Today we finish our series of excerpts from Barry Carter’s book Infinite Wealth with the thirteenth essay. See: 1) The Rise of a Win Win Civilization 2) A Personal Journey of Discovery 3) Why Corporations Don’t Work 4) The Emancipation of Capitalism 5) Mass Privatization: Organizing in the Information Age 6) Decentralized Wealth Creation 7) The Infinite Wealth Potential of Liberated Humans 8) The Mandate for Win-Win Wealth Creation 9) Breakpoint: Why You Must Act Now 10) SYNOCRACY: True Democracy Through Synergy 11) THE SHIFT: Awaking to a Win-Win World and 12) The Synthesis of a Win-Win World
“Breakpoint change abruptly and powerfully breaks the critical links with the past. What we are experiencing today is absolutely unprecedented in all of humanity’s recorded history. We have run into change so different from anything preceding it that it totally demolishes normal standards. It has swept us into a massive transformation that will completely reorder all we know about living in this world. It demands totally new rules for success”. —George Land and Beth Jarman, Breakpoint and Beyond
Barry Carter
Since we still operate on second wave Industrial Age systems is there hope for us entering the Wisdom Age—the fourth wave in our life times? Yes, as Figure 12 shows the waves start slowly and overlap. Though we are still operating upon Industrial Age systems and are likely years from breakpoint to the Information Age, we have already begun the ascent up the Age Wave curve to the Wisdom Age. In addition, the waves have accelerated their pace. The Hunter Gatherer Age lasted tens of thousands of years. The Agricultural Age lasted about ten thousand years. The Industrial Age lasted only a couple hundred years. Today we see the Information Age and Wisdom Age moving at us at the same time starting only a couple of decades apart. In this book I, therefore, make little distinction between the third and fourth waves, because they both shift us from the Win/Lose Era to the Win-Win Era—both driven by intangible wealth.
The Need for Vision
The single most important thing required for a successful transition to an Information Age is a powerful vision of what is occurring and where we are going. Without a vision a successful transition shall be much more difficult and painful. What happens when you turn off the lights at night in your house? With no vision you stumble in the dark bumping into things and hurting yourself. In the transition from the Win/Lose Era the stumbles, bumps and pain come in the form of lost wealth, bankruptcy, death, destruction, terrorism, crime, corruption, social collapse and perhaps even a second dark ages. This is something that you and your family must avoid.
Our vision must be one of win-win and abundance enjoyed by an interconnected humanity. It must be a vision of knowledge-based wealth-creation, with responsible individuals who own and, therefore, are responsible for the wealth they create. It must be a vision of a Wisdom Age fueled with emotional and spiritual intelligence. It must be a vision of a new civilization that rests upon a foundation and structure of information technology, family, intelligence, individual freedom, personal responsibility and caring for others.
Since society will only begin to work well when there is a critical mass of the new systems in place, we must all, as individuals, be working on our “piece.” No longer can we blame politicians, welfare recipients, bureaucrats, managers, employees, oppressors, foreign competitors or cheap foreign labor. Today everyone is a leader. If we are not leading towards the new civilization then we are pulling against it. The absence of positive contribution to the new civilization is active resistance against it. There is no neutral ground. Where there is no passion, there is no love, and the absence of love is fear.
Today if we are not actively, passionately and lovingly working to build a win-win knowledge-based civilization, we are fiercely and automatically opposing it. The wait and see, go slow approach is a recipe for disaster. There are no objective observers and no middle ground. The following is a list of things that you can begin doing to create the win-win world and win big for yourself:
- If you are an employee begin making tangible plans to shift from the prostitution of your talents towards Mass Privatization and begin tapping your infinite potential thus creating the wealth you deserve. As the great Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “ a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent,” (King 1963, p31). You are worthy of more than being a cog in an Industrial Age machine. You are pure creativity able to create anything you desire and worthy of all of the material and non-material wealth of the universe (Chopra, 1993). Try Network Marketing, become a NeuroNet partner, let NeuroNet help you start your own Mass Privatization enterprise, start your own business. Help lead the greatest peaceful revolution is history, remembering, “a true leader is not the one with the most followers but one who creates the most leaders” (Walsch, 1997). Mass Privatization is about turning everyone into a leader creating Businesses without Bosses.
- If you get the Mass Privatization message pass it along. “ A true teacher is not the one with the most knowledge but the one who causes the most others to have knowledge.” (Walsch, 1997).” “When information flows cash flows,” and Mass Privatization is a knowledge flow system producing the Intelligent Enterprise.
- If you are already self-employed connect with others on the Internet and form into a networked organization of teamnets for leverage, synergy and increased wealth through The TeamNet Factor.
- If you are a small business owner restructure your baby bureaucracy into a Mass Privatization enterprise for leverage, synergy, creativity, customization, speed, growth and increased wealth. Produce The End of Bureaucracy and The Rise of the Intelligent Organization.
- Understand and perpetuate the role of information technology in liberating humanity and Building a Win-Win World.
- Learn computers, get on the Internet and begin networking producing The Death of Distance.
- Support progressive programs within organizations creating a Higher Standard of Leadership. Work to integrate and synthesize these programs towards Mass Privatization, creating Visionary Business as opposed to using the fad of the month approach.
- As a customer, demand quality, service, customization and speed from your suppliers creating The Accelerating Organization. Help push them beyond the capabilities of their control-based systems. Sometimes we change only through crisis.
- Develop your creative and intuitive abilities The Artist Way. Start by reading books on these subjects. (See the NeuroNet web page under reading list.)
- Expand your vision and thus your wisdom—make it 2020 Vision for Conscious Evolution. Learn to synthesize and think systemically. Start by reading books on these subjects. (See the NeuroNet web page under reading list.)
- Increase your emotional and spiritual intelligence using books, support groups, through teams and networks. Begin Putting Emotional Intelligence to Work. (See the NeuroNet web page under reading list.) Practice Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and move on to deeper material such as Thomas Riskas’ Working Beneath the Surface or Marianne Williamson’s Return to Love and many others. (See the NeuroNet web page under reading list.)
- Begin working where your passion is. Do What You Love and The Money Will Follow.
- Embrace diversity and understand how and why it is needed for mass customization, your growth and wealth. Join The Web of Inclusion.
- Improve your ability to empathize and see from others perspective. Understanding that empathy is the key to Mass Customization and meeting others’ needs and your wealth.
- Become a life-long learner. Read, Read, Read! Listen to audio tapes while you drive. Remember that knowledge today is wealth and directly convertible to dollars. As you begin working in Mass Privatization communities, the more knowledge you have to draw from the more wealth you can create in The Knowledge Economy.
- Support expanded social and economic freedoms at every opportunity with Liberation Management.
If you decide to voluntarily accept the challenge of leading the creation of a new win-win civilization beware.
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
—Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
Conclusion
Our social institutions are dying. The pain we feel is the pain of death and birth simultaneously, the death of one civilization and the birth of a new one. We have entered a period where the conservative, non-risk taker requiring stability has become the risk taker, the radical and the gambler. A period where the one who refuses to change will surely be the one who loses the most in the coming years. There is no going back to the way things used to be. “Back to the basics” is a failed policy. The future has already begun and the trend is clear.
Starting today you must have a completely new outlook on life. You must be responsible. You can no longer depend on employers, unions or governments to look out for your economic well being, to provide you with a job, retirement, social security, health care or a safety net.
From this day forward you, and your global network of partners, are responsible for creating work and wealth for yourself. If you have no network you have no security. All of the rules have changed. The guarantees and promises made to you by Industrial Age society are null and void and will be breached.
The government and controlled economies have no choice as the power bestowed upon them in the Industrial Age slips away to you the individual supplier and customer. Likewise you the individual supplier and customer have no choice as to whether or not to accept this responsibility. Mass victimization is no longer an option.
As most companies and employees are not seriously preparing, the number of companies which will fail to make the transition could be extremely high. And there likely will be no unemployment benefits, no Welfare and no Social Security safety nets to catch those who fall. Your network is your security. As we stand poised on the edge of the greatest advancement and growth boom in history, we may stumble. Many may lose life, fortune, standard of living and suffer tremendous hardship.
We, the individuals, are the only ones who can make the change. Our corporate and political leaders have neither the power, vision or intelligence needed to address the root causes. We, the people, must wake up from our Industrial Age sleep, which our factory style schools, jobs, and governing system have lulled us into. We must come out of our defined cubbyholes and take responsibility. Our leaders cannot do what needs to be done to correct our problems, for this responsibility lies not in their bureaus of specialty. It is not in their job descriptions.
Based upon history, real change usually only comes through crisis. The evidence shows that the crisis has begun. Tens of thousands are dead from the transition. We can possibly lessen or prevent the crisis if we align ourselves with the change. Today we have the technology, knowledge, power, ability, intelligence, and willingness to move faster towards win/win wealth-creation.
We must use intelligence to recognize what is occurring and move with the natural flow of things and with all deliberate speed. Either way, we will have to make the transition. Meandering along simply means that we shall pay a higher price in life, death, suffering, standard of living and debt for our children. Meandering also risks complete collapse and a possible dark millennium.
The universe does not guarantee our standard of living or our survival. Perhaps our ancestors had to meander during periods of social transition because there was little or no precedence, as well as little knowledge to use what precedence there was. We are fortunate because we can learn from their mistakes. As the late Carl Sagan said, “we see further because we stand on their shoulders.”
Getting aligned with the coming change will allow us to avoid the pain and prosper significantly. Let’s get on with it. Let’s stop the bleeding and start the fun, passion and living! This shall be the most fun and exciting time of our lives!
Copyright 2000 by Barry Carter
Next: Advanced Papers by Barry Carter
About Barry Carter.
Infinite Wealth is available at the author’s website, and can be purchased in bookstores everywhere including Amazon and Barnes & Nobel. There is also an abbreviated free online version.