Happy May! It has been a few weeks since I last posted to my blog. I have been on the road and life has been filled with lots of wonderful things…hence the delay in posting.
One of my recent trips was to Los Angeles for the Milken Institute Global Conference. The Milken Institute is an international, economic think tank that addresses global issues including poverty, climate change, education, medicine, politics, and more. The work of the Milken Institute is focused on researching how the capital markets can influence positive change in the world and then educating businesses and those with wealth about how to use their money in the most effective way possible.
I was invited to the conference as a board member of the Peace Alliance. I, and a few of my fellow board members, were asked to attend this event to meet as many people as possible and talk to folks about the “profitability” of peace in our nation and our world. We hope that at next year’s event there will be a session devouted to this topic and to the idea of creating a U.S. Department of Peace, which is what our organization is working on primarily these days.
The conference was fascinating on so many levels. First of all, I have never been to an event attended by people with more wealth and influence. A short list of some of the presenters and panelists that I saw speak: John Kerry, Ted Turner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis, Michael J. Fox, Bill Frist, Arianna Huffington, Steve Forbes, Rupert Murdoch, Andrea Agassi, Bradley Whitford, Harold Ford Jr., and many others. I was amazed and incredibly impressed with the knowledge, awareness, success, and thoughtfulness of most of the speakers.
A number of sessions dealt directly with politics, climate change, and philanthropy. I was continually blown away by the level of caring and compassion and how much time, money, and energy is being put into such important issues. It was incredibly inspiring.
Many of the panels were purposely set up with people from opposing view points and political persuasions. There were some heated debates. But, mostly I found the dialogue and discourse to be respectful and fascinating. While there were a number of people I personally disagreed with, I found myself learning from just about everyone I heard speak and most of the people I met attending the conference, although we had many differences. And, the deeper I listened, the more I heard the similarities between even the most diverse view points. Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the campaign director for George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004 (someone who prior to the conference I could not stand and did not think I agreed with about anything) said something that stuck with me. He said, “Most of us have similar goals, fears, and aspirations for ourselves, our families, and our nation. We just have different views and ideas about how to best get there.” I found this comment and much of what Ken had to say to be very insightful, aware, and thoughtful. Even though I do disagree with him politically, I came away with a great deal of respect, compassion, and understanding for him – both politically and personally.
My experience with Ken Mehlman was powerful for me and it reminded me that in our world of 24 hour news, sound bites and debates, and constant bombardment from the media and other places about how “bad” things are, how much we all hate each other, and how divided our nation and our world are right now…maybe this is just negative hype, and the deeper truth is that while we do have our differences and some of them are significant, at a fundamental level we are all much more alike than we are different.
With this in mind, see if you can start to appreciate some of the differences you have with others around you, have more compassion for those you disagree with, and look for where you have commonalities more than conflicts with other people – in your personal life, at work, on TV, in politics, and in general. I think if we all looked for more of our similarities and realized how much we have in common as human beings, we could alter our world in a very positive way.
With Love and Peace,
Mike
Leave a Reply