Life Is Not A Popularity Contest.

Interview with Steve Farrell, Worldwide Coordinating Director and co-founder of Humanity’s Team.

Gil Dekel: The ides for ‘Humanity’s Team’ came to Neale Donald Walsch in a dream?

Steve Farrell: Yes, and I had a chance to listen to Neale describing his dream, and to be part of it from the start in March 2003. Neale wanted to start a movement that will focus on one thing and one thing only: our oneness with God and humanity.

Over the millennia it has been shared that we all are one; that there is only one presence, that there is only one energy. There’s only one thing and that it is God, spirit, divinity, universe, it is the source; we can use any word to describe it. This was said in a thousand different ways by a thousand different people in all the sacred texts.

Yet, people still believe in the paradigm of separation, feeling they are separated from each other.

Yes, and this is because we have created a ‘cultural story’ around this paradigm of separation.

Why have we done so?

I think there was a desire at some part in our human evolution to know ourselves as separate. I think we have said, “what would it look like when I am only my separated self, my small self? Before I know myself as the ‘big me’, what does the ‘little me’ look like? How does the ‘little me’ feel?”

I believe we wanted to do that, to feel separate, so to once again discover our unity. God, being a loving God said, “okay, let’s design it that way. Let’s create the paradigm where you’re going to be born into the world and not treated as an expression of oneness.”

And then – wow, won’t it be incredible when everybody would wake up, “Divinity is within me.” What an experience that will be…

This is a wonderful idea, still many people may disagree with that…

Absolutely; there is freedom of choice.

You know, my aunt is an atheist. She doesn’t believe in God, and I don’t ever try and make her believe in God. I don’t think that’s the invitation for any of us. The invitation is to point people to within themselves. For the atheist or the person that says, “I don’t see divinity, that’s your thing, not my thing” I would like to just share what I’m passionate about. How I’m living my life, the decisions I’ve made, my successes, my continuing challenges.

And then invite them to share their story. What’s it like for you? What is your focus? Why do you believe you’re here? Part of the story I share is just the story of going within. So our invitation is to go within, which for me means that we have to quiet the world; we have to quiet the TVs, radios, the internet, all the noise. We need to quiet the world to go within and to feel within the source; God, divinity.

For an atheist, we could just say: “go with intuition.” Because even atheists agree that there are some powerful aspect to quieting the world around us and going within and listening to that inner voice. They don’t want to call it God, and that’s fine. We don’t ever need to label it.

The inner voice is a loving presence; it’s a healing presence. It’s why I seek to surrender to that presence. That’s my larger self… That’s the healthy body that I’m a part of. I’m just one cell in the 5 trillion cells that are in a body, and where I’m serving that larger body which is my larger self, that’s where I’m in my happiest place.

There are 7 billion people on earth and I want to be a healthy cell in the body of the earth. I want to create peace and not war. I want to make sure we steward the environment. Atheists that I know relate really well to that message when we pull out the word ‘God’, and just use ‘earth’ or ‘universe’ in its place.

So, in practicality – on Monday morning, rush-hour, you on your way to work – what do you do then to feel One?

Within Humanity’s Team the thing that anchors us are the 5 steps to peace. The fifth step teach us to live as a demonstration of our highest and grandest self, not in denial of it. Now that doesn’t mean perfection because there isn’t perfection. In fact, when we strive for perfection, we often push it away.

It is about the journey; it’s not about the destination. What is the journey? The journey is being an expression of love. Every master, every prophet, every messenger, and all sacred texts say that it is about being an expression of love.

So we better not get too caught up in distractions, saying to ourselves, “Well, I can’t be an expression of love because I’ve got to go do this and that, be on time, I need to promote this, I need to give this speech…” If we can’t be an expression of love in the way that we’re doing something (anything), getting somewhere on time, or giving a speech and driving to work – then we’re in the wrong place and we’ve lost our way. And again, do I do this perfectly? No; but do I focus on this every day and give it my best? Yes, I do. In my concept, you’re a star-being, I’m a star-being, we’re all star-beings. We’re all part of the One, a cell of the body of the universe.

Neale describes his conversations with God. Do you have such conversations yourself?

Absolutely; for me it’s more ‘feeling with God.’ I feel God’s presence in a thousand different ways in my life, and God is inspiring me, financially supporting me, and guiding me.

It feels like an encouraging parent where God is saying, “All the things that you all want can happen, it is happening; I’m supporting you every step of the way.” Even as we’re in financial crisis in this world now and the environment is challenged, still I feel this loving presence saying, “You can do it, you are doing it. I’m helping you.” There is so much beauty all around. It is like a loving parent that has her or his arms around us.

So, the 7 billion people can really live together as one?

Yes, I believe they can. I think that Neale’s description in the book The Little Soul and the Sun is real. While it is hard right now to see the divinity in some people – maybe they did something bad – still the little light, that little candle is present in each person. Some are not in touch with the part of God that they are, their divinity.

As this tipping point occurs, I believe we are being assisted now by God with all of Her/His messengers and angels and other resources. God will help us to sort of skim off the blocks to love and light that have caused these kinds of behaviours, and there will be an ascension of energy into this place of loving presence, connection, compassion and service to each other.

Do you remember your mission in your past lives?

I don’t. I have a lot of friends that have explored past life; and for me, I just… as I go within and as I’m guided by spirit, what my guidance says is there’s nothing that you need to know about past life right now.

Let it go. Let go of anything that you might even know, just be fully present as spirit and body and let go of all the roles that you had with parents and business leaders because you know, it was quite a challenge to go from being a business leader in silicon Valley, where I worked, where a secular language dominates.

You start talking about divinity, unity and oneness; you start talking about love expressed, unconditional love where there’s no hell – wow! you’re going to really raise some eyebrows… That kind of talk doesn’t fit well in a lot of circles. It certainly was true for me; so just letting go of these other roles, is fine.

We can’t be the expression of spirit if we’re caught up in how the world views us. Life is not a popularity contest where we need to win people’s favour… We have to let go of that need for approval, because if we don’t let go and don’t surrender to being an authentic expression of spirit, then we won’t live in the fullness of who we are.

Can the spiritual operate within the business world?

Yes, it can. There’s a lot in the spiritual that is very attractive to business people. There’s this word ‘differentiation’ in the business vocabulary, meaning something that is unique and different and compelling that causes customers and employees to want to work for you. There’s a value proposition in business that’s very important.

As a business leader you don’t have to work from a day planner. You can talk from your heart energy, being a loving presence in all the ways that you can. You’re honouring yourself and others and you see equality in others. When you’re coming from that place as a business leader, you create an exciting work environment for employees and customers. If you’re endeavouring to always tell the truth and live in integrity, customers would love that. There’s so much ‘spin’ out there where stories are fabricated, truths are stretched; we’ve all experienced that and it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good if you’re the customer or the employee.

If you can create an authentic environment where you’re doing your best to tell the truth and be a loving presence, then you can create value proposition for the community, for all the stakeholders – I’m referring to all stakeholders: the people and the planet around you. Doing so you can create a profit; that’s not a bad thing at all.

These are the new four P’s in a business environment: Profit, People, Planet and Presence. Presence is another word for God. This is a very different model from the ‘shareholder’ model that focuses on profit to the exclusion of everything else.

Now, when we jump over from the old 1 P model (which is based on profit only), to the new 4 P model (Profit, People, Planet, Presence), then the value proposition and the excitement are huge! And you can grow a great company by doing this. So I do talk to business leaders that are very excited about this.

Recently I discovered that National Geographic (NGS) sells leather products, such as leather bags. I find this a bit unsettling, as I always felt that NGS will oppose any promotion of leather products. I phoned their customer service up, and raised this question.
I was told they use skin of animals that naturally died, and that they support people whose culture and livelihood is based on haunting. Now, I had further conversation with them, and I feel they said this just to wave me off. The lady I spoke to kind of hinted that she was told to say these things, but that she herself does not believe this is the case.

Well, I think that what you did is beautiful, and that is the way forward. The invitation is to just to begin a discussion about this. And in my concept of beginning the discussion we remove judgment; we’re not going to be judgmental with each other. We’re going to be truthful and we’re going to be loving, and let’s see where that takes us.

See, I suspect that I’ll make changes in my life from this discussion; you will, Gil; the National Geographic will. This is the beautiful thing about spirit expression; we all come forward and we begin a discussion. We’re not judgmental. I myself have leather products in my home; so what you say here gives me something to think about.

I think that when we come forward in enquiry, where we ask these questions, where we have the courage, as you did in calling National Geographic and just asking the question, it’s a beautiful thing. I think that if we can begin that kind of collaborative process with each other as individuals and as businesses and as organizations and we bring sovereign governments into this that we’re going to get to a beautiful place.

All the best practices will surface and people will say, “Steve, you have this issue with your kids, you’re trying to get protein and that’s why they eat buffalo meat. Have you ever thought of this and that?” So the collaboration will bring us to a really beautiful place.

None of us want to say “I’m wrong”. We all want to frame ourselves as perfect and that’s where we get into trouble. If we can start out by saying, “I’m not perfect, I make mistakes but I’m doing my best; I’m really living this in the most excellent way that I can,” and where we open ourselves to questions and best practices, that’s going to take us to a really good place.

That’s being spirit guided. We invite people to a conversation and we work together to become more evolved, to become more enlightened, and to live more fully in the presence of God. And let’s not worry about mistakes or not being perfect.

9 Oct 2012.

© Steve Farrell and Gil Dekel. Exclusive publishing rights © Gil Dekel. Interview conducted over the phone, 10 August 2012, and via email correspondence 28 Sep 2012 – 8 Oct 2012. Steve is based in the USA. Gil is based in The UK. See Humanity’s Team website.