Today we’ll start a five-part series on freedom. In the first three posts, we’ll explore three levels of freedom. They are: freedom of, freedom from, and freedom to.

___

___

Freedom of

With this level, we think freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and those sorts of things. If you’re like us, you probably think of these things as rights.

That is if you’re lucky enough to live in a society that guarantees those rights. If you’re reading this post, the odd are that you do live in such a society. We take away two points from this:

If you live in such a country, stop and be grateful.
You may see flaws in the system. You may see the misdoings of public officials. You may adamantly disagree with their decisions.

But, now and then, stop and be thankful that you live in a place where you can express your disagreement, if you choose to do so, without fear for your life. What a wonderful gift it is!

For the most part, societies that guarantee these freedoms do better than societies that don’t.
Isolation doesn’t work. It slows progress. In fact, isolation can actually cause societies to go backwards. We wonder, though, which comes first:

Does this infrastructure need to be in place so these countries develop, or …

Does this infrastructure result from the development?

We suspect the former – development is more likely to occur when this infrastructure is in place. When people feel that basic freedoms exist, they are free to develop things that aren’t likely to be developed in a closed society.

There is a lesson for leaders in this. Don’t just allow your people to express themselves; encourage it. That’s where creativity comes through.

Bigg success often starts with a bad idea. Ideas may seem bad at first hearing, but can evolve into something revolutionary. Such was the case about 233 years ago when a group of people declared their independence. We know the rest of that story!

___

___

Thank you so much for reading our post today. Please join us next time when we’ll discuss the second level of freedom – freedom from. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00426-062909.mp3

Related Posts

Three Levels of Freedom – Part 2

Three Levels of Freedom – Part 3

(Image in today's post by svilen001)

___

___

He asks the question, “What is the best way to organize human groups and human organizations and businesses so as to maximize productivity, creativity, innovation, and wealth?”

Now wouldn’t we all like to know the answer to that question?

He says that in the thirteen thousand years of human history, we have thousands upon thousands of “natural” experiments. To answer his question, he looked at extreme examples of societies in isolation.

The isolation begins
About ten thousand years ago, the places we know as Australia, Tasmania, and Flinders Island were connected – people could freely travel back and forth between them. Then the glaciers melted.

Even though they were only about 200 miles apart, the water-going craft of that era couldn’t traverse the rough seas between these three islands. So the 4,000 people of Tasmania and 200 people on Flinders Island became completely isolated from the rest of the world.

The isolation ends
In the seventeenth century, these two islands were “discovered” by the Europeans. The first to be rediscovered was Tasmania. It was noted that, at the time, the society was the least technologically advanced and most primitive group of people in the world.

They had no fire. They didn’t have any tools. They didn’t even know how to fish. In fact, archeologists have shown that they had less technology than they had ten thousand years before.

So, you ask, what about the 200 people on Flinders Island? When it was discovered around the same time, there were no people there. They became extinct.

Our islands

So we learn that small isolated groups don’t innovate. They may even regress. This historical example got us thinking about islands that we create, often without even realizing that we’re placing ourselves in isolation.

Field
Discoveries aren’t isolated to a single field. If you only talk to people within your field, if you only consume content in your space, you’re missing out on a whole world of ideas that may be fruitful for your field.

Media
Many people only consume media with which they agree. Seek out the opposing point-of-view. When you do that, you’ll either reinforce your beliefs or you’ll start to discover other alternatives.

People
Universities often don’t hire graduates of their own programs as professors. They fear it will lead to nepotistic thinking. Let’s learn a lesson from their policy. Get outside your circles of friends and business associates. If you work in the for-profit world, get to know some people in the non-profit world. If you work in government, make sure some of your influencers are in the private sector.

___

I’m a pretty social person. But looking back on my former businesses, I’ve come to realize that I wasn’t feeling fulfilled because I didn’t spend enough time seeking out ideas and alternatives outside my sphere.

___

It’s so easy to get so busy running your business, working your career, or managing your life that you fail to invest important time in connecting yourself to people, places and things that expand your mind.

Islands are a great place to visit. Just make sure you don’t get stuck there.

What islands have you seen people create?

Subscribe to The Bigg Success Show in iTunes. 

Subscribe to the Bigg Success feed.

Direct link to The Bigg Success Show audio file:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/biggsuccess/00264-111308.mp3

Related posts