Is Today Your Choice Point? Learn from Sir Richard Branson and Other World Leaders
What do Sir Richard Branson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Paul Mitchell founder John Paul DeJoria; bestselling author/speakers Jack Canfield, Gregg Braden, Barbara Marx Hubbard; three-time Nobel nominated Dr. Scilla Elworthy; philanthropist James Caan; former financial fund manager Alison Poithier; drug-addict-turned-addiction-counselor/life coach Brian Moran; 12-year-old natural food advocate BirkeBaehrand and myself have in common?
Each one of us faced a “Choice Point” in our lives–a seemingly negative life event or crises that proved to be an opportunity for change. Faced with this challenge, we each opted for something better…a choice that led us down the path toward serving the greater good on a large scale–and dramatically increased our satisfaction with our own lives.
Is today your Choice Point?
In physics, the term “Choice Point” indicates a place of branching or forking, a point of possibility. The point of transformation. Our lives are constantly creating Choice Points. Crises can either be devastating or transformational depending on what you’re able to learn from them. On another level, it can also be seen that our planet is at a Choice Point. Decisions and choices made by this generation and the next will have a huge impact on whether or not this planet will flourish or be devastated.
You have the chance to make a difference in the world. By Understanding Your World,Aligning Your Purpose and then Being the Change, you have the power to be one star in the galaxy, one piece of the brilliant puzzle that can improve our world with your ideas, your energy, your actions. But how do you get there? That’s what our movie Choice Point is all about–a movie you can watch free by going to http://www.choicepointmovement.com/movienow!
It features each of the people I mentioned at the beginning of this article, relating their Choice Point, and the wisdom they learned from the path they took. They offer this wisdom as a gift to you.
Let me give you one example of that wisdom: The people who have made a positive global impact and those who have made billions have a secret we can all learn. What is it? Patterns, global patterns!
In doing my own research while recovering from a life-threatening debilitating illness, I came across the idea of fractals both in nature and in time. These fractals had branching points where different possibilities exist, and I couldn’t help but to see a common pattern between physics and the science of fractals, and what happens in people’s lives. The branching of a fractal is the same thing as a Choice Point in someone’s life. If you could both identify a Choice Point and then also recognize where those possibilities go, you’re suddenly able to make much better choices which can have huge affects on your life. A major Choice Point is often recognized as a crisis, but you also get minor Choice Points, where you might just feel a bit uncomfortable and have a desire to do something different.
When interviewing world leaders for Choice Point and my previous film The Living Matrix, it became evident that these individuals each recognized and saw the patterns, and used their Choice Point to springboard them into a new level of success in life, one that involved much more than self-interest. It involved understanding their world and changing their perspective so that they could commit themselves to world betterment.
That’s something any one of us can do…whether we have money, power or presence–or none of those things!
Consider Birke Baehr… When he was six, Burke wanted to be a famous basketball player, but that all changed one day at the supermarket. He started reading the labels on the food and when he didn’t recognize the words, he began asking “Mom, what’s isopalminate fructose syrup?” His mom didn’t know what it was either, so he went home and looked up the words on the Internet. He was horrified! And the more he learned the worse it was. He ended up convincing his family to buy local organic food. And he decided he wanted to be an organic farmer, and to educate his generation about food and making healthy choices. He was featured on a TED-x video that got more than a million views on YouTube and now he’s being invited all over the world to spread his message.
Let’s take a look at Brett Moran’s story. Brett was a crack addict and armed robber who turned into a life coach. He had his Choice Point in jail while he was doing a drug deal. He was hiding heroine in the prison library behind some books when one fell out – The Art and Practice of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. He picked it up and took it back to his cell and read the book over the next few weeks. Something in it hit him. That was the start of his journey that led him to explore meditation and Buddhism over the next few years. His impetus to change was really his daughter whom he didn’t see when he was a drug addict. Fast forward to today. Now he’s an addiction specialist and life coach and has a fantastic relationship with his daughter who simply adores him. I’ve never seen such a strong father-daughter relationship; it’s really something quite special.
Now let’s look at the other extreme…those billionaires in our Choice Point Movie.
Richard Branson told me that eight years ago he came to a Choice Point of his own, when he decided to dedicate most of his time to working on global issues (non-profit ventures and programs vs. profit). For example, now all of the profits from his transportation businesses, including Virgin Air, go towards global warming issues AND he’s also been changing all of the fuel on his airlines to algae biofuel instead of petro jet fuel. After the interview, I really wanted to film him being involved in these projects directly. He sent me four of the projects he was working on and I got his schedule for the following six months. I’ve NEVER seen anything like it. He was flying everywhere and it was true! Most of his time was committed to these philanthropic projects rather than business. Whereas, I had assumed he mostly spent his time running his empire.
I then flew to Pakistan with James Caan, the successful British entrepreneur-turned-prominent-philanthropist. I witnessed first-hand the flood devastation that left 20 MILLION people homeless. You can see very vivid images in our Choice Point movie of the situation there.
James wasn’t just giving money, he had been flying out once a month for the past year using his entrepreneurial skills working with the people there–building villages, free schools, roads for the teachers and students to reach the schools, etc. In that moment, surrounded by these people, it struck me that the majority of the world’s population has really simple needs and people are incredibly appreciative when you help them. They take pride in carrying on building their villages and local economy, and need only a small hand up to get that started.
James takes along volunteers, and if more people knew that, they could volunteer and it would be great for them–AND the people they are helping. This was one of the seeds for Choice Point’s social network, so that we could help connect people who have skills to offer, with projects that need those skills.
As I began to explore how the world really works, I discovered two things…people who had a desire to drive change either had personal limiting beliefs and habits, or they lacked the ability to connect to the people and resources that could help them implement change. And with the Choice Point Movement, we set out to address both limitations.
Once people have seen the movie, they can then continue to learn from the leaders in the film by going to our website and joining up. There are a tremendous number of short videos with great wisdom from those people that individuals can access…the kind of advice that will help you break through limitations and barriers.
The second aspect of our social network is that it is committed to connecting people together. Do want to save the animals?…Or lobby for global warming change?…Whatever impassions you. Here’s the place to find people, share your ideas or build a team. It won’t be happenstance any longer, not just synchronicity and serendipity. We’ve built an engine where the right people will be able to find each other.
Now it’s only a matter of time before we can together shift our world!
