By Jim Selman | Bio
I work with organizations that are attempting
to change. At the beginning of working with a new client, I point out
what’s missing for any organization that has recurring or seemingly
intractable problems: what’s missing is a different way of observing.
Whether we’re talking about a company, a community or a continent, a new
perspective always gives us an opening to create new possibilities,
have new choices and take new actions: a new way of observing the world
effectively gives us a different future than some variation of ‘more of
the same’. We need to stop asking what the problems are and start
asking why they persist. When we do, we begin to realize that we
have a paradigm problem. Until we deal with that, none of our seemingly
intractable problems—from staggering debt to unending war, climate
change to the underlying causes of the mortgage crises—can be solved.
Albert Einstein expressed this concisely when he said that sometimes our
problems cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we
created them.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Moods ‘color’ our experience of living. They
are all encompassing interpretations of the world—especially the
future—and tend to determine the quality of our lives. When we are in a
positive mood, the world is bright and we ‘feel’ great. When we are in
a negative mood, we typically want to withdraw from or strike out at
everyone around us. One of the most useful things we can learn as we
grow up (at any age) is that moods aren’t personal. First of all, they are involuntary. No one I know decides they will be
in a bad mood (although there are a few who more or less equate their
mood with ‘the way I am’, which can[ Read More]
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By Jim Selman | Bio
The last 10 years seems to me to have been a
long decade. I know that time is supposed to ‘speed up’ as we get
older, but the “Millennium” celebrations, Y2K and all the hype about
the 21st century seems like ancient history. A decade ago, we still
weren’t at war in two countries, 9/11 hadn’t happened, George Bush was
still promising a bipartisan administration, climate change was still a
bit of an arcane scientific debate for most of us, New Orleans was
still having a non-stop party and Google was a minor start-up. YouTube
didn’t exist at the turn of the century, eBay and Amazon were still
babies, and the real estate bubble was just beginning. Steve Jobs had
recently returned to Apple after spending 13 years with NeXT, the iPod
and iTunes were concept just beginning to be developed and the iPhone
wasn’t even in sight.[ Read More]
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Yesterday
I was coaching a friend of mine. I was sharing a bit of how important
it is to ‘come from’ your vision for your life. Our future is always a
product of our actions, and our actions are always a correlate of how
we relate to the future. When we act as if the future has already
happened, then it is only a matter of time before that future is
realized or we learn what we need to learn to achieve it. Her response
was, “Well, you make it sound so simple, but it is too abstract and I
need to know ‘how’ to have what I want in the future.” This was my
response.[ Read More]
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
I was working with a group of people last
week in Mexico. The session was about planning and they chose as their
theme for the year “I am my word”. The idea was to emphasize
‘count-on-ability’ and the importance of delivering on plans. I spoke
to them for a bit and shared the following reflections.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Leadership
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
Paradigm is one of those words that has
become so over-used and misused that to say it in polite company or
even in a corporate workshop will have eyes roll and people sigh as if
the term itself is something to be endured. I am one of those people
who say it a lot, have a pretty good idea of what I am talking about,
and believe it is important for ordinary people to understand that most
of our persistent problems are paradigm problems. That is, our dominant
and collective interpretation of the world, of who we are and what is
going on is the problem. If we are blind to or in denial of this view,
then we will continue to do the same things over and over while hoping
for different results.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
In 1976 I was working with some government
employees in Virginia trying to implement a new system for integrating
human services—a kind of one-stop shop for all the various services
offered at that time. I had just finished the est training the previous
July and was overwhelmed with my own experience and the idea that a
person could transform themselves and their relationship to everything.
Until then, I had bought into the belief that people don’t really
change in fundamental ways, that personalities are fairly fixed, and
that it requires a major crisis to shift our perceptions of reality. It
was during that period that I formulated the idea that there were
things that could be managed or taught and other things that could not
be managed or taught but that could be “coached”. The difference had to
do with how we observe others and ourselves and how we relate to power
and responsibility.[ Read More]
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I came across an extraordinary six-minute YouTube video called ‘ The Shift’—a
presentation that blows one’s mind with factoids about the rate of
change in the world. The Shift they are talking about is a ‘paradigm
shift’, meaning our entire worldview, indeed our whole reality, is
being turned upside down and inside out by virtue of technology,
population and the exponentially accelerating rate of change. Whether
we like it or not, our ‘new reality’ challenges our commonsense and
conventional wisdom with ideas like “Knowledge is becoming obsolete
before you learn it”. Joel Barker
sold a videotape in the 1980s called “Discovering the Future: The
Business of Paradigms™” in which he showed that the world is always a
function of our interpretation of it and that, from time to time, for a
variety of reasons, the world transforms in ways that are difficult to
impossible for people to fathom when it is happening.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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One of the nice things about traveling about as I have been for the
past couple of years is that you get an opportunity to listen to people
in other countries speak about the state of the world. As a fair
generalization, I would suggest that we in the USA and Canada are among
the most vocal ‘worriers’ I encounter. I would say that a high
percentage of North American conversations—at least among those I
converse with and based on my take on ‘the news’ on TV—are worried
about something. From head-shaking expletives about George W to the
justice system, the environment and the state of the world to, of
course, terrorism, it is just one thing after another. Even in Canada
(which has institutionalized optimism), the “Yes, but” appeal to a
balanced account is wearing thin.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at The Great Turning
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I was having a conversation recently with an old friend who is deeply
committed to a spiritual practice intended to release us from the
vicious cycle of ego and our addiction to the material world. I was
sharing about Serene Ambition and my commitment to do what I can to
encourage our generation to ‘make a difference’ and leave the world in
better shape than we found it—to leave a legacy of possibility to those
who come behind us. My friend pointed out that this is a terrific focus for service and
expression of love for human beings and our world. However, she pointed
out, take care that you aren’t trying to leave a legacy to satisfy some
ego-centered ideal.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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