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KEY CONCEPTS

Unleashing the one-of-a-kind, authentic Masterpiece inside of each of us begins with leading ourselves well and extends beyond ourselves when we help other people lead themselves well.

  • Self Leadership forms the Foundation for everything we do in our lives.
  • If our individual self leadership foundation is solid, everything we build on top of that foundation: career, family, friendships, recreational activities and everything meaningful that we try to do will stand firm and withstand the difficulties life throws at us.
  • If our individual self leadership foundation is weak or possibly even crumbling, even the best career, family, friendships, recreational activities and everything meaningful that we try to do will struggle to stay standing over the long-term.
  • We are role models for whatever self leadership foundation we have, whether we intentionally choose to be or not.
  • If we want those closest to us to have a solid Foundation for Life, we need to be willing and able to model what that looks like.

LIFE SKILLS SUMMARY

These Life Skills are being summarized in Foundation Order. This means, we list them from the bottom of the foundation to the top. The first Life Skill we list is the base of the foundation, and every successive Life Skill is built upon the ones that are underneath it.

  • Spirituality: A sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves.
  • Principles & Values: Virtues or moral principles that govern a person's or group's behavior.
  • Self Awareness: Conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives and desires.
  • Positive Attitude: Positive sentiments or feelings override neutral or negative interactions and experiences.
  • Self Discipline: The ability to control one's feelings and overcome one's weaknesses.
  • Life Balance: Proper prioritizing between career / vocation, physical, mental and emotional health, leisure, friendships, family and spirituality.
  • Purposeful Living: A well-articulated and executed sense of mission in life.
  • People Skills: The capacity to be aware of one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships empathetically.
  • Flexibility: The capacity to recover quickly from and readjust to changes and difficulties in life
  • Perseverance: The capacity to accomplish a particular goal through motivation, courage, resolve and tenacity.

THE FIVE PRACTICES AND TEN LIFE SKILLS - DETAILS

In this section each of the Five Practices will be defined. Two synergistic yet somewhat contradictory Life Skills are defined under each of the Five Practices. Each Practice description will conclude with a description of how to create rhythm in the tension between the two Life Skills.

    Inner Strength: The lowest level base of our foundation, providing the power we need to Unleash the Masterpiece in our lives.

    • Life Skills: Spirituality and Principles & Values
    • Tension: Dependence on a Higher-power versus Self Reliance
      • Regardless of our beliefs, we should have an ability to tap into something outside of ourselves to provide power and direction.
    • Transformational Rhythm: Power
      • The ability to generate power internally, coupled with the ability to plug into an external power, maximizes the power we have access to.

    Individual Dignity: Cultivating a realistic view of ourselves, and a positive attitude about others and the circumstances in our lives.

    • Life Skills: Self Awareness and Positive Attitude
    • Tension: Experience versus Belief
      • What we believe to be true, and our actual experiences, will often be different, and sometimes at odds.
    • Transformational Rhythm: Grace
      • The ability to extend goodwill going into a situation when our beliefs are negative, and to extend favor when situations and people fail to live up to our expectations.

    Abundant Living: Developing wholeness through self discipline and maintaining balance in every aspect of our lives.

    • Life Skills: Self Discipline and Life Balance
    • Tension: Urgent versus Important
      • Some things are necessarily Urgent, and require our immediate attention. When Important things are neglected for too long, they can become unnecessarily Urgent.
    • Transformational Rhythm: Growth
      • Growth requires a balance between focused drilling down, and maintaining a healthy level of wholeness in our lives.

    Authentic Friendship: Intentionally developing relationships, creating mutual benefit by putting the needs of the other person before our own.

    • Life Skills: Purposeful Living and People Skills
    • Tension: Boundaries versus Vulnerability
      • We need good discernment to maintain high boundaries with unhealthy people, so we can remove boundaries with healthy people to create much needed vulnerability.
    • Transformational Rhythm: Community
      • Community is a dynamic, fluid set of relationships that each require different levels of boundaries and vulnerability in every different context.

    Meaningful Impact:Developing the drive and determination to make a difference in your world and to expand your influence, while overcoming any obstacles that get in your way.

    • Life Skills: Flexibility and Perseverance
    • Tension: Wide Impact versus Deep Impact
      • Deep impact flows from wide impact, but wide impact also takes away from deep impact.
    • Transformational Rhythm: Influence
      • Influence is a unique journey in each context we engage in. Both deep and shallow impact play important roles in every one of our influence journeys.

UNBIASED FEEDBACK

The LIfe Skills Assessment

  • The Life Skills Assessment is a professionally validated psychometric assessment that measures our current points of dynamic balance, or transformational rhythm, in the tensions between each pair of synergistic Life Skills from the Foundations for Life book (course). We offer both free and paid versions of the Life Skills Assessment.
  • Understanding where our current dynamic balance point lies for each of the five pairs of synergistic Life Skills allows us to prioritize where we need to invest the most effort and focus. The areas of greatest imbalance become the highest priority areas to address in our lives.
  • If we already have good balance in each of the five areas of dynamic balance, the assessment also allows us to compare the relative level of competency we have in each Life Skill, so we have another tool to help us dial-in where our effort and focus should be.
  • Our dynamic balance points between each pair of synergistic Life Skills will continue to change over time as our circumstances and focus change, and as we grow and develop. As such, it is important to assess our points of dynamic balance on a regular basis so we can adjust our investment and focus based on where we are currently at.
  • The Life Skills Assessment is typically taken the first time before you begin the Foundations for Life book (course), and then repeated every 6-12 months as you continuously put effort into developing your self leadership.