Fans of Jan Phillips and her emphasis on enriching your life with imagination will be heartened to see that she is now carrying this mission into the business world where far too many CEOs and managers are focused only on the bottom line of profits with little regard for the well-being of people and the planet. In this book Phillips challenges movers and shakers in the corporate world to become thought leaders, "vocal agents of evolutionary thinking for global good." She presents a three-step process that involves releasing the past, embracing the present, and creating the future.
Phillips believes that originality is a practice that can be learned, or rather rediscovered, with the engines of attention and surrender. This kind of thinking moves beyond dualities and discovers the connections between people and the oneness of the entire human family. With many illustrations from artists and creative individuals in the corporate world, Phillips reveals how the practice of uniting the opposites makes for a synthesis that makes a difference. Another point she makes is that visionaries must be willing to embrace mysteries and not try to know everything:
"Mysticism is an experience of communion. It is an embodied awareness of oneness, an intuitive recognition that the whole is in all of the parts. If religion were intelligence, mysticism would be wisdom. If religion were the recipe, mysticism would be the meal. Mysticism is the outer brought inward. It is not the knowledge of something, but the experience of something."
Phillips makes a good case for this kind of spiritual intelligence and its role in creating a better world. She quotes philosopher Jacob Needleman who has written:
"No one person can answer the question of meaning in this world today. It is in thinking together, under the strong conditions of serious search, that a new understanding can be approached. Group communication, group pondering, is the real art form of our time."
Creativity can be dangerous, and tomorrow's thought leaders in the corporate world must not be afraid of venturing far from the shores. Phillips fans the flames of our yearning to make a difference in the world and to create a masterpiece with our lives. She agrees with the philosopher Beatrice Bruteau who said:
"We cannot wait for the world to turn, for times to change that we might change with them, for the revolution to come and carry us around to its new course. We are the future. We are the revolution."
