“There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterward, when you've worked on your own corner.”
Let’s start with the following short film entitled ‘How We Live – A Journey Towards a Just Transition’ by Kontact Films, paying close attention to the first few minutes of the film discussing the definition of ‘eco’ as it relates to ecosystem, ecology and economy.
Ecosystem = the complex interrelationships of home.
Ecology = the study & knowledge of home (self-knowledge, where ‘home’ is an individual).
Economy = the management of home.
And there are three pillars of economy…
Resources
Work
Culture
Now, the film goes on to describe new business models, more democratic ownership, more local ownership, and even starts discussing human consciousness in terms of human behaviour, actions, interactions, “living better,” etc.
But sadly, while the film “gets” that we cannot expect the banking system which got us into this mess to get us out of it, the film ignores its own axioms in prescribing more top-down structural thinking as being the source for a plausible solution.
Nature doesn’t do much from a top-down level. The term ‘seed change’ comes from this very notion of incremental organic change. The planting of a seed which over generations produces not only one tree, but a forest of trees; the pebble dropped into the pond sending out ripples over time.
Now consider all the so-called “green” movements and technologies related to energy conservation, recycling, etc. At the end of the day, these reduce our negative impact on the planet, but do they actually heal our relationship with the planet? What does it mean, to have a relationship with nature?
How can we propose to create a mindset within ourselves—or a culture within our companies, let alone society—aligned with long term sustainability on the planet, if we have no idea what living in harmony and mutual symbiosis actually feels like? In other words, no practical, experiential knowledge?
We cannot hope to better manage the resources, people and culture of economy unless we experience what it means to live in an ecosystem. Living in an ecosystem, gives us the experiential knowledge we need we truly comprehend the meaning and dynamism of harmony and mutual symbiosis—what we call ecology—and how it relates to our own self-knowledge.
Building upon such a nucleus, such a seed, we can adapt and grow an economy based on harmony and mutual symbiosis… exactly what we experience day in and day out at home—in our homes, offices, schools, as a reflection of what we’re experiencing in our hearts and minds.
In synthesis, we become a part of actual ecosystems…we gain authentic ecology through experience…and our economy cannot help but reflect everything we are and everything we know.
Image by PeapodLife: Explore Our Advanced Human Habitats with a pPodLite Angolo Unit perfect for Home & Small Office
It doesn’t take much, truly. Even a small pPodLite Rainforest Ecosystem from PeapodLife is enough to begin transforming your home/office into a place of harmony and mutual symbiosis…begin giving you the experience of what being in alignment with nature feels like.
Then the real magic happens. But you wouldn’t believe us if we told you! Like all believers in the magical powers of nature to inspire, transform and heal, it’s something you simply know in your heart, and/or have to experience first-hand for yourself.
"There is this constant dynamism in the workforce that is very very hard to build the right [parts] of platform and environment for people to [accomplish] what they want."
In a recent panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, Jim Moffatt of Deloitte and Aaron Levie of Box agreed that attracting and retaining Millennial talent is a major issue for their respective organizations.
“It is very apparent that managing and attracting this demographic of workforce is certainly interesting especially in Silicon Valley,” Levie said. He cited the ever increasing number of companies competing for top talent, and Millennials’ acclimatization to rapid development and succession.
So Millennial turnover rates may be high in Silcon Valley, but could the same be true in Canada? To find out, we turned to Mike Snyders, Senior Partner at Future Focus, Inc.—specializing in human resources and human capital strategies in the Waterloo Region.
“Generation over generation learns how to manage each new generation that follows,” Snyders said. “How do we understand what their motivators are? How do we lead to motivate and develop new talent while maintaining business fundamentals?”
Snyders acknowledged the challenges faced by high-tech companies in the Waterloo Region are similar to those faced by companies in Silicon Valley—and just about everywhere. Many of the unique workplace environments we see in high-tech companies are trying to cater to what millennials are looking for. The key for employers, Snyders said, is to find the right balance between what Millennials want and what the business needs.
“Millennials are motivated differently. Their issue is work-life balance. Yes, you can retain people better by creating a work-life balance in the workplace, but can you stay productive? You need the structure in place. If it’s not managed right, it becomes a fun place, but not a workplace,” he said.
Just how do hi-tech companies’ office environments differ from the typical workplace?
Consider Auvik’s renewal of the Waterloo building formerely known as Blackberry 5. As part of their painful restructuring, Blackberry sold the building to flamboyant Dragon’s Den judge and investor Michael Wekerle. Wekerle was one of the investors involved in Blackberry’s 1997 IPO.
The mostly colourless, cubicle-infested space has been undergoing a transformation into a more lively and optimistic space. The 30-member start-up now enjoys a more open environment, featuring:
accent walls painted in intense Auvik purple
a bear mural and other flourishes by Ontario artist Chris Austin
hand-painted signs displaying the company’s seven core values
All hi-tech firms seem to have their own take on the ‘unique’ workspace. It’s a reflection of the culture of the firm, and this in many ways reflects Millennials’ attitudes toward personal style.
Style versus Substance
Echoing the sentiments of Mike Snyders, there is a danger for these well-meaning companies that the pendulum may swing a little too far in the other direction, resulting in a very ‘fun’ place, where very little ‘work’ actually gets done.
While many of the creature comforts Millennials may find enticing and attractive on the surface, one cannot deny that success is also a primary motivator for them. As well, high-performance and personal accomplishment cannot be overlooked as a motivating factor.
So what is there which simultaneously comforts and stimulates? What phenomenon has a proven track record of MILLENIA (speaking of Millennials) of simultaneously relaxing and inspiring new ideas, approaches, innovations, and invigorating individuals to pursue their revolutionary new ideas?
One word: nature.
It is undeniable that nature has played a critical part in inspiring everything from Newton’s Law of gravity to Beethoven’s 5th symphony to Einstein’s theory of relativity. But one look need no further than one’s own experience.
You know that feeling you experience in nature? You know that refreshed and recharged feeling. You know how it clears your mind and settle your nerves. There’s nothing else like it.
PeapodLife helps you have that refreshing feeling in your office environment.
In terms of creating a ‘feel good work environment’ which is both comforting and stimulating; one which boost BOTH work-life balance and productivity, an high-order rainforest ecosystem from PeapodLife is beyond compare.
It’s the feeling only nature can give you. Now imagine having that refreshing nature-feeling in your boardroom or in the staff cafeteria 24/7, 365 days a year. Imagine an ecosystem actively working all day, every day, boosting your Team’s happiness and efficiency to a whole new level.
That’s certainly what Canada Life Insurance experienced. A few short weeks after installing an ecosystem in their boardroom, they began to notice profound improvements to meetings. Six months later, that boardroom was booked solid with a long waiting list.
Image: Canada Life boardroom living wall and aquarium, Toronto
As for Panasonic, revenue increased after outside salespeople started holding their sales meetings inside their staff cafeteria ecosystem.
Image: Panasonic Canada - cafeteria ecosystem
Just imagine the feeling of working in a climate-controlled rainforest environment. Static pictures can only do so much, so here’s an ecosystem in motion…
Video by PeapodLife: Fitch Street Living Wall EcoSystem 6-Month Update
But not even a video can do our rainforest environments justice. No technology can replace the feeling only nature can provide.
Put the power of nature in motion for your business today, and watch the transformative capabilities of the rainforest create an environment that Millennials will want to live, work, grow, develop, innovate and succeed in.
Image Collage by PeapodLife: Our FB Fav’s Featuring Screenshots of The Rainforest Site & Nature Heals, Nature Reveals
“But I give best when I give from that deeper place; when I give simply, freely and generously, and sometimes for no particular reason. I give best when I give from my heart.”
Yesterday was Earth Day, and as such you may have found yourself inundated by Earth Day messages. From hard-hitting, guilt-tugging proclamations to soft-spoken, heartfelt meditations and everything in between, Earth Day is the one day in the year ‘the gloves come off’ for environmentalists, and just those who care deeply for nature and the wellbeing of the planet and all beings.
Fittingly, we couldn’t help but share our Earth Day Reflections via Genesis Eco Fund’s blog. But that was yesterday. Today, we offer a completely different take as a kind of ‘decompression’ after all the intensity and passion of earth day.
Facebook: love it or hate it, the mother of all social networking sites has redefined what it means to ‘like’ and ‘share.’ So today, PeapodLife wants to share some of the Facebook groups it likes with you.
The Rainforest Site
The Rainforest Site is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness, appreciation and knowledge about the natural world, and the weird and wonderful creatures who share this planet with us. From the profoundly serious and awesomely powerful to the utterly beautiful and heart wrenchingly adorable, The Rainforest Site never ceases to provide a steady flow of nature’s finest and funniest.
Take this post about Bao Bao’s fun frolic in the snow…
For their wonderful work educating and sharing all there is to LOVE about the natural world, The Rainforest Site gets a big ‘like’ from PeapodLife.
Nature Heals, Nature Reveals
This Facebook Community is all about sharing the simple, the beautiful and the profound. If there is a place on the Internet which captures the essence of the last stanza of Ode on a Grecian Urn…
"Beauty is truth; truth, beauty—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
Admittedly, some of the sentiments, posts and quotes they share will not always be everyone’s cup of tea (cynics and anyone repulsed by anything that sounds ‘too new-agey’ be warned), it’s undeniable that there’s something inside all of us which cannot help but be moved when confronted with images and words like the following…
Just become quiet, still, and solitary, and the world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.~ Dana Hawksister~ Image by Lars van de Goor
Posted by ॐ Nature Heals, Nature Reveals ॐ on Tuesday, April 21, 2015
What we love most about ॐ Nature Heals, Nature Reveals ॐ is that it comes close to capturing, in images and words, the essence of Peapodlife—if not quite the feeling you get from a PeapodLife ecosystem.
The simple sentiment, ‘nature heals, nature reveals,’ beautifully captures the essential benefits of inviting a high-order ecosystem into your home, workplace, school…wherever life demands you to spend the majority of your time.
It would be wonderful if we could all spend the bulk of our days out in nature, contemplating its beauty and meditating under its gaze, relaxed and able to receive a gift from its infinite wellspring of inspiration and imagination. But the reality of our lives is quite different; and the stressful, toxic indoor environments we are forced to inhabit are pretty much the antithesis of that dream of oneness with nature.
PeapodLife brings that dream to life once more; and brings the healing, inspiring and revealing power of nature into our lives where we need it the most…precisely where we currently have it the least.
That is why we often share posts from The Amazing Wild Nature, National Geographic and all other groups/posts which have grabbed our interest and attention over the years.
And of course, liking/following us on Facebook is one of the best ways to stay informed about us, featuring blogs and other original content related to ecosystems and living a happier, healthier, more peaceful and productive life…the PeapodLife.
The website not only features singing denizens of the tropical Costa Rican rainforest, it has a great deal of maps, information on destinations, and tempting photos inviting visitors to “Explore [their] Human Habitats.”
Image Collage by PeapodLife: Explore Human Habitats in Costa Rica
The site also many features numerous videos highlighting the many beautiful destinations one can visit in Costa Rica, such as La Paz Waterfall Gardens.
We at PeapodLife applaud the efforts by Costa Rica’s rainforest ecosystem flora and fauna to save Canadians from the drudgery and toxicity of their daily workplace. And while getting away to a beautiful place like Costa Rica for a week or two every year is a good start, it won’t “save the Canadians…”
And Mother Nature knows it.
That’s why some of those dedicated rainforest plants and animals from Costa Rica have chosen to come north to Canada to partner with PeapodLife in bringing the beauty, relaxation, invigoration and healing powers of high order rainforest ecosystems to Canadian homes and workplaces 365 days a year.
Image Collage by PeapodLife: Ecosystems for Overworked Canadians
Including up to five biomes, including canopy, waterfall, terrestrial and aquatic, our ecosystems fill your home or office with the beautiful and soothing sights, sounds and energies of a tropical rainforest, with no soil, no mess, and very little maintenance required.
“All of man’s difficulties arise from his inability to sit quietly in a room by himself.” We do so many things, we speak volumes, and we think an endless amount of useless thoughts, but we’ve lost the sense of being. We’ve lost our ground. The most important thing is presence. Being. We’re often so distracted that: “We’re scattered everywhere, but nobody is at home.” ~ Blaise Pascal, with Sogyal Rinpoche
Source: School of the Holy Science Facebook Page:
Let’s face it: very few of us can sit quietly in a room by ourselves. For so many reasons, both internal and external, we find it very difficult to just be still with ourselves.
Whether it’s the cacophony of our crazy busy mind, our crazy buy life, or the mixed-mash-up of real and perceived distractions pulling our attention in all directions, we find ourselves living in a kind of hurricane; a typhoon of never-ending thoughts, worries, wants, to-do lists, etc.
Like a song that gets stuck in our head, we cannot escape the prison of “mental calm depravation.” We may even have difficulty sleeping; either unable to fall asleep due to the never-ending stream of thoughts troubling us and keeping us awake, or disturbing and unsettling dreams reflective of our waking psychological state.
And while it’s all well and good to tell ourselves we can “leave our troubles at the door,” the reality is our subconscious minds have other plans. Without taking time on a regular basis to relax, concentrate, visualize and remember, revere and experience our naturally pure state of being, we remain trapped on the hamster wheel of an unsettled mind; lost in the hurricane of our lives.
PeapodLife can help. High order ecosystems are the eye in the storm of our lives. An ecosystem in the home creates a space which encourages us to sit comfortably and quietly. The natural harmonics of the ecosystem coupled to the phenomenon of entrainment tune our senses, our central nervous system, and our brain to a more soothing state.
Add to this field of harmony and mutual symbiosis the beautiful colours, soothing sounds, replenishing oxygen, and ambiance of energy and vitality, and you experience a space where you have a chance to actually be…not only alone with yourself, but with whatever deeper experiences of reality your heart and mind are open to having, via meditation, a good book, just your own thoughts coming into clarity, or maybe just the deepest, soundest sleep you’ve had in ages.
The point is, we all can use an eye in the storm; a sanctuary and a place where positive rejuvenating harmonics help you return to your natural, optimal state of being. What you do when you arrive there is up to you. PeapodLife’s job is helping you get there…bringing an ecosystem into your home first so you can bring your mind home at last.
Image by PeapodLife: Our ‘Crazy-Busy’ Life is a Hurricane & PeapodLife is the Eye of the Storm
Infographic by PeapodLife: Negative Biomusicalogical & Lexical Entrainment VS. Ecosystem Harmonic & Symbiotic Entrainment at Work
We’ve all been there: the slippery slope and the downward spiral of the escalating argument. Be it at home or in the workplace, we all know the way things can get out of hand and tend to run away from us. Frustration, reactions, anger, aggression, things are said and done and…it rarely turns out well.
What we may not realize is there are real scientific phenomena affecting us during such conflicts. The fundamental principle involved is entrainment. In a general sense, entrainment is the tendency of oscillations or vibrations to synchronize.
Biomusicological entrainment is the phenomenon of entrainment applied specifically to biological organisms, including animals, human beings and ecosystems. Biomusicalogical entrainment is responsible for everything from groupthink to mob mentality.
Video: Bystander Revolution: Sam Trammell | Mob Mentality
And make no mistake; everything the above video talks about applies to adults and adult group dynamics as much as it does for children, adolescents, etc. Why? Because age has nothing to do with the effects of biomusicalogical entrainment.
Lexical entrainment refers to the phenomenon whereby individuals tend to take on characteristics of speech from others in social situations—including intonation, vocabulary, etc.
Some are more sensitive to entrainment than others, but combined, biomusicalogical and lexical entrainment have a very real impact on our relationships and on our effective use of time and energy in the workplace.
Now, compound the effects of these two types of entrainment with the toxic sick buildings and lifeless environments we typically work in—from electromagnetic radiation from office equipment to noise stress, VOC’s and other sources of indoor atmospheric pollution, the list goes on.
There’s much more than just air quality to consider. And sorry, Google, no amount of board games, beanbag chairs, foosball tables, or other manmade gimmicks can heal what is fundamentally a toxic environment, hostile to the optimum performance of living organisms…including us.
Enter PeapodLife Building EcoSystems & Technology
High order rainforest ecosystems are the BEST solution for countering the effects of negative biomusicalogical and lexical entrainment. The ecosystem acts as an umbrella, enveloping everyone in the space with a biomusicalogical entrainment field of harmony and symbiosis. Every organism—and person—within the field is constantly being entrained biomusicalogically by the infinitely complex interrelationships and balancing efforts of the superorganism in order to maximize health, wellness and optimal function of each and every individual in said field.
Image Rendering by PeapodLife: Imagine your office or workplace transformed into an atmosphere of optimal human performance, harmonic and symbiotic relationships, and health & wellness.
Now, are we saying an ecosystem will completely prevent all interpersonal conflict? Certainly not. But what it can do is take the edge off such conflicts. With the over-arching influence of the ecosystem—complete with beautiful orchids, bromeliads, soothing moss, flowing water, meditative fish, ionized living water counteracting the effects of harsh electromagnetic radiation, etc.—some conflicts might be shorter, or less intense, or more quickly resolved.
In the human body, melatonin is the hormone which is involved in the entrainment of the circadian rhythms of physiological functions including sleep timing and high blood pressure. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin Put another way, melatonin is the “calming hormone” in the body which counteracts the forces in us which lead to nervousness, agitation, stress, frustration, anger, etc.
Think of a PeapodLife ecosystem as constantly washing your office space in a melatonin bath. But, unlike melatonin—which can have the effect of causing drowsiness—ecosystems stimulate the senses and invigorate our energy. In addition, nature boosts the immune system, improves mental faculties, increases inspiration and imagination, and all in all makes people feel better.
Imagine fewer sick days…fewer incidents of employees waking up thinking “ugh…I don’t feel like going into work,” when work is such a pleasant place to be.
How pleasant? Videos can’t do it justice, but here’s one anyway…
Video: PeapodLife Living Wall EcoSystem Fitch Street
Now, just imagine what how all this will make you and your team FEEL? Imagine how much more you and your team will get done, and how much more pleasant an experience you’ll have doing it in the BEST indoor environment possible. PeapodLife Building Ecosystems & Technology—be at your BEST.
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