Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

Leadership In The World Today II:

Webinar

Cowboy Cottage, East Napa, California, USA

July 13, 2017


"The one thing which I would say is most missing, and if provided would make the biggest difference in having a workable world, is if we had a breakthrough, a transformation in what it is to be a human being. And that's my whole story."
... 
answering the question "As you observe and assess the challenges of leadership in the world today, what one thing would you say is most missing - and if provided, would make the biggest difference to having a workable world?" during the "Leadership in the World Today" webinar, circa 2017
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained."
... Benjamin Franklin, circa 1730
"A coward verely neuer obteyned the loue of a faire lady."
... Desiderius Erasmus, Proverbs, circa 1545, originating the saying "Faint heart never won fair lady."
This essay, Leadership In The World Today II: Webinar, is the sequel to Leadership In The World Today.

It is also the prequel to Werner Is Coming To Stanford!.

I am indebted to Josh Cohen and to John Taylor and to Anne Peterson who contributed material for this conversation.


Oftentimes when I play big ie when I put out  big, it's to realize something great for myself. That's fueled wholly or in part by the old sayings "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" and / or "Faint heart never won fair lady.". Other times when I play big, it's to realize something great for my family (when I tell the truth about it, that's most of the time). Still other times when I play big, it's to realize something great for others. And you have to be big  enough and bold  enough ie you have to have brass  enough and be brilliant  enough to know it will  be great for others, even if they  don't (yet) know ... and  ... it's a rule of thumb if you realize something great for others, you also realize something great for yourself by default, even if realizing something great for yourself, wasn't your primary objective to begin with.

On Wednesday June 28, 2017 I invited two thousand people plus by e-mail, to Be with Werner in a rare worldwide event, the "Leadership in the World Today" webinar, which was scheduled to take place on Thursday July 13, 2017 from 12:00pm through 1:00pm CDT  (Central Daylight Time) (United States) which is also 6:00pm through 7:00pm BST  (British Summer Time) (United Kingdom). My intention was to have five hundred people or more from around the world, register to Be with Werner this way in virtual space. Why? Because I knew it would be great for them. And to be clear, my intention was this group of five hundred people or more, would participate as the total result of all  such invitations - not just mine (there were many others). Five hundred people, if you imagine them all together in one room, is a hefty sized group for such an occasion. I clearly  recall the first time Werner led an est  Training for five hundred people in San Jose, California, USA nearly forty years ago. At the time, it was hard to imagine such an enormous group gathering in one place for this purpose.

That said, by the time the webinar started, approximately one thousand three hundred people  had registered and were attending with Werner online worldwide - nearly three times  my expectation, coming close to but not eclipsing the enormous attendance of two thousand people at the "Big Bang" Landmark Forum in Bangkok, Thailand over the weekend of Friday through Sunday November 20 through 22, 2009.

<aside>

It's my intention we'll eclipse the "Big Bang" attendance of two thousand people in a webinar soon (and note the "Big Bang" attendance itself was eclipsed by the attendance at any one of Werner's earlier stadium events).

<un-aside>

I don't intend to give a blow-by-blow account of the webinar ie I'm not going to re-create it by transcribing it verbatim here. If you were in it, you already got it for yourself, so you know. What I'm going to do is distinguish Werner's speaking  in the matter of leadership in the world today. This  is my take-away from the webinar:

It's not so much what Werner speaks "to" which is valuable - that is to say, it's not so much what Werner speaks "about"  which is valuable (and make no mistake: what Werner speaks about, is valuable). Rather it's what (or where)  he speaks "from". He comes from (and so he brings forth) who he is / who we really are, in every syllable of every word he speaks. So it's just possible he could speak on any  topic, both those he's not expert at, as well as those he's expert at, and even in the case of the former, still create value for people, not because of what he knows ie not because of what he speaks about, but because of where he speaks from (yes I am  suggesting he could read the telephone directory and / or the dictionary to a webinar and, given where he comes from, it would produce extraordinary  value). And as we all know, "to" and "from" aren't interchangeable when it comes to speaking, so they especially  aren't interchangeable when it comes to speaking leadership.

"Speaking to  (ie about) leadership" and "speaking from  leadership" distinguish entirely different domains. This is the essential thing about the webinar as it laid the Leadership Course bare: it was Werner and Dr Michael Jensen speaking from leadership, and in so doing, generating being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership like a possibility. Initially (ie forty years ago) I was skeptical that this could be done. Over the decades, my skepticism has evaporated - like snowflakes in a furnace. Werner's speaking is  transformation, possibility, and leadership. Be with it, be with him, and listen him, then generate ie re-create for the world what you got for yourself - as often as you can for as long as you can while this priceless opportunity, like a sudden, discontiguous portal having spontaneously appeared in our midst, stays open presenting itself and remains readily and generously, unerringly  available.


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