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Guiding Principles of the World Council

The World Council is a round-table conversation where everyone participates as a famous person from history. Gandhi, Rachel Carson, Einstein, Margaret Mead, Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc or a dozen other famous leaders and thinkers sit down together to discuss the world today. Socrates, the philosopher famous for asking questions, facilitates the conversation.

Any anxiety is soon put to rest when World Council members are greeted by experienced hosts who understand their concerns and guide them into the discussion. Participants are surprised to find themselves very quickly at ease about assuming their persona and participating in an interesting, unusual, lively discussion.

World Council sittings provide a creative, stimulating format for people of all ages and all backgrounds to meet and discuss the implications and ramifications of living as a human being on this earth. For one unique session, real-life roles are forgotten and everyone has a chance to explore their higher self.

Something magical happens when World Council members don the robes of their persona and look at the world from a different point of view. Each can:

• Get in touch with greatness within themselves
• Feel liberated from shyness, personal agendas and worldly cynicism
• Listen carefully to others
• Speak with confidence and authority
• Appreciate the passion that inspired great people in the past
• Enjoy a moving discussion without concern for the real-life status of tablemates
• Explore their own beliefs and concerns through the eyes of the persona
• Appreciate universal values we all share
• Enjoy the intellectual excitement of looking at situations from a fresh perspective
• Come to see other people at the table in a new light
• Make statements that surprise even themselves
• Enjoy an uninterrupted, facilitated conversation about first principles they may never have experienced before
• Get in touch with "soft" values in a safe environment
• Experience the delight of sharing a soul-stirring experience with others
• Gain re-affirmation of their own beliefs and goals

Our experience has shown that people from all walks of life enjoy and appreciate participating in a World Council.

For people to whom fate has been unkind, the World Council let's them step outside their difficult circumstances - where they feel they have poor skills or none at all - where they see themselves sitting on the bottom rung of society. Speaking in persona lets them forget their past and think higher, kinder thoughts, and speak with authority for a change. At a World Council, no one doubts their wisdom or their authority, particularly themselves. For that session, they are great, important, wise, and skillful - they are looking at the world from the top rung of the ladder.

For people to whom fate has been very kind, a World Council offers a different experience. Students at many fine private schools around the world study under a tacit assumption of excellence. Fate has given them many advantages and they have every reason to expect it will continue to do so. At a World Council, they step outside this circumstance of "great expectations" to experience speaking as a mature achiever who has already made a creative contribution to the world. When challenged by other great thinkers and leaders, they can begin to understand the complexity of life - that great ideas require life-long expression, and that the key to remaining creative and inspired is constantly rekindling the abiding passion all great people bring to every situation in life.

By stepping out of their real-life circumstances, World Council members can appreciate the inherent greatness of people from all walks of life. No matter what their background, World Council members experience first-hand how empathy and genuine interest can expose the bedrock of human values and reveal the foundation of responsible world citizenship and positive change.

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