A.I.

In the Sci-Fi thriller ‘Transcendence’ Artificial Intelligence allows the main character to upload his mind to the internet where it lives on after his body dies. Through access to planet-wide computing power his abilities quickly multiply. However he slowly comes to realise that he has created a monster that threatens humanity. Urged by his surviving human consciousness and love for his wife, he himself introduces a virus that destroys everything he has made. He has eschewed immortality for human frailty. Appreciative Inquiry is a process whereby natural talents of a workforce are discovered and matched to organisational goals in ways defined by the workforce itself. This encourages buy-in at all levels as staff ‘bring their whole selves to work’. Cynics might dismiss AI as a new management tool to squeeze blood from a stone, or to get something for nothing by adding another burden to an already stretched workforce. Certainly it requires faith to abandon tough controls on business functions in favour of group designed processes in the hope that they can be more successful. Indeed employee suggestions can also seem counterintuitive and even foolish. Zimbabwean Ecologist Allan Savory, when tasked with halting desertification of the savannah, believed that he needed to cull elephant numbers to reduce foliage predation. He got it horribly wrong and only after thousands of elephants had died did he discover that desertification had accelerated. Counterintuitively it was by introducing herds of animals to almost barren land that he discovered the power of their combined action. Land lost to desertification was being restored to grassland. Allan Savory had to consider the much wider ecological system interactions and the natural intelligence of the herd. Most interestingly he discovered that the animal herds he introduced needed only minimal food from the land in order to start the regeneration process. Perhaps it is an unfortunate coincidence that the letters A.I. are used to denote both Artificial Intelligence and Appreciative Inquiry but it is clear that the optimum outcomes for humanity and our planet occur when we work together with nature rather than in opposition to it. When either species of A.I. is used to exploit resources for strictly financial gain the efforts are doomed to failure. Indeed, such efforts could lead to the failure of our own species.

Reset Switch

Many Years ago, when faced with a seemingly intractable problem, my manager would say – “Let’s go back to first principles”. After a while unpacking the details, and examining the situation from a simpler perspective, the knot most often unravelled itself. Later I became quite accustomed to ‘Turning it Off and On again’ as the first line of defence against machines with a mind of their own. Everyone knows the Reset Switch resolves most problems. The human race desperately needs to examine the state of our relationship to each other and the planet, from a first principles perspective, before we catastrophically sleepwalk into hitting the reset switch. While we might recoil from the idea of annihilation resulting from a throw of the ultimate reset switch, in an all – out thermonuclear war, we should recognise that we are daily resetting many of the sub-systems upon which continuation of our species depends. It’s like ‘death from a thousand cuts’. No one person can be blamed for the death of the individual, but there comes a point where untreated wounding will cause an unstoppable bleed-out. Whether the cause is fluoride contaminated water supplies, mandatory vaccinations, toxic agricultural methods, genetic engineering or ‘5G’ Internet of Things exposing us to microwave radiation at unprecedented levels, we are calmly accepting an exponential rise in autism, other neurological degeneration diseases, cancer, obesity / malnutrition, autoimmune diseases and infertility rates that collectively guarantee our demise. It’s time to wake up.

Paradise Incinerated

Today we waken to news that, the Californian town of Paradise has been consumed by forest fires. At this point, nine people are known to have died. Any loss of life is a tragedy but sadly we have grown steadily accustomed, even numbed, to news of such natural disasters. But if a clarion call for change was needed, surely this is it? The sunny West Coast of America has a beauty that undoubtedly convinced many settlers that they had indeed reached Paradise. Year round they were blessed with blue skies, dense forests, high mountains, fertile soil, rich wildlife and the stunning beauty of the Pacific coastline. Over the last hundred years however, increasing levels of exploitation have squeezed the life of this planet to the point where we are now at risk of extinction and suffering on a vast scale. The WWF estimate that there has been a 60% reduction in global wildlife over the last 50 years. Not only have we lost Paradise town, one of many to fall victim to natural disasters, but we are in very real danger of incinerating this paradise on which we live. At every level of our existence we are similarly destroying this paradise. Most commonly we are both overfed and malnourished leading to ‘Globesity’ and, hot on its heels, a massive increase in Type 2 diabetes. The poisoning of our environment has led directly to soaring cancer rates and profit driven agricultural practice is causing epidemic rates of autoimmune diseases. As the absurdity of the ‘Military Industrial Complex’ becomes obvious and indefensible, the ‘Agricultural Industrial Complex’ has quietly grown to become a major threat to our existence. High stress work and domestic environments are also disrupting family life. Why is it acceptable that a blissful relationship, within which children can be welcomed into the world, can be so pressurised that it disintegrates and that increasing rates of relationship failure become society’s norm? As a coach I am a strong proponent of change; to me change is a universal constant. I do however believe that we need to have a worthy goal to strive toward and that we must observe the Hippocratic oath – ‘First Do No Harm’. We apply this thinking not just to our fellow man, but to the whole of creation. Every action we take should be for the betterment of our world, not simply the satisfaction of avarice or lust for power. We need to integrate our goals for health in Body, Mind and Spirit so that we establish sustainable ways ‘to live and have our being’. I hope mine is not just another ‘voice crying in the wilderness’, not least because I don’t want my head served up on a platter. Rather, this is a call for pause, refection and reconciliation with our planet and fellow man. It is a call for appreciation of the beauty and abundance around us and for some joined up thinking about how to protect the diversity of life for generations to come.

Registering the Shift

Many years ago I studied communication systems and had a special interest in ‘Code Division Multiple Access’ (CDMA) techniques. They are in common use today but were once considered very exotic and first found use in deep space communications where a method was required to extract a wanted signal from beneath a background of noise. Now having retired from my engineering activities I understand the underlying principles of CDMA in a new way. CDMA systems use electronic ‘shift registers’ to generate unique codes. There are many different families of codes with different characteristics but a key quality is that only the given sequence of the code can be used to encode and/or extract the intended signal. Short length shift registers yield relatively simple codes that are more easily used. They work faster to encode/decode signals. Their benefits are speed and simplicity. Long length shift registers yield vastly more complex codes. They are harder to ‘crack’ but more effective for encoding signals that can then be ‘hidden’ and later extracted from below the noise floor. Their benefits are uniqueness, diversity and security but they are much slower to use. We humans have unique contributions to make to the planet. Our lives are like one big shift register with each year adding an extra stage and corresponding complexity. When we’re young we’re faster, simpler and more easily used. When we’re older we can extract deeper meaning from within life’s noise. We’re slower but more certain; our complexity is a real advantage. For signal extraction to be possible the receiver seeks correlation between the incoming signal and a locally generated replica. We ‘slide’ the replica signal over the incoming one until we detect a match, which allows us to ‘lock on’ after which we stop ‘sliding’ with the local code and the encoded signal can now be extracted. The longer the cycle the more difficult the process but the greater the ability to uncover hidden signals. A similar process is at play in coaching. Here we want to assist clients searching for their unique role in life. It may begin with a gnawing sensation of lack of fulfilment, that their true purpose is hidden beneath the noise of everyday life. When they learn what their true desires are and what unique gifts they can bring to bear, they may ‘slide’ through a few possibilities before their lock is picked and their deeper life unfolds. Clients generate the ‘codes’ that they use to check for matches. Younger clients, with ‘shorter sequence codes’, may zero in quite quickly while older clients may take a little longer. CDMA receivers allow for fast acquisition, a kind of ‘course tuning’ after which a longer sequence code can be applied and deeper meaning extracted. A coaching equivalent might be where a client has worked with a coach over a longer period, initially working on tangible and readily accessible outcomes, but later, within an established coaching relationship, developing to investigate deeper life issues. With older clients, more deeply immersed in established habits, a coarse tuning might be a ‘quick win’ change, which emboldens them to seek greater purpose. Once upon a time CDMA technology captivated my attention and now I relate to it in a very different way. It is one of many engineering metaphors describing the deeper communication that life offers us. I am blessed to register this shift in perception of shift registers. May it prove useful for unlocking true purpose.

Turnover

Billions of cells are replaced in the body each day. The quality of the food we eat determines how healthy these new cells are – do they have the right amounts of amino acids and healthy fats to optimise them for their function? When we choose to eat highly processed foods without consideration of their nutritional quality, we are in danger of becoming obese caricatures of humanity – overfed and undernourished. Economists, when considering the most cost-effective time to address environmental problems, introduced the terms ‘time-preference’ and ‘discounting the future’. They believe that, in a market-driven society, choosing when to own something is as important as choosing what to own. Plastic trays of food, wrapped in cling film, are cheap to produce and are quickly thrown in the supermarket trolley. Maybe 50 years later a seabird chokes on a lump of plastic discarded when it seemed preferable to discount the future, so that convenience foods have become convenience lives. In a bizarre game of musical chairs, where the rate of species loss is accelerating, we continue to ‘shit our nest’ believing we will be the winners when the music of Wall Street stops. Nature has no waste. The only species of wasters on this planet are human. Millions of people die around the planet each year and millions of infants are born to replace them. Sadly, our poisoned commons has degraded the environment so that optimum nutrition, both physically and spiritually, is increasingly difficult to find. Discounting the future has produced generations of dog-eat-dog consumers clutching I-Phones from 18 months and believing that a Ronald McDonald ‘Happy Meal’ will satisfy our needs. It seems that, as we’ve been hurtling down the road to hell, we missed the turn off to sanity. From the start we called ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’ MAD yet somehow we’ve convinced ourselves we’re too clever to destroy ourselves because so far we’ve avoided thermonuclear war. Death is death irrespective of which horseman delivers it. Let’s awaken from this nightmare and return to love. We can replace our greed with a child-feed-child innocence. Let us honour the diversity of nature and expand our curiosity as we explore a science of synergy rather than exploitation. Let’s ensure that humankind evolves by having cosmic consciousness direct our choices toward a right use of resources. Healthy living is a holistic choice. We must have spiritual awareness and be mentally healthy in order to make good physical choices. Billions of cells must continue to change and a healthy turnover is part of the human condition. But as older generations pass on the baton to the young, it’s only fair that we also leave them a track to run on.

Biodefense Strategy

Yesterday Donald Trump announced the formation of a US Biodefense Strategy unit to mark the 17th anniversary of the Anthrax attacks. So instead of working toward the elimination of such materials we can expect a vast expansion as the DoD engages in modernising its stockpiles of biological weapons. In an era of ever restrictive funding for public health programmes and national infrastructure the Trump administration finds another way of spending billions of dollars on unusable weapons of megadeath. – Wot? One of the hallmarks of cancer is its ability to hide from the body’s immune system so protecting tumour cells from attack. Natural methods of weakening tumour defences concentrate on breaking down their protective films. We often find that the same protease enzymes employed for digesting meat are redeployed to attack the tumour. The body has its own, very effective, biodefence strategy. To activate it requires that we pay attention to the nutrients we ingest – both to weaken the cancer, or other pathology, and also to bolster the immune system. Although the human immune system has evolved perfectly to cope with all threats, today’s environment places unprecedented stresses on it such that we now need to make conscious efforts to change our circumstances. The trajectory of our ‘autopilot living’ is taking us where we’d rather not go. Naturopathic doctors, Chiropractors and Functional Medicine practitioners have great respect for the healing potential of the human body. Like Voltaire they know that ‘The physician’s role is to keep the patient amused while the body heals itself’. They have a very active role in helping the patient to create the optimum conditions for healing. The healing journey begins as soon as the causative factors of a patient’s illness are removed. A Health Coach can assist healing by raising client confidence and helping them break down their challenges into manageable steps. – The hardest thing any of us do is to break the habits of a lifetime. With each successful change a client introduces their destination no longer looks so unachievable and their health steadily improves. So too in the wider arena of international affairs, the seemingly intractable can be satisfactorily resolved, and tensions reduced, where there is a will to do so. Aggressive posturing, such as with the introduction of a ‘biodefence strategy’, is not the way to reduce world tensions. Nor is the building of walls between nations, either physically or through raising trade tariffs. At least two things need to happen – • We need to dismantle the defence of an unsatisfactory status quo whose purpose is to raise fear and mistrust among peoples so that real democratic values can be restored and the cancerous growth of the Military Industrial Complex in all nations can be halted. • We must respect and protect the natural environment from the ravages of commercial exploitation so that the planet can heal from decades of unsustainable overuse and a poisoning of the commons – everything from oceans of plastic waste and subsea oil slicks to polluted air and water. It’s time for people of awaked consciousness to heed Voltaire’s words so that we can keep the world’s populations amused, through cultural appreciation, shared endeavour and respect for nature, while our planet heals itself. We will then understand that paradise is already here and awaiting our protection.

A House Divided

In the Gospel story of St Matthew (12:26) a group bring a blind man to Jesus, who heals him. The Pharisees attempt to put him down by saying he can only drive out demons because Beelzebul allows it. Jesus asks them this simple question to make it clear that he is working from a completely different level – ‘If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?’ During my childhood I heard this scripture many times and today I relate to it differently. Some weeks ago I heard the story again and the thought that immediately came to mind was the futility, even evil, of conventional chemotherapy. Our standard of treatment is based on the premise that we can poison and drive out the evil cancer before it kills you. The agents used are carcinogenic of themselves and so dangerous that staff administrating the chemicals are protectively dressed. There has to be a better way, a non-toxic alternative. It turns out there isn’t just one, there are many, but medical practice is slow to change and there is also an enormous inertia in the system that produces large profits for the pharmaceutical industries. Indeed, the measures taken to defend the status quo are very similar to the defensive strategies employed by cancer tumours themselves to avoid detection and attack from a vigilant immune system. Later I found myself reflecting on Donald Trump’s election cry to ‘Drain the Swamp’ in Washington. So what has happened since his election? The corporate players of the oil industry have entered government so that Trump, and the Republican Party in general, continue to deny the threat of global warming and back out of negotiated treaties of the previous administration. (Not that Obama’s time in office has done anything to make the world a safer place) The banksters too, whose greed orchestrated the last great recession, were criticized on the campaign trail only to have several senior appointments of Trump’s administration filled from Goldman Sachs. Trump is certainly controversial and his administration, if not the entire country is divided against itself. Greedy corporations are determined to continue profiting from wanton destruction, until our world is uninhabitable. This is very similar to the strategy employed by the cancer tumour shielding itself from attack. It will greedily consume resources until its host dies. As we plot a course for enduring health we must also ensure that our house is not divided against itself. We must adopt lifestyle practices that unify Body, Mind and Spirit so that we can develop holistically and in sustainable harmony with our societies, countries and planet. So what are your goals? How do they reinforce each other - personally, in your family and community? What will you do today to begin this journey to Holistic Health?

Race For Life

Around the World millions of women are donning their pink T shirts and campaigning tirelessly to raise funds for Cancer Research. They do so in the belief that this scourge on humanity can be ended and the cure found just around the corner. It’s a cynical exploitation by those who know the cure’s already here, hidden in plain sight, but whose clever research and medical magic misdirects us to look for cures where they cannot be found. They’re grateful for the efforts of the pink armies because their research still needs to be paid for. Venture Capitalists weigh up investment propositions to determine their most profitable opportunities. If they thought for a moment they could patent a cancer-busting drug, they’d be queuing up to support it through to market introduction. However, the cancer industry works a little differently. The big players have a cosy scam going and aren’t interested in sharing the pie – except on their terms. Visionaries like Dr Maxwell Gerson, Rene Caisse, Otto Warburg (Nobel Prize-winner in 1931) and modern day Stanislav Burzynsky etc are hounded to sell out their ideas or, like Otto Warburg, are studiously ignored. The end result is that the status quo is protected. Cancer industry profits grow as ordinary people die – about 1600 per day in the USA and thousands more around the world. Just as supermarkets are influenced by what their customers buy, causing unpopular brands to lose their shelf space, when we as a public stop buying into the idea that a cancer diagnosis is a death sentence and demand access to non-toxic treatments, current oncological practice will be forced to change. When Warburg identified the mechanism by which cancer cells feed on glucose it immediately suggested that a diet containing minimal carbohydrates would cause healthy cells to switch over to burning ketones (from healthy fats) causing cancer cells to starve. Similarly, when the population at large appreciate that our environment and lifestyle are the major arbiter of health, fewer of us will get cancer and the cancer industry machine will start to disintegrate. Such a scenario would be inevitable were it not for the defences of the cancer industry itself. One of the hallmarks of cancer is its ability to protect itself from the immune system. The proteolytic enzymes that help us digest meat can instead eat away tumour defences rendering them visible and vulnerable to attack from strong immune systems. The parallel defence of the cancer industry is to misdirect and mislead populations and even to use instruments of state, police and FDA SWAT teams in the US, to strengthen their stranglehold on oncological practice. If only enough of the population could awaken to the simplicity of health protection measures we could both dramatically reduce the incidence of cancer and improve the prognoses for the newly diagnosed. Campaigns to quell dissent and perpetuate the status quo are well funded. Cancer charities have even signed up a volunteer army to provide an effective fifth column against health development. They have locked in public opinion around the status quo so that Functional Medicine practitioners, Naturopaths and Nutritionists, who would end the charade, are viewed with suspicion or denigrated as quacks. It may take some time, but I look forward to the day when Race For Life events will involve thousands of activists wearing green T-shirts and raising money for organic vegetables, for juicing festivals and to cover the costs of their local community gardens.

Business Chiropractic

Until a few years ago I knew nothing about chiropractic and in my ignorance, like most of the population, I thought it the practice of quackery. But ten years ago I was recovering from surgery (most excellently conducted by the UK NHS), and discovered that conventional medicine had no explanation for my illness and no suggestions about how to avoid it happening again. It took me a year to understand that my lifestyle was the culprit and that I’d brought it on myself. I’m not good with pain so I decided it made more sense to protect my health than to manage illness. Deciding to change lifestyle was probably the best decision of my adult life. More recently, and before the election of Donald Trump, I realised that the world was in serious trouble and that the unchecked march of corporate expansion was largely responsible. The comparisons between my personal ignorance of healthy living and current standards of business life are striking. But having earned a painful hospital experience through my negligence, I’ve come to believe that a holistic approach to health makes sense in both personal and business life. Since conventional business methods, and support services, are so similar to standard practice in our ‘sick-care system’, and with equally ineffective outcomes for chronic illness, then perhaps we need to develop a new way of thinking that is concerned about overall business health. We need a complete reassessment of business practice that aims to optimise health rather than continue with the current truly unsustainable model. We need a Holistic solution. We need ‘Business Chiropractic’. Entering a hospital today presents visitors with a bewildering choice of departments that serve to segment the body into ‘problem areas’ requiring their own specialists. It’s a Frankenstein approach that fails to provide the life spark or to understand the body as a complex system. This approach spawns opportunities for often competing perspectives, unnecessary and ineffective surgical procedures and long medication lists to treat diseases rather than curing them. In modern medicine, ‘science’ trumps healing. In the business world a similar approach prevails. Many parasitic types of organisations have embedded themselves in the corporate psyche as indispensable support specialisms. Deciding how best to meet an organisation’s needs is a non-trivial leadership task but there is a danger of such deliberation detracting from the central purpose of an organisation. – What need does the organisation exist to meet? What are its core values? What cultural values are held by its staff? Supporting departments, even if outsourced, need always be a secondary consideration to a firm’s leadership. Here the firm’s CEO is more accurately considered to be the Chief Cultural Officer (CCO). His of her primary task is to nurture the creative culture both internally and externally and to underscore the purpose for which the organisation exists. This sends a clear message through the organisation and empowers local managers and their staff to buy into the vision or depart. Such an environment facilitates decision making as all departments share a common vision. Decisions are made for the health of the whole rather than the aggrandisement of individuals or fiefdoms. The Servant Leader models the behaviour expected of employees and replaces traditional command and control structures with decentralised decision making where staff can display the organisation’s sense of purpose. The Business Chiropractor of the 21st century helps the organisation’s leadership to establish the environment for optimum health. He or she engages the organisation in achieving a sustainable ‘Triple P Bottom Line’ that honours People, Planet and Profit and thereby encourages staff to increase discretionary effort in the service of their communities. Who are the key figures in your organisation that could benefit from such Chiropractic Adjustment?

Food Chain

We all intuitively understand the meaning of this phrase – big fish eat smaller fish and bigger fish eat them. It’s the natural order of things and over millions of years it has produced a balanced ecology and a multitude of creatures with ever more elaborate means of evasion and defence. Now in the 21st century, modern agricultural methods have all but destroyed this balance to the point where we now consider our distortions as normal and even desirable. Our arable lands are ravaged by monocultures requiring inordinate amounts of fertilisers and pesticides to sustain them and CAFOs produce our meat and poultry in conditions so vile that operations are largely conducted in secret. There is nothing natural about this food chain; it is doomed to failure. There is also a danger that we use our man-made thinking, rather than nature, as the template for our business affairs. Digestion is one of the most energy intensive operations in the body. It takes high levels of energy to create the digestive acids in the stomach, which in part explains why indigestion and heartburn are mostly ailments affecting older adults. We had a saying in our home – ‘Your eyes are bigger than your belly’ and we’re all familiar with the idea that we can ‘bite off more than we can chew’. These sayings vividly describe our tendency to overreach by relating it to physical discomfort. Certainly, many of our chronic illnesses are caused by what, when, how much and how quickly we eat our food. The habits we adopt as children can last a lifetime and, all too often, that lifetime is shortened as a result. Learning to eat slowly, modestly, even mindfully, giving thanks for the abundance, richness and providence of what’s before us prevents us from overeating and greatly improves our digestion. It’s also easier to digest real food rather than edible products formulated for addiction. Poor eating habits often result in indigestion, which has given rise to a variety of remedies, most of which bring instant relief but actually exacerbate the problem. Instead of reducing acid production through the use of Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI’s) medications we actually need to strengthen our stomach acid. It is fermentation of improperly rendered foodstuffs, caused by weak acid, that produces excess gases, which then escape up through the alimentary canal and cause pain. Corporate takeovers, whether welcome or hostile, often flounder due to cultural mismatch. A boardroom idea, with seemingly faultless logic, fails to win the support of those affected. The head of the organisation has made the decision but the heart has not been consulted. Boardroom predictions of enhanced efficiencies through economies of scale, and attendant redundancies, result in overworked and disgruntled remainers. Companies with such callous disregard for their employees are treating staff like CAFO livestock. Instead of feedstuff antibiotics, staff are fed cash mollifiers and short-term incentives to win their support and stop the risk of ‘leaver infection’. But those who can leave usually do and the problem worsens. Contrast this with business development that follows a natural, organic evolution. Groups of people with a shared interest combine their efforts in mutually supportive ways for the benefit of their communities. Occasionally new ventures emerge to meet a need and staff join friends in adjoining businesses in a symbiotic relationship benefitting all and expanding capability. Enthusiastic staff engage in upskilling activities constantly preparing to meet future opportunities. Such organisations attract talented professionals with youthful attitudes that accommodate divergent opinions. In these high energy environments existing teams break up and new teams readily form. This is business as it should be. Some years ago it was mandated, by lenders, that small start-up operations take out ‘Personal Protection Insurance’ (another PPI) almost in anticipation of (stress induced) failure of its principals. It’s a sick system indeed where another tax is imposed on start-ups to serve lenders at the top; rather like taking an antacid remedy before a meal. But it’s a healthy system where the food chain promotes natural growth of evolutionary ideas that serve all.

Functional Business

The move toward root-cause resolution of medical problems is fuelling the growth of Functional Medicine. At last we are returning to a common sense approach to healthy living, where when we nurture a supportive environment the body naturally heals itself. Functional medicine is about promoting health rather than treating disease. It’s a short step to appreciate that the same philosophy will hold true in every other sector of our lives. By creating supportive environments we nurture healthy families, healthy communities and healthy businesses. In fact, they grow as a natural response. For many people this is a metaphor too far. They are unable to accept a linkage of ideas and focus instead on dissection and component analysis. Our entire education system is based around individuation, distinction, and us and them tribalism. This leads to excessive competition instead of collaboration, of winners and losers in a ‘might is right’ exploitation of world resources. Enough already! Mankind has reached ’11:57’. Our very survival as a species requires that we now realise our interdependence with nature and that we realign our lifestyles accordingly. There is a danger that single elements will consider their situation unique and independent of the bigger system. By doing so we avoid the opportunity to revise our practice and look systemically at the best outcomes for all. Instead, it is now essential that we redesign our business practices around sustainability and true systemic interconnection. Heretofore our attention has been drawn to how to ‘play the business game’ with a hideous ‘He who dies with the most toys wins’ mentality. It may yet be possible to avert disaster by restructuring our business objectives around sustainable practice and nurturing community. We must now find a grown up way of ‘sharing the sandpit’ that puts a smile on everyone’s face. As always, I revert to the healthy human body as a template for holistic health and systemic healing. I offer the concept of ‘Functional Business’ as the means by which we will achieve healthy wealth generation that benefits entire communities rather than simply swelling the pockets of shareholders. It is important to avoid the traditional political labels that might be applied to such ideas. They tend to polarise and divide people around prejudicial bias rather than encouraging full participation in building our shared future. The intention now is business health promotion. It is a departure from the conventional target of profit maximisation. It is also a departure from a mechanistic perspective of departmental activities that work as do so many medical specialists, whose learning is increasingly focussed until they know everything about nothing. Instead the ‘Triple Bottom Line’, espoused by John Elkington and others, now takes precedence and success is measured in terms of the wellbeing, not only of our businesses, but of our societies, wider humanity and of the planet as a whole.

Deep State

Much is written about who really pulls the strings of politicians around the world, what’s really behind the many terrorist attacks and seemingly endless wars that plague humanity. When I first started to pay attention to such events I realised this was a very deep and labyrinthine rabbit hole and that to avoid the many false paths and dead ends I’d need an experienced guide. A friend told me to simply ‘follow the money’ for enlightenment. I’ve come to understand this as a reliable way to shine light into some very dark and smelly places. Of immediate application to personal health ‘following the money’ allows us to better evaluate the treatment options available Vs investing effort in health protection and disease prevention. The much revered National Health Service in the UK has become a bureaucratic behemoth that needs people to be sick in order to justify its own existence. There’s actually no incentive for the NHS to be truly focussed on health. Rather, it is a national sickness management service. At a cost of billions of pounds the nation’s biggest employer is superbly equipped to provide point of need care to anyone in distress. To me the sad part of this is that illness is allowed to progress to the point where millions of us are prematurely and chronically distressed. The NHS Emergency services are second to none, and undoubtedly saved my own life in 2008, but even after my surgery and hospitalisation there was little interest in identifying the cause of the illness or of educating me to avoid it happening again. I thought my lifestyle was healthy(ish) but when my illness struck hard I was forced to reassess several hallowed truths of conventional medicine. Following the money reveals an uncomfortable perspective, which was summed up succinctly by Upton Sinclair – ‘It’s hard to understand something when your livelihood depends on your not understanding it’ When the human genome was mapped, scientists discovered that we had many fewer genes than would allow for one-to-one coding for the vast range of proteins required in the body. This discovery ought to have given pause to continued research into the genes at fault for the genesis of disease – with the vain promise that a pill can be patented to offer individualised relief to sufferers. Several years later researchers understand that human genetic material is dwarfed by the genes of the symbiotic bacteria of the microbiome. In a very real sense we each carry a Deep State within us that truly determines our health. The nutritional content of our food and lifestyle has an immediate impact on the health and balance of this microbiome so that by active engagement we can promote health. There are many researchers who understand the power of nutrition for the treatment of disease but their voice will not be heard by our hierarchy of medical fascism that dogmatically refuses to give credence to this simple truth. – Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas! It is much easier to continue to demand ever more resources for the NHS than to change its direction of travel. It’s more profitable to continue mopping up the floor than to turn off the taps that cause the sink to overflow. So we may question Deep State involvement in the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King. We may explore the truth behind the 9/11 attacks and endless Middle East wars. We may allow myths to be perpetuated about the efficacy of cholesterol lowering drugs in preventing heart attack or the absurdity of chemotherapy to treat cancer. Whatever the truth behind these veils of illusion we must acknowledge that by attending to our own Deep State contribution – nurturing the health of our microbiome, we can materially protect our health. The ripples from this change of direction and acceptance of personal responsibility for the mess we’re in will protect our families, our communities, our countries and our planet.

The Emperor has no clothes

It’s heart-wrenching to learn of a sudden life-threatening illness in a close friend and understandably one is torn when wondering what to do. Should you rush to his hospital bed? Would he be weakened or strengthened by your visit? This weekend past I learned of a young man’s sudden diagnosis of metastatic cancer. Just weeks ago he appeared in the best of health and he went on holiday with his friends. All are shocked at the suddenness and severity of his illness. The conventional oncology team have started their treatments in an attempt to slow his deterioration but are not optimistic about the outcome. Such situations are very difficult for everyone involved and especially frustrating for Health Coaches and Naturopathic doctors whose non-toxic recommendations might prove more effective. They certainly honour the Hippocratic Oath to ‘First Do No Harm’. Perhaps it’s because natural methods pose too great a challenge to conventional oncological dogma that they are ignored, ridiculed and derided by those who are supposed to know what to do but whose efforts are failing. In a situation where the ‘professionals’ have abandoned hope surely their patient’s best interests are served by seeking a second opinion? Yet too often the entrenched position of the white coat and stethoscope brigade displays a shocking arrogance. It’s like they think what they don’t know isn’t worth knowing. Sadly it’s a familiar story in the longest war fought in modern times – President Nixon’s war on cancer. But he may as well have declared bonanza for pharmaceutical interests who will wantonly spend billions of dollars pursuing patentable remedies to profitably treat rather than cure disease. Their genome research science is bewilderingly complicated to the layman who accedes to their superior knowledge but the situation is crying for someone to call them out – the emperor has no clothes! How many millions of lives have to end prematurely to protect their crumbling edifice? Corporate greed demands that they continue to search for a magic-pill solution where it will never be found. One day, hopefully very soon, we will look back at today’s oncological practice with the same incredulity with which we regard leeching in the middle ages. In the meantime our young friend is suffering greatly and it seems only a miracle can save him. Amen, so be it. Let us call with confidence for this miracle, this change of perception, that will lead to the best outcome for mankind; perhaps even to an end to this contrived war on cancer.

Good People

I have the great good fortune of living in the Co Down village of Castlewellan. It is a beautiful town nestled in the Mournes where walkers have come for generations to commune with nature. As I walked into town yesterday morning I was struck by the realisation that we are blessed with a disproportionately high number of good people. They nod, greet you with a smile or a joke so that complete strangers seem like friends. In Castlewellan I’ve never met a bad person. I then tried to recall if I’d ever met a bad one, not only in Castlewellan but anywhere. No I haven’t; how strange! Good people have guided me through my darkest moments, surgically intervened to save my life, shared their experiences of life to support me and still persist in bringing me joy, laughter and the best of music. What did I do to deserve such good neighbours? Nothing at all. Each of us has an innate intelligence that recognises the perfection in others and drives us to be our best selves, thereby building healthy communities. Around the world various conflicts and tensions suggest others are having a torrid time; so what’s the difference? I suspect that vested interests, power and greed are used to distract people from experiencing their true nature. At heart all of us want to live in a clean, peaceful and prosperous world. As a coach I want to help us achieve it, both as individuals and also at business and societal levels. There are limitless excuses used to defend entrenched positions that prolong conflict. All of us are masters of the very human trend to blame someone else, their personalities, business ethics or their societies for everything that’s going wrong in our lives or the world. Only a few brave souls successfully undertake the recovery journey that demands that we take a full moral inventory of our lives. No one escapes the dreaded AFLO (Another F………. Learning Opportunity) but we can embrace the opportunities they bring and grow Better rather than Bitter. It’s perhaps through habitualising reflective practice that we grow in tolerance and diminish in judgement. That vastly improves our chances of only encountering Good People

Capitalism as a Metabolic Disease

Since I was a child I was told to be grateful that I was born in the West and into a peaceful country. Here in the West, Capitalism allowed people to be free, to pursue their dreams, ‘to make it’. I dutifully engaged on the well trodden path of gathering stuff to attract a mate and to pass on my genes. So far so predictable; what made the worm turn? Ten years ago I lay seriously ill in hospital. Late one night a supply nurse I had not seen before or since, conducted her checks, read my chart and then asked me - ‘Have you worked out why you were spared?’. Clearly I had not and my life since has been anything but predictable. Richard Rohr talks about life in two halves – the acquisitional phase and the purposeful phase. The purpose of the first is to prepare us for the second, but often a life-changing event must detach us from the former so that we can make the shift. Part of my shift is to appreciate the gift of life more fully. I want to help humanity to thrive rather than just survive and from the time I left my hospital bed I have been asking ‘What would happen in a perfectly healthy body?’ Whether considering personal, societal or corporate health the question is the same. My underlying premise being ‘If every cell in the body is healthy then the body must be healthy’. Which political world view would best support the healthy body of humanity? Judging from the level of conflict in the world humanity has not yet found the answer. What we see is chronic inflammation manifest as political tensions, extreme inequality and conflict. We are in crisis and rapidly approaching change but as Richard Rohr sees it, the transition may be painful. Researcher Thomas Seyfried has dedicated his life to the exploration of cancer as a Metabolic Disease. He has continued the journey begun by Nobel Prizewinner Otto Warburg with his observation of how cancerous cells adopt fermentation as their primary method of energy generation. This is thought to be a primitive survival strategy to which cells revert when their environment has made normal cellular respiration too difficult. One downside is that the inefficient fermentation process requires some 18 times more glucose than normal respiration to create the same amount of energy so that as the cancer grows the rest of the body is starved. Is this what’s happening societally? My school biology lessons listed growth as one of the defining features of life. But it was well understood that in a mature creature growth meant cellular replenishment, not the constant scrabbling to maximise quarterly profits while wantonly wasting the planet’s resources. Seyfried’s research has promoted the Ketogenic Diet as a key element of a strategy for recovery from cancer. Cancer cells are less adaptable than normal cells and cannot burn fat for energy. A diet rich in healthy fats starves and greatly weakens cancer cells. Perhaps we similarly need to reign in our destructive capitalist model by expanding its goals beyond Profit to also include People and Planet in a ‘Triple Bottom Line’ as espoused by Elkington and others? Our destructive aberration of capitalism has no interest in genuine human and societal growth. If we were to place as much emphasis on People and Planet as we do on Profit then the current model, of rampant exploitation for maximum monetary profit, would be starved and weakened and would eventually run aground. We could change the economic environment so that the current paradigm would eventually disappear. Paradoxically, such a system provides the best chance for the survival of humanity.

Rabbit Hole

After my own hospitalisation in 2008 I wondered why I’d fallen ill. All my life I’d had a varied exercise regime. Although I was never at competition level I kept myself reasonably fit through running, swimming and cycling. But when it came to eating, I simply didn’t have a clue. As it turns out, neither did the hospital consultants. They did a wonderful job of saving my life. The professionalism of the entire hospital staff was exemplary but it was after my discharge that my GP gave me the clue I needed. According to the guidelines my blood chemistry indicated that I needed statins, which she offered me. Initially I thought I’d need them for a couple of weeks like a course of antibiotics but when she told me this was for life I felt trapped and implored her ‘There must be a better way?’ ‘There is’ she told me ‘but it’s too difficult for most people and they prefer to take the pills’. She went on to explain the lifestyle overhaul I would need and was surprised when I chose to engage with it. Several months later my blood tests told a very different story and she told me ‘Whatever it is you’re doing, keep doing it. It’s working better than any drug I can prescribe for you’. Naturally I was delighted and asked if I could quote her. She gave me an emphatic NO. My journey down the rabbit hole had begun. In the ten years since my operations I have explored many aspects of a healthy lifestyle and I am constructing my own jigsaw from my findings. Today I recognise my hospitalisation as a gift, summarised in the modern day beatitude – ‘Blessed are the broken, they let the light in’. My engineering training has proven very useful. It demands an enquiring mind and is biased toward practical applications of theory to find solutions for problems. Unlike in modern medicine, dogma is discouraged. I’ve come to appreciate the freedom of thought engineering has given me. Sometimes the concept of a Health Coach baffles people – ‘What do you know about health? You’re not even a doctor’. ‘Thank God I’m not a doctor, I’ve less unlearning to do’. One can too easily become transfixed with all the problems facing our world and environment. I believe that this in itself can so affect us emotionally that we become chronically depressed and bring disease upon ourselves. When people ask me ‘Are you not worried about …..?’ I now respond ‘I worry about nothing but I’m concerned and will explore it further’. From a place of worry we become ineffective. But with a healthy concern for Public and Planetary Health we become avid researchers, educators and motivated campaigners. Many times I have been labelled ‘Stuck in the mud’ or branded ‘Anti-technology or anti-progress’. This is plain wrong. Mankind is hugely innovative and engineering is a wonderful career but along the way we’ve mistakenly exchanged the thrill of discovery for the imperative of commercialisation. When the love of money is our primary motive we are undone. Instead we must now use our unparalleled scientific knowledge and capabilities to understand natural processes and systems so that we bring our way of life into harmony with nature and clean up the planet we have trashed for too long. I love the rabbit hole I’ve discovered and I’ve met many likeminded explorers. By helping people recover their health and understand how to protect it, we will bring about a transformation in our thinking that protects our planet for future generations.

Benevolent Dictator

I can’t ever remember hearing of a dictatorship that worked for the benefit of the people. Things certainly didn’t go right under the communist regimes of Joseph Stalin or Nicholas Caucesceau. Humanity breathed a sigh of relief at their passing. What is so captivating about power that those who have it often cling on long past their use by date? Recently, when considering the dire state of affairs in our world, a friend suggested that what we really need is a ‘benevolent dictator’ to run the show. Someone who takes the tough decisions for the good of the whole and yet can resist the trappings of self-aggrandisement. Does such a creature exist? I think so, at least on a small scale. I think it’s called the human body. It is said that every cell in the body is replaced over a seven year period. The job’s done quietly and continuously so that we don’t even notice. The cells of the intestine may change every week. Blood cells last a little longer and bone cells last the longest. But all of them die; there’s no avoidance of this natural process. David Attenborough has amazed us with his films of the natural world. He has shown us how animal herds collectively choose which way to go in search of a watering hole, how shoals of fish bunch together to confuse predators and how herds of wildebeest cross crocodile infested rivers during their migration. There are always losers of course. The slow and elderly gazelles most commonly become the meals of predators and perhaps more randomly some wildebeest get torn apart as they ‘take one for the team’. In balance however the herds are fitter, faster and of manageable size. No one animal ever decided which way to go or who should live or die. Nature, when working properly, orchestrates everything perfectly. Perhaps things only go astray when a creature has no natural predator to keep its numbers in check. Humans are on the top of the species tree. Isn’t it remarkable that our species, endowed with big brains and opposing digits, should so misuse its free will as to bring all life on earth to the brink of extinction? My early career, as an electronics engineer, was both interesting and rewarding. Technical challenges were overcome, technology advanced and we marvelled at how nature can be harnessed for our purpose. But now humanity has become like a mountaineer who climbs a mountain just because it’s there, just because it’s possible – regardless of whether it’s actually necessary. But unlike the mountaineer who wagers his own skill and life against the elements, faceless money-men exploit the talents of scientists and engineers to wager not only our lives but the very future of our planet. We have artificially created our own predator – ourselves. Rather than pool our collective wisdom, as in nature’s examples, to choose our best way forward, we have abdicated responsibility for our lives to others only too happy to enslave us. We have frittered away our natural inheritance in favour of a suicidal exploitation of nature’s resources. Our species will evolve to an era of collaboration and collective growth only when we can grow beyond the fears that divide us. We need to recognise that collectively we can become a benevolent dictator for humanity. Just as a parent will guide the development of a child and not lose hope when things go badly, our collective wisdom, if allowed to express itself, will prove itself the benevolent dictator we need for our species to survive.

Hamster Ball

When my children were young they had a hamster they called Hammy; he was our family pet. Hammy lived a restricted life, but a comparatively generous one for a hamster. He had a big cage, regular fresh bedding, several toys, constant food and the obligatory wheel. He climbed into it and set it spinning every evening for exercise. Hammy was a docile, domesticated and, so far as we knew, happy caged animal. One day we found a perspex ball that would allow our hamster to explore a bigger world; Hammy loved it. When we put him in it he took off around the living room floor, hid behind furniture and bumped into things. The children squealed with delight, it was highly entertaining. With hindsight, this terrified animal was using the ball to try to escape. He might not have lasted ten minutes in the urban outdoors but he desperately wanted to try it. Today Hammy’s ball is a metaphor for growth. Instead of scheming his escape plan from within his cage and then promptly failing, the ball gave him the opportunity to experiment in real time. We too can make faster progress learning as we go. Our personal development needs our active engagement. As per David Kolb’s Learning Cycle we need to follow action with emotional experience and cognitive reflection before planning our next activity and engaging with it. We will similarly experience both freedom and terror when we strike out in new directions but even when our plans don’t work out we’ll be very glad we tried and we’ll be richer for the experience. Who knows, there may even be a group of benevolent admirers delighting in our efforts.

Near Life Experience

It now feels commonplace to hear of someone’s Near Death Experience (NDA) telling of great calm, peace and love, of being drawn toward a great light, sometimes meeting old friends or loved ones gone before us, and then in some way being returned to this earthly manifestation to fulfil some mission, some remaining task, from a position of greater awareness. For many this return brings a sense of urgency to their life as though the experience jolted them from their humdrum existence into a higher gear. Perhaps for the first time they know their true role in the world and they set about it with vigour, totally confident in the outcome. From this perspective of true purpose their earlier existence feels less real. We might now think of it as a ‘Near Life Experience’. Now at the start of 2018 it is timely to ask what we need to do to live life to the full. What personal mission is ours to fulfil? What ‘bigger picture’ do we relate to? How can we each make our best contributions to this wonderful experience of life for ourselves, our communities and our planet? Or are we in danger of feeling, on our deathbed, that we had a near life experience?