A Message from the Co-founders

Earth leadership involves continual efforts to reduce our personal ecological footprint.  This process may be enhanced by means of a passion shift.

A thermometer for passion is the intensity of our enthusiasm in pursuing an interest.  What activity, or anticipation of it, brings excitement into my life?  For example, I may love to golf and anticipate playing on at least one course in each of the 50 states.  Or I may love to read books that I check out at the local library.

The nice thing about passion is that we have total control over it.  We can easily redirect it from one activity to another.  When we got married, Dick dreamed with anticipation of that romantic trip with Jeanne to Hawaii.  It soon became clear that Jeanne had no interest in flying to Hawaii, but a very great interest in confining vacations to our bioregion.  A passion shift was in order.  We now both anticipate with passion our vacation time in our place, and Dick’s yearn to travel afar is long gone.

A useful tool for a passion shift is capitulation.  Although it sounds a bit like serving as a doormat, it has paradoxical qualities that bring joy to life.  As a very simple illustration, assume you want to go to a play and your partner would like to go to a movie.  The tug-of-war is on.  At some point you capitulate and get very excited about going to the movie.  In fact, you no longer wish to see the play.

As earth leaders, we can assess the ecological impact of activities that bring passion to our lives.  A helpful assessment tool can be found at www.footprintnetwork.org.  We may find that our passion is in a tug-of-war with the earth.  In other words, the earth is calling us to make a passion shift.

When the time comes to make that shift, capitulation allows it to revitalize our life.  Although counterintuitive, our passion can be heightened as it shifts to an activity more aligned with the needs of the earth.  In our work with those taking steps along the earth-leadership path, it seems they never look back with sorrow on what has been left behind.

Jeanne and Dick Roy
Co-founders