Whenever a business cycle starts to falter, the media start wringing their hands.  Then big businesses do, freelancers, entrepreneurs and soon everyone is keening.

People and organizations that have no real financial stress start to pull back, “because it’s prudent.” Now is not the time, they say. They cut budgets and put off investments. It’s almost as if everyone is just waiting for an excuse to do less.

In fact, they are.

Growth is frightening for a lot of people. It brings change and the opportunity for public failure. So if the astrological signs aren’t right or the water is too cold or we’ve got a twinge in our elbow, we find an excuse. We decide to do it later, or not at all.

What a shame. What a waste.

Inc. magazine reports that a huge percentage of companies in this year’s Inc. 500 were founded within months of 9/11. Talk about uncertain times.

But uncertain times, frozen liquidity, political change and poor astrological forecasts (not to mention chicken entrails) all lead to less competition, more available talent and a do-or-die attitude that causes real change to happen.

Now is the perfect time for bold political leadership.  Now is the time to think consciously about political leadership.

At the same time there is a call in the electorate for political leaders to be less partisan and to work together more effectively. There’s a role voters can play in helping to make that happen – to think about the perspectives that need to be in those bi-partisan conversations over the years to come and be sure to vote into office the people who will best represent those voices. This may mean voting in people who do not represent our own opinion.

This can feel like a risky proposition. We won’t always get our way. What if the leader we are voting for will predictably vote their own way every time without much consultation with others.

It is a risk as a voter that we need to weigh. There are things that we can do, like writing such a candidate a letter or to have lunch with the leader and talk about why we want to vote for them and the kind of dialogue that we’d like to see.

In my community the issue of land use is a big one. I live out in an old subdivision amidst an area that used to be old farms. The developers would love to build subdivisions. Folks like me would like to see our beautiful drives home remain the same. And yet others have made an investment in this property or are farmers for whom their land is their retirement and would like to see a financial return.

This election will likely have a huge impact on land use policy. The general thinking is about who we want to vote in, the developer types or the environmental-types (notice the generalities). Yet if we step into a new paradigm, the question would be a different one, whose voices will be most effective in talking together about this tough issue? And, how can I best vote to ensure all voices are represented?

So it was a natural thing for me to then consider how “conscious politics” put into words a concept I had been thinking about for the last several years as a professional coach.

In coaching one of the things that we offer our clients is the chance to be aware of the wide range of choices that we as human beings always have at our fingertips. For new clients it is often really challenging to see that there are other options for us other than the path we have always followed. What’s fun as coach is when my clients and I explore not just the opposite of the obvious choice they could make but even alternatives that would never have been considered before.

That’s bringing consciousness to our choices.

I believe that political leaders are hungry to lead their constituents in new ways but that sometimes “the way things are” is so systemic that it can feel impossible to do things differently other than play the game the way it has always been played.

This blog is dedicated to exploring the possibilities that “conscious politics” could offer and to offering tools for public leaders to use in their daily work that will help them to serve their constitutents with greater satisfaction and effectiveness.