Women can lead the way from the survival of the fittest to the survival of the connected.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda left the country in tatters, its future fraught with uncertainty. Of the more than 800,000 people killed, most were men and boys. Rwanda’s remaining population was 70 percent female.

Fast-forward to the present day: The economy has revived and is holding steady. Major road arteries between cities and outlying villages, which were destroyed, have been rebuilt. Today, the Rwandan lower house of Parliament is nearly half female, the highest percentage of women in any parliament worldwide. Girls are attending school in record numbers.

Imagine trying to climb up a mountain laden with two heavy suitcases, all your belongings wrapped around your neck and a bucket of water perched precariously on your head.  You wouldn’t get very far, would you!  That’s just what it’s like trying to achieve your goals and ambitions weighed down with life clutter.

Whether it’s emotional, mental or physical, life clutter gets in the way of our true potential, preventing the clarity required to recognize opportunity as it arises.  It could be emotional baggage from a previous business venture that went wrong and left you feeling like a failure or a comment from childhood when a teacher told you you’d never achieve anything.  Or it could be mental clutter, the daily flood of thoughts about your marriage, job or endless lists of tasks you need to achieve that go round and around in your head.  Or physical clutter could be blocking your potential, from a desk that’s full of unfilled papers or three years of back taxes that still haven’t been filed or sent off.

How often have you been driving your car, ended up at your destination without remembering the last hour of your journey?  Or have you been sat at work with a deadline looming and suddenly realize you’ve been staring at the computer screen for the last 20 minutes without doing anything?  Most of us have experienced time lapses such as these, when we drift off, thoughts claim our attention and we become totally unfocused on the job at hand.  It’s as though we become unconscious.

The reality is that during these times our unconscious mind does take over, we do lose control of our conscious thoughts and we’re no longer present to where we are and what we’re doing.  We might as well be unconscious medically, because that’s how unproductive we can become.

Take a close look at what is happening to the American way of life. It is going downhill big time. We are facing the biggest crisis in the history of this country. And as with all crises, this one too is self-produced by every single individual.

How did we get here?
There are basically two ways to live your life and make a living. Each way is a different approach that varies considerably in its outcome.

The Lose-Lose Gamble Approach
You are focused on making a living by constantly looking for where and how to get the most money out of every situation. Money is the driving force behind in this scenario. You always try to get a piece of the cake as long as there is cake on the table. If there is no cake on the table, you move on to another table to see if there is some cake left for you.