The invitation addressed to me from Tempo to dedicate a monthly article to the Turkish readers has been immediately accepted with enthusiasm as an opportunity to express my love for this Country and share some thoughts about how to lead Turkey to a greater and prosperous future. For this purpose I cannot rely upon my background as an economist and a sociologist, that would prove largely insufficient. For such a task I have to fetch from my encounter with the Dreamer, with His ideas and principles, and the unique experience of the years I have been with this extraordinary being.

I wish to all the readers of this article to meet the Dreamer. For me it happened in the most difficult time of my existence, when I couldn’t see a way out. He turned my life upside down. He inspired me to write a Book based on my apprenticeship with Him: The School for Gods, which has been translated in many languages and is a long-time best seller in Turkey. Real dreams are contagious and from Him I caught the Dream of a school for pragmatic dreamers, where one is told that happiness is economy, a Schools of Being to forge a new generation of visionary leaders with a sixth sense: intuition, and a seventh one: dreaming. Mass education cannot produce them. If the schools and the universities we know are for men, we need Schools for Gods.

The wealth of a nation doesn’t consist of its exports, industrial production capacity, plenty of natural resources, the discovery of oil fields or gold mines and diamond deposits. The real wealth of a nation is the quality of its system of values and above all its capacity to produce emotionally healthy individuals, who have eliminated from themselves any form of inner conflict and negative emotions. Change within society can only come through the personal effort of single individuals.
Behind every human achievement, at the origin of every intuition, of every scientific or social conquest, behind the world’s largest financial and industrial corporations, and all that is, beautiful, meaningful, rich, there is invariably one man an individual and his dream. The life of an organization, of an entire civilization depends on the existence of visionaries, men and women, pragmatic dreamers, individuals. Without them no progress is possible.

The opportunity to express these ideas came from the invitation that I received to be a guest speaker from President Yavuz Canevy President of the Forum Istanbul 2023. The Forum was at its eighth edition and gathers each year 600 of its best brains with the objective to provide an answer to the most crucial question: what can bring Turkey to play a key role in the world’s human development and global economic progress by 2023, 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

As I expressed in my speech, the crisis that the world is facing has little to do with economy and finance. The economical and financial problems are not the cause. They could just be considered effects. What we are really facing is a crisis of values and scarcity of ethical, impeccable leaders.

The main obstacle against which the most ambitious projects shatter is not the lack of financing or material resources, but a shortage of committed men capable of approaching business as if they were serving a cause; with competence, efficiency, honesty, in one word, integrity. Men and women who dream and love; doubtless, fearless people capable of conceiving brave ideas and committing themselves to their realization.

It was then that a concrete Project for the future of Turkey was brought to conception and officially announced. I named it “A Dream for Turkey”.

To make this dream come true, and to have Turkey belonging by 2023 to the Bric’s emerging titans (Brazil, India and China), Turkey needs to prepare a new generation of leaders, men and women free of any ideology or superstition. They are the healthy cells of a new humanity and the real wealth of this nation and of the world. Mass education cannot create them. They need individual attention; they need to be forged one by one.

Too many times we use the word individual without understanding how deep and crucial is the meaning built in it. Individual has an ancient Latin etymology. It finds its origin in the word “individuum” which means indivisible, whole… like to say having integrity. Therefore we should call all ordinary people, marked by a conflictual psychology, with a divisive attitude, “dividual” and reserve the appellation of individual to the few among the few who have reached this special inner condition of unity of Being, that central quality of leadership which we call integrity.

I concluded, affirming the belief that to educate the luminous young leaders that Turkey needs, is not a matter of money, knowledge, power or social standing so much as the development in the youth of self-knowledge, the capacity to free themselves from negative emotions, prejudices and obsolete ideas, and cultivate in themselves an indomitable passion for greatness.

In the following few days, this idea achieved widespread consent by corporations, Foundations and business people, and turned immediately into a Project for founding special scholarships, and the creation of a new Institution, a research centre and not a university, and a unique educational program, to be an example to the world. Its mission is to educate a new generation of leaders, visionaries, pragmatic dreamers, independent creative thinkers, individuals. They will be the real wealth of this Nation.

In the spirit of gratitude for Turkey, we have given a concrete start to the program funding the first fifty scholarships while further 100 are going to be founded by more donors by the end of this year. The first 100 students, the most talented and suitable for this program, will be selected among the applicants from mot of the Turkish universities, starting from the first day of 2010.

This is just the beginning of this beautiful, bold enterprise. “A Dream for Turkey – The Future Leaders For The World Program” in 2010 will attract new donors to the Project and the scholarships will soon become hundreds. The education of pragmatic dreamers, to develop their potentiality studying in Turkey and in Europe, the production of precious people, will be the one Turkey will be most proud of. There is not a better news to announce to the youth and not a better wish to convey to turkey for a Happy, Rich, Dreamful New Year.

Prof. Stefano D’Anna

There are not solutions out there to choose from. YOU have to become the solution. This is a revolution, an overturning of thought in political and business leadership”. (The School for Gods)

THE SCHOOL FOR GODS

Mankind afflicted by poverty, conflicts and endless evils, can only be healed man by man, cell by cell… Ordinary Schools and Universities cannot do it. We need schools for visionary leaders, pragmatic dreamers, where to learn that happiness is economy, Schools of Being where to develop a sixth sense: intuition, and a seventh one: dreaming.