Top Gear, one of the most popular British shows, a must-see on every Sunday night for Britons, usually consists of numerous displays of smoking tires, rumbling engines and mind-blowing speeds. But in June, the pattern suddenly shifted to something else. Shockingly enough, a show about full-throttle driving thrills, now has fuel-efficiency as a serious theme, as Jeremy Clarkson, one of the hosts, spoke about cutting fuel bills through driving in another way, a smarter one. Visit his blog (http://www.topgear.com/blogs/planettopgear/129-jeremy-top-fuel-tips/ ) to see his list of fuel-saving tips, with which, supposedly, he drove 60 miles with fuel for only 12.

Meanwhile, one of the first - if not the first - environmentally-friendly nightclub made its way on the map of London’s nightlife. Surya, a bar & club around King’s Cross, is a proud pioneer of a larger manifest, Club4Change. Its founder, Andrew Charalambous, an eye-brow raising bloke, that goes around as ‘Dr. Earth’, tells us that ‘there’s no reason why environmental awareness and hedonism shouldn’t go hand in hand’. See more here: http://www.club4climate.com/

Needless to say what the previous examples have in common. Welcome to an age where going green is groovy. It is clear that more and more people understand the straightforward science that’s just a step away from shouting: ‘Look at what you unconscious bloody idiots are doing’. Although relatively few in numbers, these changes look very promising. Airlines are reducing their planes’ speeds, ethanol-mixed fuel is constantly increasing its availability, a plethora of wind farm projects are currently being set into motion and energy companies are tirelessly researching energy-efficient ideas.

But what’s really promising is that these green innovative ideas, methods or projects start to spring out from unlikely places. An example of Steve Job’s ’stay hungry, stay foolish’:

I believe American politics is well on its way to reaching a zenith of both excitement and bewilderment. Asian Americans, Americans living abroad, Women, Latinos, Youth and African-Americans are all breathless at the upcoming decision to be made by the deep-rooted white men - go over to the promising young Obama or choose the Republicans, like they have always been prone to do? Even with this seemingly-general trend to become an Obamafan, Obama’s victory is not yet certain - white men come in…well, huge numbers!

Although problems still exist at home, the man whose middle is Hussein enjoys a never-before-seen popularity all around the world:

If the business of electing the most powerful man in the world were up to the world, rather than just those pesky Americans, Barack Obama would face no contest. [...] Britons would back him against John McCain by the astonishing margin of five to one. The Pew Research Centre reported last month that, in each of the main European countries, at least twice as many people have confidence in Mr Obama as in his rival. Elsewhere things are a bit more nuanced, but from Mexico to China, and from Russia to Australia, the foreigners are firmly in the Obama camp. (The Economist - July 17th)

With his well crafted rhetoric, Obama managed to win the attention and hearts of millions. One volunteer for the Obama-campaign actually told me that every time he heard the campaign’s “Change” message he got goosebumps… These goosebumps made him volunteer. “This movement…is fascinating. I had to be a part of it”, he says.

If we take a closer look at Obama’s approach on his campaign, it is somewhat easy to see why he inspires so many. Besides cleverly thinking out strategies on political, economic and social issues, he tells the people to believe not only in his power to change the status quo, but in theirs. One of the more or less ‘veiled’ messages he is transmitting is this: ‘You have the power’. In other words, he is labeling people, by saying: ‘You’re the one up for the challenge’. Now, although this may not seem revolutionary, it is one of the key-ingredients of persuasion, it has an immense effect on people.

You can see what I’m talking about just below. Enjoy!

Centuries before the common era, people were gripped by a malaise that had spread to several far-flung regions of the world. They were becoming aware that the spiritual practices of their ancestors were flawed, that the animistic-influenced spiritual hierophanies were kept to the elite few and never shared with the masses. People had enough of their transient, awry and contingent lives. And their only solace was inaccessible to them. Thus, a world-wide spiritual crisis manifested, which triggered massive efforts to reinvent religion. These efforts became real phenomena, having in mind that entire new social classes appeared like mushrooms after rain. For example, Bhikkhus (meaning “almsmen”), who basically were mendicant monks appeared in Northern India; they were even revered (it was an honor to give alms to a bhikkhu), because they were looking for a ‘cure’ for life’s suffering.

This great transformation that the Axial Age implied marked the appearance of Taoism and Confucianism in China, Greek rationalism in Europe, Zoroastrianism in Iran and the Middle East and Buddhism and Hinduism in India - all between 800 and 200 B.C.E. These religions, albeit very different in appearance, share the same fundamental impulse, the Axial impulse. The sages which brought forth and led these movements, systems of thought, religions - whatever you want to call them - all tried to teach common human beings how to transcend their misery, their weaknesses, how to cope with their seemingly dreadful lives and live in peace.

People who participated in this great transformation were convinced they were on the brink of a new era and that the world would never be the same again. During this period, men and women became conscious of their existence, their own nature and their limitations in an unprecedented way. The ethos forged in this [couple of centuries] has continued to nourish men and women to the present day. (Karen Armstrong - Buddha)

Alas, if only that ethos had remained untouched by ignorance, profane lust for power and egotism. Religions and beliefs now are one of the main contributing factors to conflicts, whether inter-religious or intra-religious. It is amazing how different persons or entire groups of persons manage to reinterpret, rethink and reform original principles, documents, beliefs etc. It is a perverse, heinous phenomenon that brings such a bitter after-taste. Al-Qaeda stated that it was simply continuing an ancient conflict, an ancient crusade. In Sri Lanka, buddhist monks support Tamil sepparatists. Conflicts between different forms of Christianity have stormed Northern Ireland and the Balkans. Turkey is one step away from its 24th banning of a ruling party, due to an Islam-impregnated trend. Like I said, the best two adjectives to describe the current situation are ‘perverse’ and ‘heinous’. It is a sad view to watch, how the world looks on religion and how it was supposed to.

But how are we supposed to look at it? I believe the answer is rather straightforward and quite familiar. All that humans have ever tried to do is understand themselves and the cosmos. We can easily eliminate the cosmos out of the equation, by simply looking at what quantum physicists are pointing at more and more: space is directly influenced if mind enters into it (and thus space is a reflection of the mind, more or less accurate). So what it all comes down to, is knowledge of Self. Whether we are talking about Buddhism, Islam, Christianity or Zoroastrianism, in essence, the same message is being transmitted: are all saying that understanding God is understanding yourself. A message that has sadly been lost somewhere beneath all the DO’s and DON’T’s.

What most people do not realize is that understanding yourself means more than meets the eye. It means more than knowing you are altruistic, narcissistic or handsome. Knowledge of Self implies that you meditate at all times, but I’m certainly not talking about the esoteric-kind of meditation (e.g yoga). To meditate one needs an amazingly keen mind; meditation does not mean controlling one’s thoughts and one’s thinking processes; when controlling is tried, conflict between different instances is automatically triggered. But when thoughts and thinking are understood, when one becomes aware of them, that’s when a deep, profound silence sets in. You become conscious of your thoughts, but they do not have the upper hand anymore. You objectively choose your next actions. You no longer see things as good or bad, you see what is. You enter a state of mindfulness. And that’s just the beginning.

If you feel like you already knew bits of the last two paragraphs, I’d like to ask you to think again. I’m sure you know about how religions merge, why the understanding of Self is so important etc. But are you wise enough to do something with what you know? :) We should all keep in mind that knowledge is just knowledge. Wisdom is applying it, “wisdom is doing it”.

Most of the 57m blogs in existence are personal diaries that just happen to be online. That was the initial use of blogs, but over the past few years this tool has proved it can be used in a billion different ways for a billion different goals.

More and more people are quiting their jobs to blog for a living. Om Malik, for example, quit his job as a senior writer as Business 2.0 and now works full-time on his blog. He’s gathered a team and now his blog attracts about 50,000 readers a day, generating “tens of thousands” in monthly revenues. Costs, including salaries, are around $20,000 a month.

On another note, blogs are becoming handy tools for a large array of goals. CEOs, for example, were encouraged at the World Economic Forum last year to blog. Some really do it.

In different parts of the world, blogging doesn’t have anything to do with the ‘narcissistic habit’ label previously-applied to it. It became a worthy-to-note shaper of political agenda. In Egypt, by simply posting different video footages, bloggers have triggered open scandals on such issues as torture or women’s harassment. In the end, the government silenced the group of web-dissidents, for now at least, by arresting a 22-year-old student, for criticizing the al-Azhari University and Mr. Mubarak, Egypt’s president. Egypt’s government is not the only one to attack the blogging community: Saudi Arabia blocks tens of thousands of blogs and web-sites and Bahrain picks up bloggers, interrogates them and tries to get them to register with the police. Charming.

Although the mentioned faces of blogging are worth talking about - some may even turn into individual articles as I write - none of them will actually characterize my blog. No matter how different bits of this blog may seem when compared, the big picture will always be about leadership.

Every day people are confronted with different problems. Some are called technical problems - the know-how needed to solve them is available. Who solves these problems? Authorities. Let’s think of some basic examples: who is going to get the oil to the consumers? Who has the authority to do this? Why the oil companies that distribute oil, of course. But there are also adaptive problems. These defy standard operating procedures or any authority who is believed to have expertise on dealing with them. To solve this kind of problems, new discoveries, experiments and adjustments are needed. Without changing attitudes, values and behaviors, without learning new ways, people cannot make the adaptive leap necessary to thrive in the new environment they suddenly find themselves into. What if oil becomes a scarcity and the prices break record after record? You certainly can’t wait for the previous authority to solve this for you. Waiting for the oil companies to come up with something is not going to do the trick. Neither is protesting and blocking roads, in hope that things will get back to normal. Both, especially the latter, are very silly things to do. And yet these are the default reactions in which common people, when faced with the oil crisis.

What it is with people that are faced with adaptive changes is that the sustainability of change depends on having them internalize the change itself. They can’t see anything but a potential loss, if they choose to change. We see the same case when people frequently avoid painful adjustments in their lives, if they can place the burden on somebody else or postpone it. Adaptive change means that values, attitudes and behaviors have to be removed/substituted. Thus, that common reaction is understandable. People love their habits, values, who they are. Why would they want to change? I believe it’s imperative for everyone to start thinking more about who they really are. Or, better yet, given the fact that the present is the ‘residual outcome of the past’, they should think about who they want to be in the future.

I could say this blog is about different adaptive changes that we are faced with, about people either trying to solve them or still living in ignorance, but overall I’d be talking about the same thing: leadership. Leadership brings meaning to life, it creates purpose, it’s a way of living. To quote Johnny Cash, I believe each and everyone of us can “walk the line”, step forward and make a difference. I believe each person has something unique to offer, an inspirational, creative, influential, visionary, pioneering gift that is somewhere deep inside. Leadership is about using that gift. My blog’s about the same thing.