Think Smarter in a Digitally Enabled World provides the reader with the tools and insight on how to lead a successful, meaningful, and world-changing life in the 21st century. We are still in the early phases of this new century and the pace and breadth of technological, societal, economic, and cultural change is staggering. We are experiencing forces that are upending almost every facet of our lives and challenging us to respond. For us as individuals, and as part of society at large, we will need to do things differently. We will need to think differently and we will need to raise the level of our consciousness.
Fortunately, we actually have all the tools necessary for our journey. Many of these concepts and ideas were created in the 20th century – the more technical and linear thinking approaches to mastering decision making and knowledge acquisition. But other insights – the one’s that tap into our creative, intuitive, and spiritual sides have been around for thousand’s of years. When we combine the logical with the creative, intuitive, and spiritual, we obtain a potent combination that can solve any problem and help us achieve our individual and collective potential. Our schools do not yet teach these skills in a formal way. Unfortunately, the model is instead set up to provide students 20th century professional and life skills.
But we can take matters into our own hands as technology is allowing us to access the world’s collective knowledge and connect to our fellow citizens around the globe. We can teach ourselves and our children these skills. Our ability to positively leverage this access and to cultivate a capability for life long proactive critical thinking will allow us accelerate our ability to deal with all the challenges that the 21st century will throw at us.
We will also have to help reacquaint science and spirituality. Those two spheres were separated around 400 years ago as we went forward on a path of dramatic scientific and industrial advancement. Along the way, unfortunately, we forgot our true heritage and how we are connected to each other and everything on the planet. Fortunately, new scientific information from the fields of physics, biology, neuroscience, and psychology and other data points are allowing us to take a fresh look at spiritual teachings that have stood the test of time and see how we can integrate them back into our modern lives.
The book therefore is built around a four-part core foundation that I believe define a 21st Century Life Manual for successful living.
Practice Systems Thinking
Systems Thinking is a set of tools and thinking approaches that are holistic in nature. It is meant to see the connections between people, events, issues, and more that are present in any given situation. When we learn to think in a Systems approach, we learn to expand our field of view and see all the moving and interconnecting parts in any given problem or opportunity and therefore are more likely to make more effective decisions and create better solutions.
Proactively Access the World’s Collective Knowledge
Leveraging the World’s Knowledge and Wisdom – The Internet is allowing anyone to access the world’s collective knowledge and wisdom at a touch of a button. This is unprecedented in human history. We have shown that people and societies dramatically advance when they are able to acquire and share knowledge more quickly. Think of how the renaissance took hold once printing press arrived and how technological advanced accelerated with the world wide patent system allowing knowledge and ideas to more freely enter the public domain. Most of us are only scratching the surface in what the access to this endless pool of knowledge and wisdom can do for us. Think Smarter in a Digitally Enabled World will show you many ways to access the best aspects of this vast treasure trove.
Attain Mind-Body-Spirit Harmony
Mind-Body-Spirit Harmony -The 24/7 always on realities of our modern life styles are putting great strain on our health. Too many of us are living with high levels of stress caused by rapid changes in technology and globalization. We now know that these mental stressors have a direct effect on the health of our bodies. Fortunately, ancient wisdom has given us solutions such as mediation, and mindfulness practice, and modern concepts from the field of psychology such as emotional intelligence, allow us to regain control of our mental and physical health. We are also (re) learning how our thoughts actually create our physical reality – our bodies and everything in our physical experience. When we harness those skills, we effectively create and control our world.
Experience the Oneness of our Reality
Unity Consciousness – Despite our significant levels of technology and wealth, as a global society, we seem unable to solve major challenges – poverty, homlessness, climate change, rising income inequality, armed conflict, global financial instability, and more. There certainly are many caring people who are trying their best to alleviate the issues, but frankly, they are vastly outnumbered by those who continue to thrive on the principles of “Us vs. Them, “Winning is Everything” and “It’s Not My Problem”. But the forgotten reality is that “We are actually Them”, in fact we are the same. This is Oneness in a nutshell and what major spiritual traditions have told us for thousands of years. Over the last 80+ years though, various scientific disciplines (Quantum Physics, Neuroscience, Biology) have been showing that the ancient wisdom is actually true. This is matched with reports from field of psychology of the existence of past lives, and from accounts of near death experiences that show our physical material world is just one aspect of our existence and underneath it all we are connected to each other and everything via an all encompassing energy field at the subatomic level. Us really is them! Once more of us understand this, it would be difficult for us to continue living the way we are. Solving the world’s problems would become much easier as we naturally came together as One people.
