Calvin Klein

Edyn Ray on Amazon

Calvin Klein

Edyn Ray on Amazon

About Calvin Klein

About Calvin Klein

As founder and president of The Nature of Business, Calvin uses principles of nature to improve the nature of work. His unique experience as a corporate strategist, executive coach, farmer and wildlife artist, give him a unique perspective across worlds; the world of business and the world of nature. He is particularly adept at integrating natural principles with business practices to improve leadership and organizational performance. Yet, despite 36 years of business experience, Calvin remains a country kid at heart.

The Arrival of Edyn Ray, was Calvin’s first attempt at being an author. Although the book’s story may feel like fiction, his investigative pursuits surrounding EON are factual, as are the findings when he put EON into practice. But because the story Edyn Ray and EON feels like a fable, Calvin is often asked what the real story is.

As founder and president of The Nature of Business, Calvin uses principles of nature to improve the nature of work. His unique experience as a corporate strategist, executive coach, farmer and wildlife artist, give him a unique perspective across worlds; the world of business and the world of nature. He is particularly adept at integrating natural principles with business practices to improve leadership and organizational performance. Yet, despite 36 years of business experience, Calvin remains a country kid at heart.

The Arrival of Edyn Ray, was Calvin’s first attempt at being an author. Although the book’s story may feel like fiction, his investigative pursuits surrounding EON are factual, as are the findings when he put EON into practice. But because the story Edyn Ray and EON feels like a fable, Calvin is often asked what the real story is.

The Real Story

In Calvin's Own Words

The Real Story

In Calvin's Own Words

I began writing the book in 2016. Words seemed to flow for most sections of the book, but the words for Part One kept coming out in rhyme, and that wasn’t my intention. I fought the fairytale style for well over a year, before surrendering to the rhythm. The longer story started many years prior.

 I began writing the book in 2016. Words seemed to flow for most sections of the book, but the words for Part One kept coming out in rhyme, and that wasn’t my intention. I fought the fairytale style for well over a year, before surrendering to the rhythm. The longer story started many years prior.

2003

I had worked for a Fortune 500 company, for twenty years, and as their senior strategist, I facilitated such discussions with the senior team. However, strategic initiatives became increasing self-centric, and it felt very unnatural to me.  So in 2003, I founded The Nature of Business and designed a strategic framework emphasizing the relationship of an entity and its environment, and used the dynamics of complex systems to build both its structure and my consulting practice.

2003

I had worked for a Fortune 500 company, for twenty years, and as their senior strategist, I facilitated such discussions with the senior team. However, strategic initiatives became increasing self-centric, and it felt very unnatural to me.  So in 2003, I founded The Nature of Business and designed a strategic framework emphasizing the relationship of an entity and its environment, and used the dynamics of complex systems to build both its structure and my consulting practice.

2009

In 2009, I had a series of dreams that lasted 10 days. They came in short spurts, and occurred every two hours or so. Every spurt in the series had a similar format; a pair of words that seemed to be opposite, connected by what seemed to be a toothpick. When the dreams finally ended, I was left with several  very powerful impressions. One was a pile of toothpicks. Another was the strong sense that the pile was profoundly important on a global and social scale.

2009

In 2009, I had a series of dreams that lasted 10 days. They came in short spurts, and occurred every two hours or so. Every spurt in the series had a similar format; a pair of words that seemed to be opposite, connected by what seemed to be a toothpick. When the dreams finally ended, I was left with several  very powerful impressions. One was a pile of toothpicks. Another was the strong sense that the pile was profoundly important on a global and social scale.

2014

For the next two years I was constantly searching for clues, and eventually a new framework emerged. The seemingly opposite words, proved complementary instead. When organized into a circle, the two-sided toothpicks formed a nested arrangement that I named S.O.S. (Spheres of Sustainability). Also around that time, sustainability was becoming a socio-economic driver. Definitions varied, but one became widely accepted. A sub-committee of the United Nations defined sustainability as, “meeting needs of the present, without compromising needs of the future.”  Because of the emphasis on Needs, I reconsidered  Maslow’s Hierarchy as needs of all living things (not just human), and reorganized them into pairings (like the toothpicks) and into a nested arrangement, with feedback loops providing balance. Soon after, I replaced the name SOS with EON (Ecology of Needs).

The next eight years was a divine and emotional mix, both personally and professionally. In the business world, EON  resonated with clients. Not only did they find it intuitive, they also seemed to comprehend and navigate complexity in ways they hadn’t before. EON connected and held things together in ways that our deductive mindset doesn’t do very well. That experience was so common, I began to recognize limitations of the dominant mindset, its inability to comprehend complexity, and to consider the dominance of a one-sided mind, as a paradigm.

EON’s unfolding was also braided with personal sadness. Our family had been blessed with the conception of a baby girl, who I will name Edyn Ray for the purpose of this story. Sadly, we lost her to a genetic disorder which prevents the brain from dividing properly.

The divine braiding of Edyn Ray’s tragedy, EON’s trajectory, and the book’s content, was pointed out to me by a person who was both professional peer and personal friend. Details of that conversation now elude me, but the gist of it remains crystal clear. Our minds are divided for a reason; we won’t survive if we keep using or choosing one side. Not long after that, the sciency stuff started showing up.

2014

For the next two years I was constantly searching for clues, and eventually a new framework emerged. The seemingly opposite words, proved complementary instead. When organized into a circle, the two-sided toothpicks formed a nested arrangement that I named S.O.S. (Spheres of Sustainability). Also around that time, sustainability was becoming a socio-economic driver. Definitions varied, but one became widely accepted. A sub-committee of the United Nations defined sustainability as, “meeting needs of the present, without compromising needs of the future.”  Because of the emphasis on Needs, I reconsidered  Maslow’s Hierarchy as needs of all living things (not just human), and reorganized them into pairings (like the toothpicks) and into a nested arrangement, with feedback loops providing balance. Soon after, I replaced the name SOS with EON (Ecology of Needs).

The next eight years was a divine and emotional mix, both personally and professionally. In the business world, EON  resonated with clients. Not only did they find it intuitive, they also seemed to comprehend and navigate complexity in ways they hadn’t before. EON connected and held things together in ways that our deductive mindset doesn’t do very well. That experience was so common, I began to recognize limitations of the dominant mindset, its inability to comprehend complexity, and to consider the dominance of a one-sided mind, as a paradigm.

EON’s unfolding was also braided with personal sadness. Our family had been blessed with the conception of a baby girl, who I will name Edyn Ray for the purpose of this story. Sadly, we lost her to a genetic disorder which prevents the brain from dividing properly.

The divine braiding of Edyn Ray’s tragedy, EON’s trajectory, and the book’s content, was pointed out to me by a person who was both professional peer and personal friend. Details of that conversation now elude me, but the gist of it remains crystal clear. Our minds are divided for a reason; we won’t survive if we keep using or choosing one side. Not long after that, the sciency stuff started showing up.

2019

Although the search for clues never stopped, the pointers tended toward scientific articles that felt out of reach. The most earth shaking of those, was titled “The Peculiar Math that Could Underlie the Laws of Nature,” in Quanta Magazine; an article was about octonion math, but read like a deep dive into EON. That article sent me on wider searches and introduced me to Lie Group Algebra’s (about which I still know nothing) and the mathematical lattices that model multi-dimensional numbers (2-4-6-8).  Note the graphics of the mathematical progression.

2019

Although the search for clues never stopped, the pointers tended toward scientific articles that felt out of reach. The most earth shaking of those, was titled “The Peculiar Math that Could Underlie the Laws of Nature,” in Quanta Magazine; an article was about octonion math, but read like a deep dive into EON. That article sent me on wider searches and introduced me to Lie Group Algebra’s (about which I still know nothing) and the mathematical lattices that model multi-dimensional numbers (2-4-6-8).  Note the graphics of the mathematical progression.

NOW

PATH
TO THE FUTURE

The two intersection squares at the start, progressed to the 6 and 8 dimensional lattices that looked like the pile of toothpicks I’d been talking about for 10 years. I freaked at the realization, but the onslaught of scientific insights had only started, and they pointed to the hyper-hypothesis introduced in the book; the idea being that natural forces form a communication system that has a linguistical structure similar to human and computer languages, and a stem of understanding where the branches of science all connect. What evolved from the dream in 2009, was a visual representation of the language; the graphics of its grammar, so to speak.

From that  journey, I triangulated three points to steer by:

1.     Such an integration of knowledge would be a paradigm shifter, not only in human understanding of life, but also in our ability to tackle global threats: social and environmental decomposition, to name just two …

2.     A collaboration effort “the likes of which we’ve never seen before” will be required to do it, and …

3.     I needed to figure out how to share all this with the world. 

So, of course, I enlisted Edyn Ray’s help.

NOW

The two intersection squares at the start, progressed to the 6 and 8 dimensional lattices that looked like the pile of toothpicks I’d been talking about for 10 years. I freaked at the realization, but the onslaught of scientific insights had only started, and they pointed to the hyper-hypothesis introduced in the book; the idea being that natural forces form a communication system that has a linguistical structure similar to human and computer languages, and a stem of understanding where the branches of science all connect. What evolved from the dream in 2009, was a visual representation of the language; the graphics of its grammar, so to speak.

PATH TO THE FFUTURE

From that  journey, I triangulated three points to steer by:

1.Such an integration of knowledge would be a paradigm shifter, not only in human understanding of life, but also in our ability to tackle global threats: social and environmental decomposition, to name just two …

2.A collaboration effort “the likes of which we’ve never seen before” will be required to do it, and …

3.I needed to figure out how to share all this with the world

So, of course, I enlisted Edyn Ray’s help.

Calvin Klein

Edyn Ray on Amazon

Calvin Klein

Edyn Ray on Amazon

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