Jan Phillips

I grew up Christian. I believed in Jesus as a miracle worker, a master teacher, a son of God. I treasured his three messages: whatever works you see me do, you can do as well, and even more; the kingdom of Heaven is all around you; whatever you do for...

People often deny their creative potential. They say things like "I'm not creative. I can't even draw a straight line." Or "I'm not artistic. I can't paint." There is an assumption that being creative has something to do with painting or drawing straight lines. Claiming to be creative feels like...

I visited a Nigerian village in March 2010 and drove up to the schoolhouse the villagers built to house four classrooms. Outside were 75-80 children dressed up in crisp green and white uniforms, all lined up waiting for a teacher. It was 11:30 in the morning and not one teacher...

May 26 was the birthday of Dorothea Lange, the photographer who took the iconic Migrant Mother image during the Dust Bowl. She left a successful portrait business in San Francisco to document the displacement of the Dust Bowl farmers.

The incredible thing about Lange's work is the power it...

Leaders are being toppled from high towers all over the world. Leadership itself is on an evolutionary trajectory, and many of the assumptions we held about authority are looking, at second glance, like illusions. Illusions are false beliefs. They are notions and ideas that we have inherited from our culture,...

I'm saddened for the young gay students who took their lives and outraged at the churches who perpetuate ignorance and intolerance. We are leaving the churches in droves and well we might, considering their Dark Ages approach to this issue.

This memoir, Born Gay, is my attempt to show what...

I woke up last night to the sound of laughing and realized I'd fallen asleep with the TV on. It was 3 AM and I knew it was Jon Stewart but I had to fumble around for my glasses to see who his guest was. Unbelievable! It was Jesus, in...

I read about an executive who had a real flat response from his employees when he put out the question "How can we best the best company in the world?" There was a long pause and a deep silence in the room until a worker said, "How about this: how...

I bought a blood pressure monitor the other day after visiting my doctor and finding my blood pressure was elevated. I felt healthy as a horse and had no clue that inside I was like a pressurized steam cooker. It takes a monitor to actually test for high pressure because...

Have you ever had the thought, "I'm not creative. I can't even draw a straight line"? If so, you're not alone. Many people think that there is some essential relationship between creativity and the ability to make art. If they can't paint like Picasso, sing like Josh Groban, or sculpt...

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a woman who had read Seth Godin's ebook, What Matters Now, which can be found on his blog. She noticed that of the 76 contributors to the ebook, only 18 were women. She writes: "That's about 25% and ironically, one of...

Here are ten questions to ask yourself when you have a minute to really think. If you can answer each of them right away, you get a gold star for being a visionary thought leader! If you wonder what these questions have to do with leadership, you are not up...

A conversation in the year 2050 between a boy and his grandfather

Grandpa, did you know it was happening?

Well, sort of. There was news about it, but it didn't seem too real.

How did it feel when you couldn't eat the fish anymore?

Well that was hard. We never...

I did a radio show the other night on Sustainability and Profitability for Businesses,
and the interviewer asked what advice I had for small or mid-sized business owners that might help them during this crunch time. My advice was based on two real life examples of...

Beaudelaire once said that true genius is the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously without losing your mind. I felt like I was doing that yesterday as I sobbed my way through the heart-breaking tribute to Michael Jackson, half ashamed for ever judging him, half aware he may have...

The Subject is Sustainability...visionary thinking...new ways of doing business

I'll be interviewed tonight at 6 pm Pacific time; http://www.universallearningseries.com/
Call in to the Show!( 646) 200-3998
tune into chat rooms during the show
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Sandy-Andrew

Some of the issues we'll be exploring are:

· why is sustainability so...

Imagine what it would feel like if when you turned on CNN, MSNBC, or Fox News, instead of seeing interviews with politicians, political pundits and economic analysts, you watched interviews with poets, visionaries, and philosophers who helped us make sense of these tumultuous times. Imagine hearing people address the spiritual...

I asked my neighbor Marge today if she thought a good Christian could vote Republican.
She was just trying to unwind the cord on her electric lawnmower and I think the question took her by surprise. I asked her because she's a good Lutheran, the widow of a career...

Some of the greatest thinkers today are in agreement about the power of our consciousness to alter our circumstances. From biologists to business leaders, mystics to medical professionals, philosophers to philanthropists, people are speaking out about the role of our thoughts in the unfolding of our realities. And...

Every day my good friend Shelly walks to the corner, gets a newspaper from the box, sits out on the porch and starts to read. I start hearing him grumble within minutes. He stays in his chair, but I know he's agitated. "There's nobody out there making any sense anymore!"...