responsibility and have made it a lifelong activity and study. I joined Money & You's Instructor Training Program and eventually became a promoter of Money and You. I also trained with Robert Kiyosaki when he was leading Money and You.

I continually teach people about personal responsibility and how freedom is impossible without it. It became completely clear to me that it is easy to assume responsibility when things are going the way you want them to go. However, the mind is totally committed to being “below the line” when something does not seem right. I began to see how trying to move up the chart and get past JUSTIFY leads a person to blaming themselves instead of others or the situation. I began to recognize this as Lay Blame on Self. About the time I began to consider this new distinction, we decided to promote Marshall’s new workshop on Dr. Deming’s material and when Marshall introduced “The Responsibility Flipchart”, he had added the word SHAME above JUSTIFY.

Trying to move above JUSTIFY mostly leads to asking ourselves the question, “What’s wrong with me?” Of course, this is not a very empowering question and still not “above the line”.

On my journey through life, I have found more teachers who offer key lessons in what personal responsibility really is and how to assume it and take it: Bucky Fuller, Dr. Deming, Tony Robbins, Esther Hicks (who channels Abraham,) the Dalai Lama, Lester Levinson (originator of The Releasing Technique and The Sedona Method), Dr. Hew Len (who teaches Ho’oponopono,) and others, as well.

I now define responsibility as “owning the power to create, choose, and attract”. You are in fact creating, choosing, or attracting everything in your life… ALL the time. As Abraham, through the voice of Esther Hicks, puts it, “It is all you… only you… no exceptions.”

When things are working, responsibility is great!

When things are not working, it is hard to own that you are the cause without stopping at Shame (laying blame on yourself.) Being at Shame is when responsibility really sucks. I teach that it is critical to skip right over that place on the chart and take 100% Responsibility…. not the Blame!

Then you can own the power that you have and be fully “above the line”.

About the author:
Bill J. McCarley is a long time supporter of Money and You and its powerful principles. He trained with Marshall Thurber and Robert Kiyoskai to lead Money and You. He even taught a slightly modified version in a corporate setting. He promoted Money and You, Creating Wealth and Powerful Presentations in Austin, Texas from 1987 – 1992. His company Co-evolution is committed to personal development, business development, and more recently Web development. Web site: http://www.co-evolution.com

Lessons On Resolving Conflict.

A great video on conflict from William L. Ury co-founded Harvard's Program on Negotiation and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project.

With the Holidays upon us, it's a timely message. When we learn to resolve conflict peacefully and in a manner, we see positive change in the world around us.

“… normally when we think of conflict, when we describe it, there's always two sides. It's Arabs versus Israelis, labor versus management, husband versus wife, Republicans versus Democrats, but what we don't often see is that there's always a third side. And the third side of the conflict is us, it's the surrounding community, it's the friends, the allies, the family members, the neighbors. And we can play an incredibly constructive role. Perhaps the most fundamental way in which the third side can help is to remind the parties of what's really at stake. For the sake of the kids, for the sake of the family, for the sake of the community, for the sake of the future, let's stop fighting for a moment and start talking. Because, the thing is, when we're involved in conflict, it's very easy to lose perspective. It's very easy to react. Human beings: we're reaction machines. And as the saying goes, when angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret. And so the third side reminds us of that. The third side helps us go to the balcony, which is a metaphor for a place of perspective, where we can keep our eyes on the prize”

A Novel Leadership Example

Leadership isn’t always about being the leader… as this video explains.

It’s a great example of how to start a movement, and how important it is to get momentum.

Politics and War – Lethal Scarcity

A guest article by Randolph Craft.

POLITICS AND WAR.

We have politics as we know it and war only because of the “lethal scarcity – Malthusian economics” syndrome. Politics (as we know it), war, weaponry, and deceit become obsolete with the discovery that through human intellect's exponentially multiplying know-how and the exponentially multiplying more-with-less production and service- capabilities, including continual and growing recirculation of the physical materials, there is an abundant capability to support and to accommodate all humanity — if it stops wasting its resources for military purposes and for exclusively one-sided monetary and political profits. (Listen to the mind's willingness to believe that the above mentioned could never happen!)

RATIONALIZED SELFISHNESS.

As long as people everywhere believe that there is not enough to go around for adequate life support and that “that's the way it is,” just so long is selfishness to be rationalized as being not only “realistic” but essential in securing the “bread and butter” for those dependent upon the family “bread- winner.” Those who eschew selfishness and commit themselves to the golden rule are considered to be either ignorant, foolish, and/or strange or gifted in some way — not one of “us.”

A NEW ERA OF KNOWLEDGE.

Since, however, it is now looming into ever more widely held knowledge, made available by international computer “bulletin boards,” computer news wire services, a vast and growing number to media alternatives, and the increasing ease with which people can publish their point of view, that there is and can continue to be ample life support for all, both today and tomorrow. For the first time in three million years of known human presence on this planet, selfishness can no longer be rationalized as inherently valid.

This is one of the most dramatic changes in all history. It could thus be seen that the realism of the Austronesian water people and their cultivated wisdom may (again) integrate synergetically to lead into noncompetitive, problem-solving human life styles that integrate with, support, and abide by the laws of regenerative nature.

NOT MUCH CHANGE SO FAR.

It is interesting to note that since the fall of ancient Troy and establishment of supremacy of “the lines of supply,” except for the subtle growth of the “business” man's complex credit and finance accounting system, there has been no fundamental change in the grand economic strategy of the power structure governing world affairs throughout the intervening 5,000 years. Whoever has controlled the line of supply has dominated. Only now controlling of the line of supply has come to include the air fleets and the intercontinental nuclear bombs, space platforms, Star-wars systems, etc., all guided with pinpoint accuracy by the instruments of a now 99% invisible reality. “People don't get out of the way of things they can't see..”

KEEPING THE SECRETS.

Who can kill and destroy the most with the least is “on top” in the arms race. The scientific discovery or technical invention of ways of “doing more with less” constitutes the most highly “classified” of secret information of the most powerfully armed political states. Because all the governments hold all such information secret, society fails to realize that there is a swiftly accelerating accomplishment of the more-with-lessing which has led to a present ability to provide ample life support for all humans on earth and those to come in the future.

This “ample-life-support” information does exist in many “pockets” around the world, but is yet to find popularity as a political issue because political issues are usually supported by a source of money — money which usually comes from some “business” source — business which runs on the supply-demand- scarcity syndrome. The system makes the information of it's undoing difficult, if not impossible, to support!

THE ENDLESS CYCLE.

The “business” man's business and its invention of abstract banking credit, finance, interest, deposits, coinage, economics, foreign exchange rates, balance of trade, insurance, bookkeeping, and above all uncontrolled “pricing” obviously prosper most when “goods” are scarcest. Scarcities are most certain of occurring when governments spend the most on armament production, which production tends to render scarce all peaceful life-support items and services. It becomes obvious why no book on economics ever mentions “doing more with less.” “More with lessing” is thought to be by many paramount to giving more and better goods and services for ever lower prices, whereas money-making business is enchanted only with giving subtly ever less for ever higher prices. It is obvious why the stock market prices climb whenever the prospects loom for more war preparation or for relaxation of any restraints upon “big” business.

OPTION FOR SUCCESS.

Throughout the three and one-half million years during which humans now are known to have been aboard “Spaceship Earth,” (a term coined by R.B. Fuller in the early 1960's) none knew that humanity had an option of total economic successes. Therefore, the selfish viewpoint has always been rationalizably justified. Known to less than one percent of world people, we nonetheless have come into a new relationship with Nature — a relationship wherein the cause of the struggle to survive economically can been dispensed with.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

This is always the question that comes up after information of this nature comes to the surface. In my 30+ years of study and investment that made me aware of this point of view, I found myself angry, feeling helpless, wanting to join some protest group, participating in politics, etc. Playing the game of making a difference is the best game in town as long as you don't get stuck on the results.

For me, what to do about “it” has become a simple matter. I just make sure that this point of view is one of the ones – the primary one – I use to observe the reality of the world around me. I then “do” what I am moved to do. Then I look to see if what I did is appropriate and effective for me and those around me at that time. I look and listen “out” to my surroundings – to my environment. And guess what?… People – especially people – really like it when you look and listen to and for them. Go figure…;-)

This point of view allows me to feel a deeper understanding of world events. I have more compassion for world leaders and people in general – they are usually doing their best using what they have “learned” from wherever they came from and their “education.” I see the news differently than I used to. I view the stock market in a totally different way. I notice, as much as possible, what I do and what others do to contribute to and perpetuate the “scarcity syndrome” unconsciously. My attitude about “earning a living” has definitely and radically shifted.

It’s funny… now, when I look for abundance in my world – the world I live in, it’s here! Go figure… 😉

Randolph Craft is the director of The Fuller Edutainment Company, President of AMP, Advanced Management Planning, founder and director of the Pacific Planning Institute, a consulting principal of QHM, Quality HealthCare Management, founder and President of Ke Wai e Ola – The Pacific International Anti-Aging Center, and partner with his brother, Greg, in The Art of Craft.

In 40 years of business, Mr. Craft has managed over 500 projects from inception to completion in both business and the arts, and provides education in these fields in programs sponsored internationally.

In his business career, Mr. Craft has developed or co-developed technologies which provide operational project planning, project management, computer-driven sales-tracking, quality control programs, values integration technology, and general business management systems (QTM). He provides business consulting, computer consulting, business plans, sales, planning, and quality integration workshops, line-of-balance analysis, and database architecture and production. His client list reads like a Whos Who of the “magic” success stories of the late 80s and early 90s His business and life mentors include, and are not limited to, Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller and Dr. Edwards Deming.

In his art career, which began in Hawaii in 1968, he has become an internationally collected sculptor and painter, designer and builder of “famous” commercial establishments, and currently with his brother in The Art of Craft, have an active and thriving art business in Hawaii that produces “jewelery for buildings” and serves clients mostly locally and increasingly internationally.

His work with Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller, which began in 1980, is the foundation for his continuing studies and teaching in the field of scioeconomics and the development of efficiency and productivity tools for business and education. He conducts several programs annually throughout Asia, including the PRC.

Currently living on the “Big Island” of Hawaii’ at Puako Beach, he is an avid outrigger canoe paddler and surfer, rides his Harley in the “high” country of the “Big Isle,” enjoys making his “Mana Cabbage” (Green Papaya Salad) for friends and loved ones, and is a 40+ year resident of “Paradise,” the state of Hawaii’.

Further information can be found at:

www.RandolphCraft.biz
www.PlanInParadise.com
www.FullerEducation.org
www.Anti-Age.org
www.TheArtOfCraft.com

photo credit: divemasterking2000

Visualize a Sustainable Future

Critical Path

Meet Peter Meisen, who shares his “Entrepreneurial Stimulus”

I was fortunate to take the “Money & You” program with Marshall Thurber in 1980, while Buckminster Fuller was still alive and providing the core Generalized Principles of Universe. I heard Bucky speak at a Hunger Project Board meeting in 1983 where he encouraged all of us to read “Critical Path,” which was just published. Bucky died a few months later.

Reading “Critical Path” changed my thinking and my life. Here was someone who committed himself to make the world better for all, and was at the same time humble and compassionate.

Looking for the answer to “what’s next?” I read that book over 3 days and launched into a new journey. At the foundation of Bucky’s work is the World Game simulation, which asks the question:

How do we make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone?

GENI Initiative windmills The premier solution? Clean electricity for all, and the strategy was to link the abundant renewable energy resources around the world using high-voltage transmission between all nations.

After 20 years, the GENI Initiative has been embraced on all continents, earned the endorsement of 6 Nobel Peace Laureates, and been featured at the World Energy Conference.

The world is now moving into the green economy, and there are thousands of high-quality jobs being created and funded in the stimulus bills. Yet with all the pronouncements and commitments, wind/solar/geothermal supply just 3% of the global energy market — while the renewable potential could power 100% of our needs! We need an accelerator.

Once again, we looked to the vision of Bucky.

While at Southern Illinois University, he had proposed a more rigorous, high-tech version of the World Game, called the World Resources Simulation Center (WRSC). It never got developed due to some politics at the time, yet it is more needed today than ever before. The world has multiple complex, interconnected issues that demand our attention — so where do we go to grapple with them in an thoughtful, unbiased way?

Last year, we launched a 4 phase process to develop the www.wrsc.org — starting with a Prototype Design Event and gaining 40 partners: The WRSC will be a place where leaders get educated and gain insight, see trends and future options, so they can make more sustainable choices and act on them quicker — a place to Visualize a Sustainable Future.

We invite your involvement and ideas: as we think that this new tool will support better planning and decision-making at the global, national and regional levels.

__________________________

Peter Meisen solar Peter Meisen was born in Oceanside, CA and graduated from UCSD Revelle College with a degree in Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences. Founded in 1991 by Peter Meisen, the GENI Initiative focuses on the interconnection of electric power networks between nations and continents, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources. This strategy is the highest priority of the World Game simulation developed by Dr. Buckminster Fuller several decades ago.

Wanting to expand investment into the green energy space, GENI partnered with FTSE/KLD to launch the Global Climate 100 Index to track the leaders in climate solutions. Last year they co-founded the www.EcoInvestorGuide.com to educate and facilitate investment into the green economy.

Peter is married to Ashley Gardner (he got lucky) and they have a ton of fun with the 2 grandchildren

The Global Energy Network Institute (GENI) focuses on the interconnection of electric power networks between nations and continents, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources. This strategy is the highest priority of the World Game simulation developed by Dr. Buckminster Fuller several decades ago. Linking renewables between all nations will mollify conflicts, grow economies and increase the quality of life and health for all.

Tel: +1-619-595-0139
peter@geni.org
http://www.geni.org

Restoring the Rainforest.

A guest article from our Entrepreneur Stimulus series… from Alana Lea.

Rainforest ECO – A Story of Homecoming

In December , I returned to the land of my birth for the first time in 57 years. I carried with me the conviction that I was going to use my talents as a force for positive change in a land that I had only known from the stories my mother had told me as a child. As my airplane touched down in Sao Paulo, I didn’t know my end destination or the details of my purpose there.

Although I had spent nearly my entire life in the US, I retained my jeito, a Brazilian quality which connotes an ability to go with the flow and to get things done. My daughter, Leala Rose, was with me that day, and we both took a great leap of faith as we set off together on a journey of discovery in a foreign land. And Brazil responded…

Within a few days, I was pouring my enthusiasm into conversations with everyone I met. I had built a successful horticultural business in the United States and was a respected botanical artist. My passion for the plant kingdom poured into my work and my art. I had illustrated a small book on the healing plants of the Amazon rainforest and my watercolor renderings of orchids and pollinators were lauded as they went on display at the Smithsonian Institute. With a strong feeling that my work in Brazil was going to involve the rainforest, I made inquiries about traveling north, to the Amazon.

But I was surprised to learn that surrounding my birthplace in Rio de Janeiro was the most diverse and endangered rainforest in the world. It was the Atlantic Rainforest, known in Brazil as Mata Atlantica. And when I found out that from the time I had left Brazil until the day I returned, that millions of hectares of the forest had been decimated and converted into primarily cattle grazing land, leaving only 7% of the original forest intact, I paused for a moment.

My purpose at once became clear, and I embarked immediately to find a solution for this most precious region.

I realized that in order to implement truly sustainable solutions, I would need to engage local communities and find innovative ways to address fundamental economic challenges. Local leaders and change makers were invited to discuss possible solutions and a plan emerged.

In April of 2009 I filed the incorporation papers for Rainforest ECO, LLC – Life Affirming Enterprises. Having drawn together a magnificent team in both the US and Brazil to create and sustain the life of the rainforest, through commerce, I have a new-found zeal for life.

IN THE HEART of the most diverse and endangered tropical rainforests on the planet, Mata Atlantica ––the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil –– and the Amazon, a new business model is now being seeded. Initiating this process is Rainforest ECO, LLC, a US based company, founders of the Rainforest ECObank – ECObanco Florestal projects in Brazil.

The Brazilian ECObank works with local NGOs and community associations to create sustainable rainforest enterprises with the subsistence farm families of Mata Atlantica and Amazonia. There they learn how to create their own nurseries of rainforest trees from local experts, as well as other social enterprises, to phase out slash and burn farming and cattle ranching as the principal livelihood activities.

Rainforest ECO Life Affirming Enterprises is a social business, dedicating 33% of revenues to establish and maintain Rainforest ECObank projects in Brazil. Rainforest ECObank is a cooperative, community based micro-loan enterprise, operating in the states of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to help subsistence farmers transition from slash and burn practices to agro forestry.

Visit Alana’s BLOG for more great articles: http://rainforesteco.wordpress.com

Are You Ready To Let Money And Wealth Flow Into Your Life?

Money & You® August 26-29, 2010
San Diego/Oceanside, CA

Money & You® (M&Y) is a 3 1/2 day experiential process that will help you take small, simple steps that will have an enormous impact on your life. It is made up of approximately 60% games and interactive exercises, 25% debriefing the games, and 15% lectures. This is almost the reverse of many traditional educational systems – as that education doesn’t teach you how to really make money and be successful in life – all it teaches you is how to be a cog in the ‘machine.’

Based on a business that grew a US$25,000 investment into a US$60 million business in less than three years, the program encompasses the big picture of business, the science of learning from mistakes, Dr. R. Buckminster Fuller’s generalized principles, the difference between money and wealth, work on beliefs that support or inhibit your success, and finding your life’s purpose.

If You Want Breakthrough Results…

You Need A Breakthrough Experience!

In Money & You®, participants will learn far beyond than from any other Entrepreneurial training available anywhere in the world!

Here is what you will learn:

You will learn revolutionary principles for running your business and your life that expands possibilities, people, income, joy, and opportunities
How to release a constant flow of money by getting your heart back into your business
How to get out of debt and earn more money than you ever have in your life
Strategic-thinking skills
Unleash your uniqueness and ability to be a Lateral Thinker for greater profitability
Gaining insight in how to apply a successful business model that reduces the effort and amount of time it takes to be a world leader and create an organization that produces extraordinary results
Problem solving skills to solve problems easier and faster
Effective team building skills. Be better able to build, maintain and inspire teams
Higher individual productivity. Learn new skills to increase productivity, profits, and to reduce employee turnover
Co-operation vs. competition distinctions. Learn the keys to cooperating with people and businesses that are traditionally viewed as competitors
Entrepreneurial skills – i.e. knowing when to take risks and when not to
A way of life that is less stressful and more fun – one that is in harmony with your own personal values
Money-Making Secrets
Being able to use a process that removes limiting blocks and beliefs from your life
Applying conflict resolution skills that quickly resolve conflict and prevent major upsets in your relationships
Being part of a network of more than 70,000 graduates from over 52 countries
And more!

The Money & You® Program delivers the education that traditional business courses dare not touch. Emphasis is placed on removing the fears and subconscious beliefs that are the real blocks to success and satisfaction in this rapidly changing world.

Money & You® is based on principles learned from some of the greatest thinkers of our time, including R. Buckminster Fuller and W. Edward Deming. In the ‘70’s, this work was started by a team of people, which included Bobbi DePorter, the co-founder of the Quantum Learning Network which presents the world-famous program, SuperCamp. As the work has evolved through the years and by the contribution of the likes of Robert Kiyosaki, Willson Lin, Dominique Lyone, and others, the work has reached the level of success that is evident today, which includes a television program hosted by Willson Lin in China, which will be seen by 200 million in the upcoming months…

When you change on the inside, everything changes for you on the outside to reflect that change. You know how when you are looking for something, you start seeing it everywhere? It’s the same thing with habit and behavior changes.

When you shift your beliefs, you also shift your thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

After that, the only problem you will have is what to do with all the money, love and power that come into your life!

“I was broke 4 years ago and after attending Money & You®, I turned my business into a great success by applying the valuable principles found in all that the program covered. I would like to attribute my Spirit of Enterprise Award 2004 to Money & You and Excellerated Programs!”

Wendy Kwek – Director – Executive Directions Pte Ltd

more testimonials

Are you ready to make a change personally or professionally? Do you want to create excitement and contentment in your life?

Register For Money & You® Now!

First I Must Change

One of the core principles of Money & You is that “the key to making money is directly proportional to one’s ability to generate and maintain good relationships – both with oneself and with others.”

This self-knowledge is learned and experienced through many different activities throughout the program because it is such a key pre-requisite to long-term success in any business.

One of the mantras underlying its basic philosophy is “for things to change, first I must change”.

Money & You teaches people to feel okay about making mistakes – to recognize them as learning experiences. Graduates learn ways to apply many of the principles taught in the program to their businesses and their lives. They gain wisdom daily and thereby become more and more successful as the distinctions seen in the program become part of their daily reality.

Many of our graduates are world-famous men and women. Others, not so famous, are making a difference in their own communities and industries. Many have started organizations that teach the principles they found so powerful at their own Money & You program. We love the ripple effect that our work provides and we love teaching this curriculum.

Are you ready for a change? Click here to find out more about Money & You.

(Also registered for the Money & Me® Teleclass.

photo credit: Ralph Buckley

Waves Of Change

A second article from John Maudlin that we’d like to share..

The Millennium Wave

By: John Mauldin

Let’s look at some changes we are likely to see over the next few decades. My view is that we have a number of waves of change getting ready to erupt on the world stage. The combination of them is what I call the Millennium Wave, the most significant period of change in human history. And one for which most of us are not yet ready.

Some time next year, we are going to see the three-billionth person get access to the telecosm (phones and internet, etc.). By 2015 it will be five billion people. Within ten years, most of the world will be able to access cheap (I mean really cheap) high-speed wireless broadband at connection rates that dwarf what we now have.

That is going to unleash a wave of creativity and new business that will be staggering. That heretofore hidden genius in Mumbai or Vladivostok or Kisangani will now have the ability to bring his ideas, talent, and energy to change the world in ways we can hardly imagine. When Isaac Watts was inventing the steam engine, there were a handful of engineers who could work with him. Now we throw a staggering number of scientists and engineers at trivial problems, let alone the really big ones.

And because of the internet, the advances of one person soon become known and built upon in a giant dance of collaboration. It is because of this giant dance, this unplanned group effort, that we will all figure out how to make advances in so many ways. (Of course, that is hugely disruptive to businesses that don’t adapt.)

Ever-faster change is what is happening in medicine. None of us in 2030 will want to go back to 2010, which will then seem as barbaric and antiquated as, say, 1975. Within a few years, it will be hard to keep up with the number of human trials of gene therapy and stem cell research. Sadly for the US, most of the tests will be done outside of our borders, but we will still benefit from the results.

I spend some spare study time on stem cell research. It fascinates me. We are now very close to being able to start with your skin cells and grow you a new liver (or whatever). Muscular dystrophy? There are reasons to be very encouraged.

Alzheimer’s disease requires somewhere between 5-7% of total US health-care costs. Defeat that and a large part of our health-care budget is fixed. And it will be first stopped and then cured. Same thing with cancers and all sorts of inflammatory diseases. There is reason to think a company may have found a generic cure for the common flu virus.

A whole new industry is getting ready to be born. And with it new jobs and investment opportunities.

Energy problems? Are we running out of oil? My bet is that in less than 20 years we won’t care. We will be driving electric cars that are far superior to what we have today in every way, from power sources that are not oil-based.

For whatever reason, I seem to run into people who are working on new forms of energy. They are literally working in their garages on novel new ways to produce electric power; and my venture-capital MIT PhD friend says they are for real when I introduce them. And if I know of a handful, there are undoubtably thousands of such people. Not to mention well-funded corporations and startups looking to be the next new thing. Will one or more make it? My bet is that more than one will. We will find ourselves with whole new industries as we rebuild our power grids, not to mention what this will mean for the emerging markets.

What about nanotech? Robotics? Artificial intelligence? Virtual reality? There are whole new industries that are waiting to be born. In 1980 there were few who saw the rise of personal computers, and even fewer who envisioned the internet. Mapping the human genome? Which we can now do for an individual for a few thousand dollars? There are hundreds of new businesses that couldn’t even exist just 20 years ago.

I am not sure where the new jobs will come from, but they will. Just as they did in 1975.

There is, however, one more reason I am optimistic. Sitting around the dinner table, I looked at my kids. I have seven kids, five of whom are adopted. I have two Korean twins, two black kids, a blond, a (sometimes) brunette, and a redhead. They range in age from 15 to 32. It is a rather unique family. My oldest black son is married to a white girl and my middle white son is with a black girl. They both have given me grandsons this year (shades of Obama!). One of my Korean daughters is married to a white young man, and the other is dating an Hispanic. And the oldest (Tiffani) is due with my first granddaughter in less than a month.

And the interesting thing? None of them think any of that is unusual. They accept it as normal. And when I am with their friends, they also see the world in a far different manner than my generation. (That is not to say the trash talk cannot get rather rough at the Mauldin household at times.)

I find great cause for optimism in that. I am not saying we are in a post-racial world. We are not. Every white man in America should have a black son. It would open your eyes to a world we do not normally see. But it is better, far better, than the world I grew up in. And it is getting still better.

My boys play online video games with kids from all over the world. And the kids from around the world get on the internet and see a much wider world than just their local neighborhoods.

Twenty years ago China was seen as a huge military threat. Now we are worried about them not buying our bonds and becoming an economic power. Niall Ferguson writes about “Chimerica” as two countries joined together in an increasingly tight bond. In 20 years, will Iran be our new best friend? I think it might be, and in much less time than that, as an increasingly young and frustrated population demands change, just as they did 30 years ago. Will it be a smooth transition? Highly unlikely. But it will happen, I think.

I look at my kids and their friends. Are they struggling? Sure. They can’t get enough hours, enough salaries, the jobs they want. They now have kids and mortgages. And dreams. Lots of dreams. That is cause for great optimism. It is when the dreams die that it is time to turn pessimistic.

I believe the world of my kids is going to be a far better world in 20 years. Will China and the emerging world be relatively better off? Probably, but who cares? Do I really begrudge the fact that someone is making their part of the world better? In absolute terms, none of my kids will want to come back to 2009, and neither will I. Most of the doom and gloom types (and they seem to be legion) project a straight-line linear future. They see no progress beyond that in their own small worlds. If you go back to 1975 and assume a linear future, the projections were not all that good. Today you can easily come up with a less-than-rosy future if you make the assumption that things in 20 years will roughly look the same as now. But that also assumes there will not be even more billions of people who now have the opportunity to dream up their own psychic income and work to make it happen.

We live in a world of accelerating change. Things are changing at an ever-increasing pace. The world is not linear, it is curved. And we may be at the beginning of the elbow of that curve. If you assume a linear world, you are going to make less-than-optimal choices about your future, whether it is in your job or investments or life in general.

In the end, life is what you make of it. With all our struggles, as we sat around the table, our family was content, just like 100 million families around the country. Are there those who are in dire distress? Homeless? Sick? Of course, and that is tragic for each of them. And those of us who are fortunate need to help those who are not.

We live in the most exciting times in human history. We are on the verge of remarkable changes in so many areas of our world. Yes, some of them are not going to be fun. I see the problems probably more clearly than most.

But am I going to just stop and say, “What’s the use? The Fed is going to make a mess of things. The government is going to run us into debts to big too deal with? We are all getting older, and the stock market is going to crash?”

Even the most diehard bear among us is thinking of ways to improve his personal lot, even if it is only to buy more gold and guns. We all think we can figure it out or at least try to do so. Some of us will get it right and others sadly will not. But it is the collective individual struggles for our own versions of psychic income, the dance of massive collaboration on a scale the world has never witnessed, that will make our world a better place in the next 20 years.

All that being said, while I am an optimist, I am a cautious and hopefully realistic optimist. I do not think the stock market compounds at 10% a year from today’s valuations. I rather doubt the Fed will figure the exact and perfect path in removing its quantitative easing. I doubt we will pursue a path of rational fiscal discipline in 2010 or sadly even by 2012, although I pray we do. I expect my taxes to be much higher in a few years.

But thankfully, I am not limited to only investing in the broad stock market. I have choices. I can be patient and wait for valuations to come my way. I can look for new opportunities. I can plan to make the tax burden as efficient as possible, and try and insulate myself from the volatility that is almost surely in our future – and maybe even figure out a way to prosper from it.

A pessimist never gets in the game. A wild-eyed optimist will suffer the slings and arrows of boom and inevitable bust. Cautious optimism is the correct and most rewarding path. And that, I hope, is what you see when you read my weekly thoughts.

John Mauldin is a multiple NYT Best Selling author and recognized financial expert. He has been heard on CNBC, Bloomberg and many radio shows across the country. He is the editor of the highly acclaimed, free weekly economic and investment e-letter that goes to over 1 million subscribers each week. You can sign up here.

photo credit: Scott_J_