Margaret Wheatley. As I've traveled the planet the past few years, I've talked to leaders from all types of organizations. The more leaders I met, the more my despair grew. The challenges these leaders face are both global and local and they can no longer lead in the ways that they know create sustainable and creative organizations. What's more, my understanding of who leaders are has been changing. Many of us are leaders, and we need the courage to lead in ways that make a difference. From the Four Directions was a gift to me personally, because it changed me from despair to knowing what I needed to do to try and make a difference, to work for a future that is hopeful, not destructive. But the simplest statement I can make is that I do this work because I have no choice. It has entered my heart and head and soul and won't let me do anything else.

Christina Baldwin. From the Four Directions gives the world a chance to reclaim conversation as the source of informed change, and to re-gather people in councils where the truth they speak to each other can build understanding compassion and the foundation for action

Bob Stilger. I'm convinced that this is the time to "dream no small dreams". People all over the planet are saying they want to live their lives differently -- more personally balanced, more in tune with the whole of the planet. Moreover, people are coming forward to offer life-affirming leadership in their organizations and communities. From the Four Directions is one very important way to support this change.

Tenneson Woolf. I'm in it for my kids (and the kid in me). And because we have a great staff. From the Four Directions provides a helpful way to reemphasize some of what is important in many communities -- conversations that go a little deeper, people connecting with people, understanding of beliefs and values, the ability to create and discover meaning together, the increased likelihood of acting from shared perspective. What is possible as a human community? As a global family? What is needed? I like these questions. Leadership and Service are good portals to enter into responding to these questions. And in doing so, I hope to contribute to the world I most hope for, and the world that I want my children welcomed into.

Bonnie Marsh. Having served in numerous healthcare organizations in my career, I always worked at the developmental edge - trying to make the organization truly work for those it served and those serving within it. In my last four years of organizational work, I brought the circle process into Fairview Healthcare System where it became "the way to be and do work" in my areas of responsibility. I know how powerful it is to enable people to connect with one another around what really matters. Once I learned there was to be a global initiative that was focusing on life affirming leadership values and practices utilizing the circle process, I knew I had to be part of it. This is truly my heart and soul work, and I'm honored to be fully engaged in it.

	Carole Schwinn. It is a profoundly radical notion to believe that healing ourselves in an increasingly complex world will come about through the simple act of coming together in conversations that help us remember who we are. Yet, it is that simple, radical notion that reverberates in the place in me where my spirit and my call to action are one. In this work, "What I do is me. For this I came."
David Schwinn. I believe that we are at a turning point as a species on this beautiful blue-green planet. We can continue to deplete our natural resources and pollute our atmosphere by focusing on short-term profits, to destroy one another with war, genocide, and poorly distributed food, health care and education, or we can choose to make our home a better, more loving place for all of us, our children, and their children. I choose the latter. From the Four Directions provides me the best opportunity I know of to act on my choice.

Toke Paludan Møller. I have lived for a while, I have followed others for a long time and I have led so much and so many.... My passion is to lead my life and to live my leadership - consciously stepping aside trusting that Life can lead us to more natural ways. I trust that when we connect with each other as humans in conversation and work - then together we know what to do and can inspire each other to do it. What if we could experience being part of Life's own servantship and do some necessary and meaningful work at the same time?

Marianne Knuth. I believe that we don't have much time to begin to turn this big ship called modern civilisation, around. I am a part of From the Four Directions because I believe that the needed change comes as individuals everywhere begin to connect to each other around what really matters to them. When they begin to realise that the thoughts they have and hold to themselves in moments of doubt, or in times when they let their dreams loose, that those thoughts are shared by countless others.

Donna Gianoulis. Anthropologist Margaret Mead concluded that small groups of dedicated, thoughtful people – we the people – are, indeed, the only ones who have ever changed the way the world works. I want to know what happens when circles of diverse and concerned citizens, meeting in a variety of communities on every continent of the globe, become known to one another and connected via the world wide web. What is possible when servant leaders in every realm of human endeavor share their dreams, questions, stories, best practices, emergent learning, and courage with one another? How might the prevailing organizational values of speed, technology, and numeric efficiency be changed when the energy of exponential mathematics (small circles of dedicated, thoughtful people connected to other circles, connected to more circles…) joins the persistent human desire for a better world? From the Four Directions offers you and me and children everywhere the probability of living into a future where all hope breaks loose; we the people everywhere living and leading from the values central to us all.