“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” Martin Luther King Jr.

What is the Positive Deviant site all about?

During times of Universal deceit telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell

My passion is to illuminate truth at the soul level, to inspire others to do the same, and to live a life without compromise to my own truth.

Specifically I work with and write articles, books and blogs that speak to Positive Deviants and PD companies--people and organisations who do not fit a traditional model, the non conformists, pioneers and renegades- those people and companies who are creating needed new pathways for our increasingly complex future with the highest intent and integrity to the whole-people and organisations who want to change the world for the better, in the biggest and smallest multidimensional ways. I also love working with people who aspire to be Positive Deviants-those of you that know you need to break out of the rut and embrace life differently.

Rather than create a site around a narrow topic, I chose purposefully to be more of a generalist and to speak to a small, unique and quite hard to find target audience. (You don’t go to the phone book to find the local chapter of Positive Deviants, at least not yet......you guys hang out in very diverse places, from the regular to the wild, scattered far and wide..thank god for the internet...otherwise I would never find you.) We have so many specialists out there on the planet, which is great, AND we do also need people who continually work to have the biggest most comprehensive view in the room. My work and my passion cannot be contained in a small niche box...I spontaneously find myself reading, learning and absorbing from so many different disciplines and so generalist I am, proudly. I suspect that many of you are too. And we all do have some specialities or unique skills..including the skill of always challenging the status quo.

In the interest of providing some structure, however, here are the broad categories that I will be writing about all with the Positive Deviant edge.

Guinea Pig C - this is the personal account of my journey, directly inspired and attributed to Buckminster Fuller’s life work, where he set about to demonstrate that an average man with no financial resources and a dependent wife and child, could provide for himself under a strict set of guidelines that included a refusal to do any work just for the money. Read more about this in his book Critical Path. Very inspirational, and completely courageous, especially given that he started on this path in the thick of the depression. For me, Guinea Pig C is an account of my journey of holding myself to my highest truth, not compromising my integrity on any level that I am aware of, operating under my own self disciplines, and literally demonstrating that doing our true work, without compromise, brings joy, love and money. Plus it adds value back to our world, and the people in it. A true win/win/win. (Our true work does not mean that we do not do tasks that we don’t enjoy-this isn’t the manifesto for selfish narcissism, sorry...rather that our work has gone from job to career to calling. Cleaning toilets and picking up after your dog poops keeps us human.) Read about my own guidelines and self disciplines here.

Brave New World- Under this domain I will talk about conscious business, new models of relationship, kosmic accounting, personal and global sustainability, integral theory, leadership for the 21st century, integral spirituality, and all other topics relating to the world we are moving to. I am constantly fascinated with the emergent models in both business and life. I will discuss these areas using real life experiences, grounded in as much practical application as possible. I don’t want this to be a theoretical sermon, rather an adventurous learning experience and place for discussion that adds value to you. I relish the discussion that comes from these articles. Please do comment.

Dare to Care-Radical Truth with Compassion. My work for the last 14 years has involved working with models of advanced communication, dialogue, relationship building, truth telling, conflict resolving. My skill has been with the profound conversations we have, or do not have and need to have, with ourselves and with others. I see the world suffering so much now largely because we do not have the social technology to speak up and create meaningful dialogue.

The World as Seen from my Running Shoes. Finally I am including a significant aspect of my life, which is my sport and my travel. I am an ultra-distance runner, a swimmer and a global nomad. I have often thought of writing about the world as seen from my running shoes. With my background in medical science, health and the physical body, and my years of disciplined running, I am bringing my depth of experience around health, sport, the intuitive dialogue between body and mind, into my writing. From age 11 until 27 I was a borderline anorexic/bulimic- body issues overshadowed everything I did to the extreme. After years of internal battle, I have had for many years a great relationship with my body and health, and can honestly say that as I am approaching my 49th year, I am in the best shape ever, in body, mind and spirit. I have found a great peace within the physical form, and my running is now a grand adventure that brings me so much joy.

Twice a week- I will be writing articles that fit these four categories, or may stretch across several of them. Sometimes I will write more, and every now and then I will have other global Positive Deviants contribute their articles. All of us will support the overall theme of challenging thinking, inspiring action and creating conscious change. You can follow along by RSS feed of this site, which will let you know when a new page has been added, email updates which offers advanced notice of events and services as well as some unique articles, plus a summary of the most recent four articles published, or by just checking in on the site.

Why Positive Deviant?

I have realised that I have never fit the usual mode of work and making an income. Making an income has always been a side effect of doing work that inspires me. "Following my Bliss" in Joseph Campbell's words, has been my main purpose. This is not the easiest path, however, I wouldn’t change it for anything. The people I have admired the most on the planet, living and past, have lead a life of uncompromising truth to their own unique code. People like Anita Roddick, Richard Branson, Buckminster Fuller (my number one guy), and companies like Google, Apple, Coolhunter. Yep..Positive Deviants all.

I now embrace the aspect of me that is the creative conscious entrepreneur, someone who undertakes tasks in a consciously creative way, deliberately evolving my own awareness and supporting the evolving awareness of the world around me in all that I do, in work and play. Part of this site is to show how diversity and creativity in the brave new world can work really well on every domain, including the traditional ones, like making a healthy income and having a wildly healthy life.

When I was looking to create this site, I thought long and hard about the name of the site...people who know me well responded with “of course” when they heard about the site name. Some of my friends who are very successful in business didn’t like the name at all. Too much association with deviance..which I completely understand. And that is OK. It is not for everyone, never was meant to be. You will know if it is for you. If you some have doubts, but are willing to keep an open mind and check out exactly my frame of reference for positive deviance, stick around...if not, I hope you find another voice that matches who you are in a better way than I provide here.

If this is a good place for you...I would love to hear from you.. so say hi by going here.

To read about the Characteristics of a PD, please click here. You will also find a fun mini assessment to determine if you are a PD.

Are you a Positive Deviant? Developing your Positive Deviant characteristics for yourself and/or your company? Find tools, services and articles that speak to your unique language here.

To subscribe to Positive Deviant's Dare to Care Email Newsletter-with;

*summaries of the last four articles published on this site..so you never miss one, and you can read the ones that are relevant to you..

*updates on what is happening in the world of Positive Deviance

*links to great sites and articles (we will save you time)

*occasional feature articles not available on this site

*advanced announcements about downloadable interviews with global PD's and other special offers

*news about what we are up to...

*plus...to obtain a special assessment, Personal Integrity Inventory, a powerful tool to support your own PD integrity....

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