A Message in a BottleTyler Hayden approached Jim with an offer to contribute to his book ‘A Father’s Message In a Bottle’ . In short the book has letters from Fathers to their children on assorted topics but each containing a nugget of wisdom and love. more
A Message in a BottleTyler Hayden approached Jim with an offer to contribute to his book ‘A Father’s Message In a Bottle’ . In short the book has letters from Fathers to their children on assorted topics but each containing a nugget of wisdom and love. more
Being All That We Can SeeA strong set of core values leads life from the inside out, focusing energy and projecting forward becoming our vision.
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Clarifying Our Core ValuesTo clarify our core values, we need to develop a comprehensive list of all our possible values, rank their importance and concentrate our improvement efforts. Write out a "statement of philosophy" outlining and explaining each of our core values.
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Clarifying Personal PurposeThinking about death can produce a passion for life. Once defined, the determination to live out your personal purpose and dreams can be a strong personal motivator.
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Exploring Inner SpaceReputation is what people think I am. Personality is what I seem to be. Character is what I really am. Our goal should be to blur the lines between the three until they are one and the same. That means living life from the inside out.
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Goal Setting Can Limit Our Flexibility and Learning Goals define what you want to have, not what you want to become. Goals are, however, targets that help us immensely in moving from a general vision to a specific set of priorities and actions.
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How I Express My Personal PurposeThe determination to live out my purpose and dreams has been a strong personal motivator. It makes me wonder just how many unrealized dreams have died with their dreamers.
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How Visioning Changed My LifeVisioning is where my personal effectiveness quest began, in 1974. Even now, as I recall that turning point in my life, a shiver runs up my spine.
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How Visioning Helped My Passion and PersistenceCreate strong passion with a clear and compelling vision and hang in there during the inevitable downs and defeats until dreams are realized.
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Hypocrisy and Egotism: Me-Deep in Fooling MyselfHypocrisy is "the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness." Authentic leadership is from the inside out. When we are true to ourselves and actively blaze our own leadership pathway, it's impossible to be a leadership hypocrite — despite how others might see us.
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Just a Job or a Source of Deeper Joy and Meaning?We need to either find the work we love, or learn to love the work we have. Get passionate or get out.
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Just a Job or Part of Our Deeper Purpose?There is no particular job, industry, or organization that magically transforms "just a job" into passionate life work. However, to spot an opportunity we need to know what we're looking for. We need to clarify our purpose.
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Living on PurposePurpose is the third key element of Focus and Context. It is tightly intertwined with the other two — Values and Vision. The stronger our sense of purpose or mission, the stronger our energy, passion, and commitment.
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Our Values Set Our PrioritiesOur values are what we value. Each of us has a hierarchy of values, which set our priorities — occasionally conflicting with each other creating many paradoxes to be balanced and managed.
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Our Values Shape Our Character and CultureThe vision and values we choose to fix in our minds today determines tomorrow's character and culture. We start to change who we're becoming and where we're headed when we change what we value and picture in our future.
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Pathways and Pitfalls to Clarifying Organizational ValuesEffectively using values to care for the context and provide focus to a team or organization can be very difficult leadership acts. Discover the Clarifying Organizational Values approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success.
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Personal Purpose Pathways and PitfallsDiscover the Personal Purpose approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success.
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Personal Visioning Pathways and PitfallsDiscover the Personal Visioning approaches that can help you to avoid the pitfalls and pave your organization's pathway to success.
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Purpose Gives Us a Deep Sense of MeaningDeveloping a personal, team, and organization purpose that's aimed at serving others adds a richer sense of meaning to any personal, team, or organization change or improvement efforts.
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Purposeful Leaders Make MeaningAs we contribute our work to our team or organization, we also need to contribute a deeper sense of meaning or purpose. If we're going to be leaders, we need to take our selves and ours to the Emotional and Spiritual levels.
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Recognition Do's and Don'ts to Inspire and EnergizeWhose needs are your recognition and reward systems designed to serve? What are the goals? Are they to manipulate, control, and "motivate?" Or do they build an atmosphere of helpfulness, appreciation, and high energy? How do you know? As with beauty, quality, or customer service, reward and recognition are in the eyes of the beholder. more
Ringing True to MeIt's often difficult to be true to ourselves — it generally means we don't follow the crowd. Standing up and standing firm for our beliefs can be lonely and unpopular. Find out why the thumb stands apart from the other four fingers. more
Seeing Only What Is or What Could BeWe are creating the reality our vision is focused upon. The context of our values and purpose are creating the life we believe in.
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Seeing the World as We AreWhether you think the world is full of richness and opportunity or garbage and despair – you are right because that is your point of focus.
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Test Your Career HealthSix questions to help you discover whether your career is healthy -- and, if it isn't, to help put it back on track.
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True to Our SoulsWhen our work is part of a deeper life calling we put our heart into it. Our work becomes our contribution to making this team, this organization, and this world just a little better because we passed this way.
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Visioning Harnesses the Power of Our PicturesThe "power of positive pictures" is a skill, habit, and technique often called visioning, imagery, and visualization. It has a power for change, improvement, and energy creation that we're only beginning to understand.
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What We Get is What We SeeA few tips and traps on chosen pathways that help teams and people throughout the organization to clarify or clearly see pictures of their preferred future. more
What's Really Important?The most fulfilled lives are generally the most purposeful lives. The work/family balance is one of the toughest that most leaders face. Aside from powerful entrepreneurs or executives that build strong and lasting organizations, the legacy of our parenting is one of the key ways we can make a difference or mess up a lot of lives.
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When Choosing Our Thoughts We Choose Our FutureThe beginning point of all our choices is our own thoughts. This is our personal source code that we execute or translate into action. Our thoughts set our programming instructions. Taking responsibility for our choices starts with choosing our thoughts.
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Yield of DreamsExtensive research in the last few decades on peak performance, leadership, personal effectiveness, adaptability to change, world-class athletes, and even the healing process, clearly shows the central role vision plays in success. more