Martin Rutte is interviewed by Dr Nicholas Beecroft about his Project Heaven on Earth. This is no. 8 in the series Exploring the Future of Western Civilisation. Martin’s present passion is Project Heaven on Earth which is a really simple but powerful approach to aligning people with the greatest purpose in service of the highest mission. Having spent the 1st 25 years of my life highly Christianity phobic, the language “Heaven on Earth” made me feel quite uncomfortable because, to me, it sounds a bit naive, and embarrassingly religious. Martin knows that himself and was held back initially for the same reason. However he simply realised that we all feel very free to talk about “hell on earth” so we ought to be equally comfortable talking about “Heaven on Earth.” The other advantage it has, according to Martin, is that everyone knows exactly what you mean by that phrase; it takes no explanation. Everyone knows what you mean by heaven.
Martin Rutte is an international speaker and consultant. He is president of Livelihood, a management consulting firm in Santa Fe, NM, that explores the deeper meaning of work and its contribution to society. He is co-author of the New York Times business bestseller Chicken Soup for the Soul at Work. Martin is founder and Chair of the Board of Canada’s first Centre for Spirituality and the Workplace at the Sobey School of Business, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax.
Martin notice that you can help back from in the question even beginning to engage what is heaven on earth for them because something so wonderful felt overwhelming, to big, too much, unrealistic and they didn’t know where to start.
“When people really get what heaven on earth is for them and when they begin to get that they can take steps in that direction, the creativity that unfolds is astounding!”
I asked Martin How the heaven on earth approach is different from positive thinking or the law of attraction and other such approaches. He said that one of the biggest limitations to us really going for heaven on earth is that culturally we have a belief that it’s not possible. The very notion of heaven through the Judeo Christian tradition is that it’s not attainable in this world and it’s something that is on the other side after death. Martin believes that this is limiting beliefs which stops us really engaging out for human potential right now.
He says the most of us are only willing to take responsibility after a certain point-responsibility for ourselves, our work, our family, academic community and maybe the country but there’s always a line beyond which we don’t take responsibility. Martin challenges us to get rid of that line and say that we can be responsible for the whole wild but though we only need to take small actions which are doable and realistic but we can do right now. “If we decide the heaven on earth involves ending world hunger that can easily seem really unrealistic and so we might give up. Just imagine if 7 billion people each take one small step in the right direction, suddenly becomes possible and the whole meaning of being human is transformed.”
Martin Rutte
