Good morning beautiful W3,

Yesterday was the perfect “lazy” Sunday at the Wild and Wise Retreat House. After the required “Sunday errands” were complete, Dave and I settled in for an afternoon of popcorn and movies – one of my most favorite ways to stroll through an afternoon!

One of the movies we watched was “The Circle” with Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, based on the best-selling novel by Dave Eggers. I will say, as I was searching for a trailer to share with you, they are much more sinister than the movie itself.

But the movie had many many thought-provoking moments and questions, about a world that really isn’t too far in the distant future. I don’t want to give anything away …. (and I think this is pretty safe)

In one of the scenes the owners of “The Circle” had a government official publicly announce that she would agree to wearing a small camera, and that all of her phone calls, emails, conversations, meetings, and documents would be publicly accessible. All of them. Full transparency.

Can you imagine such a world? 

My husband Dave and I had a long conversation about this. Is this a good thing? A bad thing?

Would we do this?

Would I be willing to have every word I uttered, every word I wrote to others, publicly accessible to Wild and Wise Women?

Well, it doesn’t terrify me. It doesn’t make me afraid to have my behaviour “monitored” so to speak.  I’m NOT saying I think it should or shouldn’t happen, and let’s be honest a LOT of our data and information IS accessible should someone wish to make the effort.

But, I know for sure it would change how people behaved in their everyday lives. I have loved, lived with, worked with and for people over the years who do not treat people well.

People in the personal development, self-help, lift your spirit parts of the industry who teach and preach a way to live in the world, and then behave in direct contradiction to those teachings. You’d be shocked I bet.

What if you knew though? What if you had access, and therefore could make “real” decisions on the kinds of people you wanted to be with, work with, work for, do business with, purchase goods and services from … it’s kind of interesting isn’t it?

I bet we’d be making different choices than we are now in some areas. And in others, we’d be darned proud we had chosen so well!  (I like to think you’d feel that way about Wild and Wise)

I have always been a believer in transparency and truth. Maybe not to such drastic levels … but it was the reason that I initiated an exercise in one of my companies years ago, that my staff could submit any question that they wanted to ask me … and I would answer it publicly on our next staff training day.

Questions poured in.  

• “What do you feel is your greatest failure in your life so far?”
• “What do you find challenging?”
• “What is your biggest success?”
• “What do you love?”
• “If you could do anything, what would it be?”
• “What special talents do you have?”
• “What is a pet peeve?”
• “What qualities do you love in your spouse?”
• “What kind of parent are you?”
• “What makes you angry or sad?”
• “How have you become so successful?”
• “What is your dream?”