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By Michael Angier |
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Getting Down in the Dirt |
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Have
you ever had a house built? If not, surely you’ve watched one go up. For
a long time, it seems that nothing’s happening. The site preparation,
excavation and foundation-building seem to take a long time with little
noticeable progress. Then
the framing starts—and things take on a faster pace. Or
does it? It’s
true the erection of the walls and roof happen quickly. The shape of the
new structure looks more familiar and there’s more “bulk” to the
project. Progress is more noticeable, but appearances can be deceiving. Foundation
work may not be very sexy or show progress as much as framing does, but
we all know it’s necessary. Just
imagine if we were to start putting up walls and hanging floor joists
with the sills just sitting on the ground? It would be silly, wouldn’t
it? We wouldn’t think of building our house without first building a
firm foundation. And
yet, I see people’s lives and even large companies built with little
or no thought to a foundation. In the rush to make things happen, to
create products and turn a profit, they build on weak footings. In
the past few years, we’ve seen thousands of dot-coms become dot-gones.
They shot up quickly much like a house being framed. Things were
happening so fast in the late nineties that few looked to see if there
was any kind of a foundation supporting these structures. One
has only to look at the Enron mess to see that even extremely large and
apparently well-established companies can be easily toppled by having
weak foundations. The
foundation I’m talking about for people as well as large organizations
is values and purpose. We
offer an eCourse called Your Core Values and those who’ve taken
it didn't find the task easy. And I didn’t promise it would be.
Getting down in the dirt and making sure the foundation is solid is not
necessarily easy, fun or particularly dramatic. It
is, however, worth it. By
getting clear on our values, knowing who we are, what we’re about and
what we stand for, we can have something to stand ON. We have a
foundation for our efforts. This
process makes it easier to make decisions, because we have a framework
with which to evaluate our decisions. It
also saves us time because we can focus in on what really matters and
not waste time chasing after things that don’t serve our purpose. We
have a clarity and a power that’s tangible—we can feel it. And in
the process, we can ATTRACT success instead of PURSUING it. Not
only do we know ourselves better, but others know us. We become known by
our values and our purpose. It’s part of our identity. In the case of
a company, it becomes our corporate DNA—it’s our reason for being. Yes,
it may sometimes seem slow and we may not always see rapid progress, but
building a firm foundation of core values and solid purpose will provide
the support for lasting success.
To
find out more about Your Core Values eCourse, go to http://YourCoreValues.com
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Copyright Success Networks International.
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