How a dictionary might define All Around:

The Story of Anne and Diane

What she read excited her.  Here was a program that would enable her to do more good!  She read through the program steps and understood that one of the most important things was to get a Buddy who would give her ongoing support and encouragement.  She even had a choice for how to get a Buddy. She could be matched with someone through the web site, or she could ask someone she already knew to be her buddy. She asked her friend Tasha to be her Buddy since Tasha seemed goal-oriented. They arranged to make a 10-15 minute check-in call twice a week. 

Very soon, Anne cut her volunteering at the literacy center in half.  She still enjoyed it, but she was fairly busy and needed time for the All Around program.  Since she didn’t have a lot of time and money to spare, she began by setting two goals: one to save more money, and another to increase her available time.  She thought about her monthly fixed costs and found ways to save on her utilities and phone bill.  Tasha supported her.  Then Anne did the Well Analogy Assessment and realized that one big reason that she didn’t have time was that she was too unassertive.  She did too much for her boyfriend and other friends that she didn’t want to do and that they should be doing.  She was letting other people control her life. With Tasha’s support, she began working through the Increasing Assertiveness tool.  She even role-played the exercises with Tasha who was also interested in becoming more assertive.  As a result, Anne learned to say no to people’s unreasonable demands of her time and energy without feeling guilty or coming off as being mean.  It took six weeks, but the results were worth it.

Meanwhile, Diane still volunteered five hours a week and said she couldn’t be happier.

Eventually the money Anne saved on bills showed up in her bank account.  She wanted to make a new, more powerful donation with some of this money.  She had always felt like she should be more environmental, so she took the Ecological Lifestyle Assessment and decided to offset some of the damage her lifestyle caused.  She also read the article Wise Giving of Time and Money and spent some of the time she would have volunteered to research high-leverage environmental organizations.  She donated money to a tree-planting program that involved children to tend the trees that would first clean the air, then provide fruit, then later yield timber for buildings.  So the program helped the children become responsible, it helped poor families economically, and it was environmental.  After three months, Anne had saved $100.  This produced 25 mango or banana trees which would help feed five families, probably for at least fifteen years. Not only that, but the trees offset some of the carbon dioxide that her car produced when she drove. Anne liked the Wise Giving resource so much that she told members of her church about it.

Anne next began to focus on her personal mission and fulfillment.  She drew from Part C of the Lifestyle Review to think about her personal mission, but she also wanted to use the Life Mission and Process Statements Resource.  After a few months Tasha became busy with other things, so Anne thanked her for all her support. Anne immediately got another Buddy, Maria, for the twice-weekly phone calls.  One of the questions in the material asked Anne what had made her happiest as a child, and she recalled that it was drawing and art.  She decided to take a course to explore whether or not she should go back to school and become a graphic artist.

Meanwhile, the assertiveness skills she learned gave her more confidence, and she realized that the skills could also help her at her current job.  She asserted herself to make suggestions that her boss found to be valuable.  Eventually it led to a more challenging and interesting job assignment with more pay.  Some of` this newfound money would go to the child & tree charity and some would be put away for art school.

Anne did one more thing before the end of the year.  She had realized that All Around had helped her get more skill, time and money, and had changed her life course through the support to explore her life mission.  She wanted to give back to All Around. She decided to become a support Buddy for new people entering the program.  She had to do a few things first: practice being a good listener, and learn to be less critical and more encouraging.  The Sounding Board tool allowed other people to give her feedback on how they perceived her.  Before the end of the first year in the program, Anne had supported two people until they found other buddies.  One of them had a contact in the art world which she would later use to advance her career.

When Anne looked back, so much had changed in just one year: a new career path, a better job assignment, more confidence and skill with others and a feeling that she had more than tripled the good she was doing with literacy, the new child & tree charity, the good she was doing for herself, and her support of other All Around members. Later, she found out that because of her, a group at her church used the Wise Giving of Time and Money resource. They wrote her a thank-you note saying that after studying and discussing the resource and supporting each other for six weeks they felt like the six people in the group had literally doubled the good they did!

Anne became even more excited when she explored the web site further and realized she hadn’t even tapped one-tenth of All Around’s resources for personal growth and improving the world. At the beginning of the year she had liked the All Around concept but she had thought that the vision of decreasing suffering a hundredfold was too optimistic.  But after a year of seeing her own life change and of dramatically increasing her impact on the world, she got goose bumps because in her heart she realized that All Around had the strategies and methods to do phenomenal good and change the whole world, one person at a time. 

Meanwhile, her sister Diane had doggedly continued to volunteer five hours a week teaching literacy all year.  Finally, Diane started to have mixed feelings about her work.  She knew that teaching literacy was very important, but she was a little envious of all her sister had accomplished.  A year after her sister, she joined All Around, got a Buddy and began to use the support to build up her skills. She also used the Dream and Goal Sheet to start her on the path of someday owning a hair salon.  She dreamed of having her own hair-styling business and of doing some hair styling free in senior citizen homes to make the ladies there feel good. Like Anne, she summarized all her goals and plans on her Life Pact. She made a new Life Pact every four months. When she periodically reviewed it, it gave her a sense of accomplishment, that she could change her life and her world.

Diane also had a male friend, Tom, who was always complaining about the country’s political problems.  When she saw the All Around material on learning how to make a political difference, she thought of Tom.  Since participants can always have more than one Buddy, she challenged Tom to be her second Buddy, and to start doing something about politics instead of just complaining.  (Incidentally, she had other plans for Tom!)

To fully understand All Around

Now imagine that a group of people take the attitude of surgeons. They would then ask themselves and each other what the best, most loving actions would be. With mutual support, reflection, study and practice, they would choose actions that alleviate great suffering and save lives rather than other good actions. While medical surgeons take about eight years to learn to save lives, serious participants of All Around can begin to save lives and reduce suffering in four months or less. What makes this possible are strategic methods, ongoing personal support and taking the attitude of surgeons. That's why we say:

Act as if your children's lives were on the line and not someone else's.—Your Molly, your Jason, your Sophía, your Kizito, your Ululoloa, your Prajhi, your Ling.  Act as if you could see their faces.

To begin the All Around Superprogram, go here.