The Practical Visionary:

8 Keys to the New World within You and Growing All

Around You

By Corinne McLaughlin with Gordon Davidson

Did you know there’s a New World growing through the cracks and crevices of the old
one--if you know where—and how to look? The New World is the collaborative
expression of practical visionaries creating solutions to our toughest problems.

To see this New World, you need to shift your attention from what’s dying—to what’s
being born. Shift from what’s dysfunctional and running out of energy to the positive,
creative solutions in every country. Shift from fearing “The End Times”--to embracing
“The Beginning Times”—the New World growing all around you.

In our research and travels, we’ve discovered many non-profits, businesses, and
demonstration centers expressing New World ideas, as well as conferences, magazines
and websites. We’ve found thousands of practical visionaries--social innovators who are
pioneering solutions to our problems today. How many of these have you heard about?

• Micro-enterprise loans to reduce poverty and develop self-sufficiency;

• Bio-remediation using mushrooms to consume toxic pollution such as oil spills;
• Multi-stakeholder dialogues among adversaries to reduce conflict and violence;
• Victim-offender reconciliation to reduce crime and heal painful experiences;
• Permaculture methods to create healthier food and a sustainable environment;
• Social investing to support good businesses and transform corporate culture.

A practical visionary is someone with an intuitive, positive vision of the future who
develops effective skills and sensible strategies to implement their vision and meet urgent
human needs. They are creating a new rhythm of practical spirituality. Visionary doesn’t
have to mean unrealistic or illusionary. We need practical visionaries who address the
real needs of the present to help us through the current crises.

While vision essentially comes from the spiritual dimension within you, being practical is
focusing on what’s needed, appropriate and timely when applying your vision. It is
knowing realistically what you’re up against in the old, dying world that’s resistant to
change. It is being strategic in your approach, knowing the steps needed to manifest your
vision, and doing the detailed follow-through needed with administration and finances.

We both developed practical skills through building a spiritual/ecological community

called Sirius in rural Massachusetts 30 years ago, which is still going strong today. Not
only did we create organic gardens, solar buildings, windmills, and composting toilets,
but we also learned how to negotiate with local bureaucracies, banks, and businesses, and

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resolve conflicts with challenging people. Then we developed a whole new set of
practical skills while co-directing a public educational institution in Washington and
offering trainings for the public and for the federal government. Our daily meditation
practice has been key in helping us become more peaceful inwardly and effective
outwardly. We even taught meditation in some of the federal agencies, such as the
Environmental Protection Agency.

From our experience with all this, we’ve discovered eight important keys to spiritual
growth and social change in the New World:

1. Shift from what’s dying to what’s being born: discover the New World of
practical visionaries all around you with solutions to our problems;
2. Understand the big picture and the higher evolutionary plan behind
everything unfolding today: find your part and get engaged;
3. Make your livelihood a social change strategy and bring spiritual values into
your work: be a spiritual warrior to confront the darkness; an innovator to create a
new institution; a reformer to transform the system from within; and/or an
exemplar who lives the values of the New World wherever you are;
4. Invoke your soul or higher self: explore the New World within you and make
friends with your subconscious;
5. Turn within to find a source of spiritual strength: develop a regular meditative
practice to receive clear guidance;
6. Clarify your higher purpose and vision: create a mission and practical strategy
with right timing;
7. See money as a spiritual asset: trust in the abundance of the universe—and be
practical and wise;
8. Transform duality and conflict into a higher synthesis: find common ground
personally and politically to change the world.

You can navigate successfully through the crises and confusion of the present if you
become more visionary and invoke your soul or higher self, which is the New World
within you. The light of your soul reveals the new world in society around you. Like the
rising sun revealing a previously dark landscape, your soul lights up the New World
growing everywhere. It’s been there all along, but it becomes more visible and vibrant
when you live more fully in the reality of your soul. You’ll wonder how you could have
missed it before.

Your soul is the link between Spirit and matter, between the greater transcendent reality
and your personality. It’s a reliable source of inner wisdom that gives you a sense of
oneness with all life. It reveals a grand design—a magnificent evolutionary plan
unfolding behind the scenes today, despite escalating crises. As your frequency rises with
your soul’s unfolding, you can see your part in this evolutionary plan. It’s a living plan
that we co-create with Spirit. You can discover more skillful means of expressing your
higher purpose and making a contribution. You can learn how to thrive despite outer
crises by developing the spiritual strength and practical resiliency to deal creatively with
challenges that arise.

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As you connect the dots and discover the higher evolutionary plan that is now unfolding,
it will inspire you with hope for our future. It’s like seeing all of the pieces of a puzzle fit
together in perfect harmony. It brings a deep sense of joy and well-being, an assurance
that there is a greater purpose to life.

We’ve found that practical visionaries work with all their chakras, the energy centers in
their body. They bring vision and inspiration from their soul through their crown center at
the top of their head; then they shape it mentally into clear ideas and goals through their
brow center; communicate creatively through their throat center; develop good
relationships through their heart center; energize their work with enthusiasm through
their solar plexus center; attract resources through their sexual center; and ground their
work with practical, sustainable survival strategies through their root chakra. Many
spiritual people have money problems, for example, not because they lack faith, but
because they focus too much energy in their higher chakras and not enough in their lower
chakras. They may need to become more grounded and connected with the world.

The good news is that inner and outer change are mutually interdependent and
reinforcing. You can change yourself--and change the world at the same time. What you
learn in one area can help you in the other. As Gandhi said, “I must be the change I want
to see in the world.” Spiritual growth makes your service to the world more effective, and
your outer service, in turn, can give you an arena to apply your spirituality and enhance
your growth.

This is the Age of Synthesis, where everything is blending, fusing, transcending old
polarities—races, religions, cultures, styles, ideas. Hybrids and creative “mash-ups”—
such as world music, holistic medicine, open source software, interfaith dialogues,
integral psychology, transpartisan politics--are the leading edge in every field. People are
transcending dualities such as inner and outer, reflection and action, personal and
political. They are finding higher common ground amidst conflict and differences. Most
significantly, they are overcoming the duality between their spiritual ideals and how they
live their daily lives, so they embody their values.

The evolutionary tide is turning, as more and more of us are waking up. Let us start
thinking like a world community and creating a new soundtrack for Earth, with the
rhythm of a universal heartbeat and a chorus of a million voices worldwide. Let us join
the thousands of practical visionaries around the world who have their eyes on the
horizon, their feet on the ground, and their hearts on fire!

Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson are co-authors of Spiritual Politics

(Foreword by the Dalai Lama), Builders of the Dawn, and The Practical Visionary,
from which this article is excerpted. They are co-founders of The Center for Visionary
Leadership in CA, and co-founders of Sirius, a spiritual and ecological community in
MA. Corinne coordinated a national task force for President Clinton’s Council on
Sustainable Development. Gordon was the Founding Director of the Social Investment
Forum and Ceres, The Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies. They

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both are Fellows of The World Business Academy and The Findhorn Foundation. To
contact the authors: corinnemc@visionarylead.org; www.thepracticalvisionary.org