JOURNEYS
Journey with Me
My mission in life is to personally touch, move, inspire and empower ordinary people (like you AND me) who are living extraordinary lives (even if they don’t think they are!) to follow their impossible dreams.
My wish is to share these remarkable stories, these journeys from around the world with others, weaving a tapestry of human spirit and imagination of what is indeed possible for each of us if simply summoned the courage to step into our own unique brilliance.
My intent is to provide these dramatic stories in languages native to the people being profiled from across the globe, from ordinary people – like you and me – living extraordinary lives, as inspiration to demonstrate that living the impossible dream, any dream, is indeed possible. I’ll share these stories throughout the site via blog posts, audios and videos, as well as through select boutique speaking engagements, with all content provided in a variety of languages.
Who are the ordinary people?
Are you someone who is:
- Looking for inspiration to take that next big courageous step?
- An open-minded and passionate person but still longing for significant change in your life?
- Dreaming big but are unsure how to go about it?
- Thinking that living your big dream is impossible?
- A corporate refugee with an unrealized impossible dream?
- Living an unfulfilled life with a void in your personal and/or professional aspirations?
- A student who is unsure of their direction?
- Living your life with meaning and purpose – but secretly still aspiring to do other things and believe these aspirations are impossible to accomplish?
- Torn between following your own unique dreams and desires only to continue “Keeping up with the Joneses”?
- Feeling that your “impossible dream” is greater than any financial gains?
Want to move forward?
If you’re stuck in your current work or life situation and don’t have the courage to step out or think it is impossible to do so – you’ve come to the right place! You need inspiration and courage to take that next big powerful step in order to pursue what you madly and deeply desire in your life and work and what you are truly worthy of and deserve.
I’ve made it my mission to inspire, motivate and challenge you to live YOUR impossible dream. You see, I’m just an ordinary person like you and as you’ve seen, my definition of an “extraordinary” life is very different than most. I wholeheartedly believe that anyone can achieve their impossible dream.
Consider this site home base and a support system that empowers YOU to not only set the intention to pursue your impossible dreams, but also have the conviction behind the intention to do so, and to allow you to finally take inspired action on your dreams.
Know this – YOUR life IS extraordinary and YOUR dreams ARE possible!!!
I invite you to walk with me as I share my journey and my dream. Take powerful leaps of faith. Walk through more than a bit of uncertainty. Be unreasonable and unstoppable in your life and the possibilities you create. Experience freedom, expansion, invigoration and renewal that is born out of living into YOUR own impossible dream.
I do not yet know where this journey will take us but I’m passionate about each step, and I know it’s going to be truly and absolutely amazing!
This page is also available in: French
“I think I spent 30 years of my life, the first 30, trying to become something. I wanted to become good at things, I wanted to become good at tennis, I wanted to become good at school and grades, and everything I viewed in that perspective. I’m not OK the way I am, but if I got good at things. I realized I had the game wrong: the goal was to find out who I already was.”
- from the film Zeitgeist
Peter Joseph, in his own words, describes himself as the de facto founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, and as well he is an independent film maker and musician, the latter which he looks to today as a form of meditation.
I have written about him before, and had also seen him speak a couple of months ago at an Artivist Film Festival event held in NYC. He’s extremely talented, creative and insightful, and of course has had a huge impact on the world already, in only a few short years of work at it. He certainly has come a long way, since his early days in filming the original Zeitgeist movie. One of his latest talks was a powerful speech he had given in Israel last month, entitled, “Defining Peace”. Check it out here.
Going back to his roots, in late 2009 a budding film director named Charles Robinson approached Peter to get his story, which led to the production of a short film entitled, “Who Is Peter Joseph” (see video below). Charles also created a website with the same title. At this time Peter lived in Brooklyn, NY.
In the film, Peter speaks to various issues including his music, his films, education, credentialism, the economic system, social inequality, creativity, personal attacks on him and his work, religion, spirituality, indoctrination and programming in ‘the system’, challenging existing paradigms, critical thinking, creation of the Zeitgeist Movement, and ideas for all of us moving forward in the future.
What about dreams? Peter’s original dream was to be a classical musician, but the need to earn money quickly trumped his dream, so he was forced to take various jobs that “paid the bills”, including advertising and financial trading among others.
In fact, on the topic of education, he himself had originally gone to college for art, but quickly realized that the debt he was/would be accruing was not worth the returns in terms of what he could earn to support himself, so after 2 years he dropped out. It was then that he realized that there was something inherently wrong with the system, not the least was the enormous debt load that a typical student would accrue in the few years at a university, thereby immediately enslaving themselves to the system, often for many years to come.
Luckily Peter did not give up on his artistic talents after leaving school, and began to create films. So how did he go from film maker to movement founder? He mentions a very interesting point, which I did not know and which many who aim to do grand things in the world must go through; after beginning to receive significant attention and positive feedback from people across the globe to his films, he came to sort of a cross roads realizing that he could do even more outside of his films in terms of making a positive impact with his work towards social transformation if he created a “movement”, i.e. the Zeitgeist Movement. But this decision did not come lightly for him, as intuitively he knew that if he did his life would most likely change forever. And it did . . .
His life changing moment also changed the lives of millions of others in the world for the better, giving many hope of a better world for all, and it would certainly be an understatement to say that a lot has changed since 2009, both in his life and the world.
Stay tuned for his upcoming film, the fourth in the Zeitgeist anthology, entitled, “Zeitgeist: Beyond the Pale”, due to be released at the end of 2012. It should be very interesting to see, and particularly so given the monumental changes in the world that will be occurring this very same year in all of our lives . . .
Who is Peter Joseph? from charles robinson on Vimeo.
“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”
- Gail Devers
Below is a repost of a story done by Vana Kuo on one of the co-creators of L.O.V.E. Productions, Stefan Wolf. Stefan had given birth some time ago to a dream of a better world for all. Determined not to give up on his dream, he began to move forward against the odds.
I have written more about Stefan and his dream in a post entitled, “Another Possible World“.
Stefan Wolf’s Story of Filming A New We
Written by Vana Kuo, co-founder of loveproductions.org
Edited by Carollyn Oglesby Thalia Forest“I had no money, and even less experience. I just had the will, the desire, and the determination, and I believed that I could do it and would stick to it until it was realized!”
It’s always encouraging to listen to Stefan’s film making story. I want to share it here, for those who have dreams but see their dreams as too distant and maybe even impossible to realize.
What caused Stefan’s movement?
In April of 2009, Stefan returned to Europe after visiting several eco-communities in New Zealand and Australia. He wanted to visit eco-communities in Europe and to search closer to home for a potential place to live with his beloved friends. At the same time, he thought he could make a documentary which would give people a nice overview of the well-established ecovillages and communities in Europe that already existed. He thought that such a film could help in the world, and perhaps even save some lives.
He had no experience with filming. What he had was the urge to bring a film like this into existence. This urge gave him the power to learn film making and editing by himself, with the help of an experienced friend. He learned quickly, completing the filming and the film making, with some help from his friends, in only 10 months.
It was quite astonishing to me to see how much work he did and how much he was able to learn in such a short time. He told me that through the whole process he knew there were angels helping him; otherwise he couldn’t have done all of it alone. When people asked him about the most difficult thing he experienced during film making, his short answer, “sometimes the movie software crashed,” made them laugh. He was grateful that things went so smoothly, as if there really were angels always nearby, supporting his vision.
“I regularly did a prayer to the “universe”, to god and the angels, that I might be used as a tool to manifest this film. All of this was too much to handle for just one person, so I asked them to give me the right impulses and I promised to follow those impulses/intuitions and to trust them. I made it clear that it should not be a film made by my small ego but that THEY should act through me, and I opened up for this and had trust … and miracles did happen… very often … both small ones and big ones. The biggest miracle is that this film could be realized even though I had literally no experience!”
How about the financing of the film making?
“If I believed that I couldn’t make the film without the money, then nothing would have happened!”
So he started with zero money. He borrowed money from his sister for the camera. He borrowed some cash from a friend, and he borrowed money from his father to buy a laptop for cutting the film. He was willing to go into debt because he just knew he had to make this film so that the world could know about these great and inspiring eco-projects.
He had no sponsors. His goal was to make a professional film, maximizing the quality of the delivery while minimizing the equipment and money. He kept the costs down by cutting his travel expenses, often sleeping in the car that he bought for 300 euro. His simple way of living saved much money for the film.
When we are truly interested in a subject, we have unlimited potential to learn, and to realize our dreams quickly and efficiently. This sort of inspiration is in high contrast with the way we were taught in school, where the competition and the performance may have left us with hard and stressful memories. There we didn’t choose what we wanted to learn; we were mostly forced to do what others wished us to do, what others thought was best for us. Without joy, without curiosity, it takes much longer to learn a subject, and very often the information we take in is not retained.
That Stefan could learn so much in such a short time, because of his enthusiasm, is a good example of how people’s learning can far outstrip what the mainstream educational system provides . . .
. . . [A] wonderful experiment in how people learn is being performed in the ecovillage of Tamera in Portugal, where the village children have a place of their own and are supported in realizing their own interests. Finally, I would like to share with you an excerpt of A New We – Tamera. It inspired me a lot by seeing how children are learning in Tamera.
loveproductions.org
Chris at the MLK Monument
“There has been enough suffering in our country, there has been enough of children whose dreams die before they have a chance to grow and there has been enough of our elders who, having served their nation, are forced into indignity in their old age.”
- John Agyekum Kufuor
I’ve written about Chris A. (a.k.a. Sustainable Man) before, including here. Chris A. has a dream. I had asked him about it recently at an event we had attended recently in NYC. In his own words he said, “I [desperately] want to be able to look every man and woman in the eye, knowing that I do not benefit from their indignity.” And of course this goes for others in the world as well. Extremely powerful. And Chris is walking the walk with his work.
The words below are by Charles Eisenstein, but when I look at them, when Chris looks at them, and when so many others look at them, we cannot help but agree on both what Charles writes, and why it is so important that we change this story to a new story, one of equality for all people.
Personally speaking, when I read this, it strikes a somber cord, as I have written about exactly the same in different words throughout my blog, and indeed this is the reason I personally have committed my life to sharing the stories of ordinary people living extraordinary lives – remarkable people we often pass up in favor of “more important” people we see flashed before our eyes in a two-dimensional world that has become ever more home to the wealthy, powerful and famous who live in our midst. Interestingly, I would suggest that Chris’s dream and Charles’s dream share much in common with my dream – a world of equality for all people, where money (simply a catchall for not just “money” but also hate, fear, separation, etc.) is replaced by love.
One day, there will be no more wage slaves, and to this end, one day there will be no “others”. There will be no 99% and 1%. Rather, there will be the oneness of us – the 100%.
Charles Eisenstein, in his own words . . .
Slave World
I am writing at this moment in a large airport. Thousands of people work at jobs associated with this airport, and few of the jobs actually befit a human being.
