Winning Practices of a Free, Fit, and Prosperous People
978-0-9859504-7-7, Flourishbooks.org
Your background is remarkably diverse, from Purdue, Cornell, and Harvard to extensive travel, The Nature Conservancy, and a very successful career raising organic crops and turkeys humanely. What made you such a deep thinker and humanitarian?
I became deeply contemplative upon going to college, reading hundreds of books, and experiencing numerous cultures. Contrasts jar us, and I experienced hundreds of them early in my life. The differences between life in upstate New York and other countries caused me to wonder why some populations prosper and others subsist. Winning Practices of a Free, Fit, and Prosperous People is the distillation of 40 years of findings and thought.
In chapter two, “Losing Our Way,” you list many factors that have caused the US to lose much of its stature on the world stage. Are you hopeful that we can reverse the trend?
I believe we will successfully address our crises but reversing the slide will require us to (1) focus more on our family, community, and the environment; (2) place a higher value on honesty, lawfulness, education, rigor, marriage, and investment; (3) assure every child has a secure neighborhood, excellent healthcare and education, and effective role models; (4) embrace competition, inclusion, and high standards, (5) elect goodhearted, competent leaders; (6) break the privileged positions of the public sector unions and corporations; (7) recognize that conservatives, moderates, and progressives all add value; and (8) shun news outlets that ignore the age-old standards of journalism.
In the book, you indicate that understanding the evolution of the universe and life enables people to recognize what matters and what works. Please explain?
Nature dictates several parameters of life. We are the products of a several-billion-year stream of causes and effects that are largely invisible to us. If we understand the stream, we can more effectively and happily flourish within it. While our instincts and primary operating system evolved on the savannahs of Africa, we are incredible learning beings. What our parents, schools, and communities transmit to us largely determines the trajectory of our lives.