Our Choices Shape Our Future
Everything is about choices. Every choice we make sets us in a direction. Is that where we really want to head?
The better we know ourselves, the better decisions we make.
With these choices we shape our future.
What is The Brand Called M.E.?
BCME is all about discovering what purpose we can serve in different situations to create virtuous value streams. Once we know that, then our role - and how we play that role to create value for ourselves and others - becomes very clear. We see what value we add - and others can then see that as well.
This opens up dimensions in your life that will fascinate you!
BCME can help you map out your path by following a sequence of practices. Step by step, you will work out
- your vision on life,
- your core values,
- your way of behavior,
- your purpose, and
- the importance of context and environments for the roles we play
Then you will understand that these guide the choices you make. These choices shape the future you create for yourself.
By figuring out these patterns in your life, you will be able to build a personal strategy for getting what you need from life based on your nature, values, vision, talents, skills, abilities, knowledge, interests, ideas and contacts.
...like the roles we play
...the roles that other people and things play in our lives
...and the roles that we use to create value
As you progress with BCME, you will get the opportunity to join others that will support you on this journey through online and live events. You will be able to share your thoughts and experience, and receive feedback.
Why Brand Called M.E.?
Years ago, I took the work I was then developing for brand organizations and applied those same methodologies to the individual. After all, we're just a bunch of patterns in a branded identity network, too! I realized that each of us needs a way to build a personal strategy for getting what we need from life.
Originally, I developed and worked out the processes and tools for BCME with 150 MBA students from 47 different countries that attended the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in The Netherlands in 2000.
This became a program and a workbook for them called Brand Called M.E. - My Effectiveness. It was full of exercises and ways of getting to our human content and behaviors. It helped people make choices and understand why they were making them - and why they fit better when we realize what we really value and have to offer.
Enjoy this journey into discovering what drives your choices.
HOW DO YOU MAKE DECISIONS?
WHAT DO I VALUE?
What creates value in your life?
Don't just work to earn money or do your duty. Identify your virtuous value stream.There are 4 levels of value that build a virtuous value stream - each feeding into the next and then continuing through learning and feedback.
-- HUMAN CAPITAL - personal development
-- SOCIAL CAPITAL - relationships where we connect
-- KNOWLEDGE CAPITAL - conceptual, intellectual property, creative execution and innovation
-- ECONOMIC CAPITAL - transactions that contribute to financial assets
What builds value for you personally, socially, creatively and transactionally?
What are the rewards you're really seeking?
THE ROLE OF VALUES IN OUR LIVES
Our values drive our behavior by defining the choices we make.
It's easy to believe in something during the good times. It's when the going gets tough that our true values come into play. They guide the choices we make.
It's important to figure out what they are so that we can make better informed choices.
- Clare Graves did so much work on discovering the role that values played in our choices and behavior. His work led to Don Beck's work on Spiral Dynamics.
Listen to a seminar given by Graves in June 1974. - Don Beck was a student of Clare Graves, and he mainstreamed the study of values into Spiral Dynamics. You can get tested, learn more, and even take accredidation courses.
- The World Values Survey maps out the correlations between different cultures and their belief systems.
- The Human Values Project is a global research project documenting individual and collective values around the world.
- Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs has been the basis for many value-based studies.
Del.icio.us
bookmarks tagged "VALUES"
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byKids 2020: their Visions & Strategies for a Preferred Future
Brand Called M.E. is the foundation of the learning program at the heart of Kids 2020. Children and parents learn how to use vision and values to make better choices to build a preferred future. They then put those values to work to introduce a new value system into people's lives where human capital, social capital, creative capital each have the same worth as money in currency.
Another dimension to Kids 2020 is building a dynamic research resource where people can explore and participate in learning, community building, value creation and the significance of meaning.
We are also lobbying to put the health, education and welfare of a child as a sustainability strategy at the heart of every government policy in the world.
As you can see, Kids 2020 is a powerful idea and an ambitious movement to put this powerful idea into practice. We need people to contribute value on many levels. Interested?
After we move out of alpha testing mode, you will be able to participate in our website to participate. Please be patient while we're under construction - building the web infrastructure takes time. Then you can also contribute in your own preferred way.
In the meantime, follow us as we take Kids 2020 into the world.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byThe Occuptational Adventurer Blog
"Bridging the gap between dreams and success"
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byWHAT DOES LEADERSHIP MEAN?
resources for understanding leadership
What is your perspective of leadership?
- Evolutionary Leadership
- conscious and authentic leadership - join the conversation here
- LeaderValues
- great place to learn about leadership with great resources
- Kevin Eikenberry's Blog
- "Extraordinary potential exists in each of us. with the right environment, skills and knowledge, ordinary people can produce extraordinary results."
Kevin also has published a manifesto - True Team Building: More than a Recreational Retreat - on the ChangeThis site. - Andrew Cohen on Authentic Leadership
- enlightened leadership principles
WHAT AM I LEADING?
What makes me a leader?
Discovering what leadership means to us first means letting go of old ways of thinking about leadership.Gandhi said "Almost anything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Look around and discover what you can do to bring the best out in others in order to contribute their best to whatever you're doing.
What is the future that you prefer? What are you willing to do to build a path toward that preferred future? This will define what kind of leader that you are.
BOOKS ON LEADERSHIP
The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon)
Amazon Price: $9.99 (as of 10/14/2008)
The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership
Amazon Price: $14.96 (as of 10/14/2008)
Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness 25th Anniversary Edition
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 10/14/2008)
Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury
Amazon Price: $19.80 (as of 10/14/2008)
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Bookmarks tagged "LEADERSHIP"
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byWHAT CREATES MEANING?
Flickr photos tagged "MEANINGFUL"
We have to discover what creates meaning for us in our lives. Meaningful experiences are key to satisfaction.
What creates meaning for you in different situtations? Get inspired.
Impress Water Park
Searching for Meanin...
Wisconsin Fall
Equality
fireflower
And some more...
2008-09-09_10-08-14
D' 'sappear
My first Crow shot!
IMPACT OF VALUES ON BEHAVIOR
books from Amazon on the impact of values
Managing People Across Cultures (Culture for Business Series)
Amazon Price: $22.45 (as of 10/14/2008)
Hidden Value: How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results with Ordinary People
Amazon Price: $21.75 (as of 10/14/2008)
Building a Values-Driven Organization: A Whole System Approach to Cultural Transformation
Amazon Price: $24.39 (as of 10/14/2008)
Get a Clear Picture of Your Demonstrated Behavior
How do people experience me?
Identify your Strengths & Weaknesses based on your Demonstrated Behavior1. Ask people to tell you specifically what your strengths are
2. Find out in which contexts these strengths show up for people
3. Do the same thing for your weaknesses
4. Get feedback about how people experience you in different contexts or situations
5. Use this feedback to determine where your real expertise lies
WHO AM I?
your feedback loop
Is there a credibility gap between who I think I am and how people experience me?
Why?
Am you defined by how you behave?
PROFILING
Personality Tests & Tools
There are many different ways to profile yourself. Here are some resources and links to information and online tests for profiling your personality or temperament type.
- HumanMetrics
- 72 question Jung Typology Test
- Enneagram
- thorough detailing of 9 personality types and their compatibles
- Similar Minds
- variety of different tests and information about temperament types
- Personality Pathways
- Myers-Briggs Personality Type, Your Best Fit Type, and an introduction to the 16 types
- Myers Briggs Foundation
- Official site with information about testing, certification and what it all means
IDENTITY - What does "ME" look like?
Flickr photos tagged "SELF PORTRAIT"
As you look at these photos, you realize that each person is a unique mix of characteristics.
There is no one else like us because we each have a set of beliefs, behaviors, and looks that make our identity "inimitable" (good word - look that one up!)
365.94 - Come Undone
194
Money & Martini
124/365: Grinding
New Times Two
pretty little
DJDawson
Day 56: near to deat...
FINALLY!
The Identity Blog
Identity in a digital world
Explore the identity issues impacting our lives and tools for managing identity integrity in a metasystem.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byDEMONSTRATED BEHAVIOR
Flickr photos tagged "BEHAVIOR"
:: break it buy a ne...
Minke Whale
Whale Watching
Minke Whale
Lighthouse + Minke w...
Minke Whale
How You Can Tell Who...
girls' soccer goodby...
Parkinson's Law
DEFINITION OF "INIMITABLE"
why you are so unique
Your beliefs...Your nature...
Your purpose...
Your way of thinking...
Your way of seeing things...
Your characteristics...
Your choices...
Your way of being...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . make you inimitable.
BOOKS TO LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF
ANATOMY OF A VISION
why it's important to have a vision on life
When we go about living our lives - or even exploring how we want to do that - we look for inspiration. Great word. Inspire. It comes from the Latin word inspirare - to breathe. Think about this - to breathe life into something.Take the opportunity to breathe life into your work...to revitalize it.
Why is so important to have a shared vision on the future? For one thing, you have to continually build new and fresh working relationships with people, each time rich with unspoken expectation. Each of you has inner intention that drives your individual purpose. What happens when you share that - or use it to frame a collective vision on the future? Vision can give purpose to your shared journey into the future - and help you to inspire others to join you in this journey.
Vision contains a collective of concepts.
-- The ability to see.
-- A creative purpose that can pull life forward.
-- A view on something potent that still lies ahead.
-- Something instilled with imagination and an understanding of core satisfaction.
-- An idea rich with meaning for life.
-- A powerful awareness that combines realism with foresight.
-- A concept that inspires us into building a motivating future together.
Creating a vision of a shared future binds us together with something powerful - a belief about a way of working that we conceive together and share with others. It's the energy we use to create a future rich with value on all levels.
Vision requires us to be brave, to believe, to give, to collaborate, to see value not only in the expected places, but also in the shadows.
"Spiritus Mundi" is the life force that powers everything in the world. Get in touch with this.
Use today as the beginning, to inspire people to join forces and create a vision on what they believe they stand for, have to offer, and want to create - not just individually, but for others, and for the future.
Search for what creates meaning and value. This is as much about your vision on community and communication as it is about your vision on sharing knowledge.
MORE INSIGHT ON VISION
books from Amazon on vision
The Leader of the Future: New Visions, Strategies and Practices for the Next Era
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 10/14/2008)
Merchants of Vision
Amazon Price: $18.96 (as of 10/14/2008)
Driving Company Growth: Top CEOs on Developing a Vision, Adding Value, and Creating a Financial Impact (Inside the Minds)
Amazon Price: $27.95 (as of 10/14/2008)
The Principles and Power of Vision
Amazon Price: $15.63 (as of 10/14/2008)
Quantum-playshuns
a blog to inspire you
Explore yourself through the culture you create around you. Everything is part of a design - including how each of us fits.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byBusiness Week on Careers
Click here for insight into managing your career.
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