This morning, my life partner and I were discussing what the characteristics of the target client base for my company which is On-Core Ventures is.  The company originated with a goal to assist the Twelve million reported Encore Entrepreneurs (EE’s) who are looking to create a business that is “On-Core.”

When starting my search for these EE’s, I began in our church since the demographics is pretty bifurcated comprised of about 50% boomers and 50% young families with children.  The boomers listened politely to my initial effort to discuss life after the shift.  During my presentation, there was much head bobbing, which might mean they agree with what you are saying, or might instead indicate they are simply agreeable to anything that is said.

A few years ago my son bought me a copy of the DVD (you remember DVD’s right?) for the Matrix. At the time, he was in his teens at the time and, I realize now, I was still in the Matrix. In talking with some of the boomers over the last few months – I think they too are still in the Matrix.  By unexpected contrast, when talking with the young adults of our congregation, they are overall much less likely to be in the Matrix.  They, like myself and many other, have experienced “the shift”, they have woken up to consciousness.

I think that today, many millennials – my son and his lovely wife among them – have rejected the matrix.  Interestingly, many of baby boomers initially rejected the Matrix as well, but as the sixties gave way to the seventies, with the ending of the Vietnam war , the women’s movement stalled, and the leaders of the sixties were killed, it was just easier to take the Blue pill and pretend that everything was as it should be.  Life became a “Cabaret” kind of lunacy where the girls are beautiful, the BMW’s are beautiful, the VCR’s are beautiful, the Walkmen are beautiful. Today, the Plasma 3-D TV’s are beautiful, the iPods are beautiful, the iPhones are beautiful, the iPads’ are beautiful. Facebook is beautiful.

But increasingly, we begin to ask “Are they?” Are these gadgets, devices, social structures, and rules we have designed for ourselves serving our true needs? Are we even aware of what those needs are at this point? Millennials are now redefining the idea of “being” and everything that goes along with it. As they wake up, many boomers will follow suit. There is however, a fissure in the human community at this point, on one side are those who are awake, or will be and on the other, those that steadfastly cling to the status quo, to Facebook, to the Matrix. What they fail to realize is that at some point soon, the very structure of that Matrix will begin to disintegrate as so many lights move off its grid.

So what is an On-Core Venture and who creates one?  It is a venture created by someone who is off the matrix. They are ready to embrace the shift from a life led asleep to an awakened state of being. They can be twenty, fifty or seventy.  They are creating natural, socially responsible enterprises.  They are living in balance.

We must each now ask ourselves “How awake am I? “ and “In what areas of my life am I still asleep?” In asking myself these questions, I turned to the Energy Leadership Index (ELI) Assessment.

According to iPEC (International Professional Excellence in Coaching) “the ELI assessment and the debrief of the results is like holding a mirror up to your perceptions, attitude, behaviors and overall leadership capabilities.”

Through this process, I finally understood how I was reacting to life. It became clear to me that I was, in fact, not acting but instead reacting to situations in my life. A long time ago in a self-recovery program for “victims” of being raised in a dysfunctional family (and what family is not dysfunctional on some level?), I encountered the statement “I am an actor not a reactor.”  At the time, I struggled with that statement but recently have been able to integrate its truth.– I am now an actor – I choose how I am going to act.  The ELI assessment helped me see how I was “re-acting” and gave me the tools to change how I “show up” or act in triggering situations. This knowledge has been invaluable to me in leading an awakened life.

To find our more about how to take the ELI, please visit On-Core Ventures.