This series of posts provides an opportunity to reflect on yourself or use as an aid in your coaching conversations.

Knowing yourself is a key part of what this blog is all about. In this first section is an opportunity to reflect on how well you know yourself.

Are you a function of what you have done or who you are?

Are you Creative, Intuitive, Artistic? Or are you more inclined to be logical and factbased?

Are you anchored in the status quo or do you find it easy to engage with the changing world?

Dan Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind speaks of a Conceptual Age as the present time, mapping it against the flow from the Agrarian Age , to the Industrial Age, through Knowledge to our time now. Where are your thinking and behaviours anchored?

Much is spoken about Leadership. What resonates most with me is that it attaches to each of us individually, not to the positions we hold. Do you allow yourself to lead?

The alternatives discussed here rise from a quote attributed to Dwight Eisenhower, who said he found plans useless, but planning indispensable. Somewhere beneath these succinctly put alternatives lies the issue of how far do we go before getting on with whatever it is we are planning for.

Do you follow your heart or your mind? If you imagine a continuum running between your head and your heart, where on that line do most of your decisions and choices arise?

By now I hope you have developed a feel for how this model works. One of my editors pointed out that in this and a number of other topics, my biases are showing. I have left things that way both to be true to who I am and to stimulate your reaction to the issue you are considering. Going back to the beginning, I see us as about who we are not what we have done. Part of my goal is to pull you towards that place.

Well, that's Section One done! Has anything changed for you? Hopefully your inner vice is now equipped with new insights about your being.

In this section of the blog we move on from the questions about Being and Doing to consider how you prefer to go about what it is that you do.

This topic draws on the work of Dan Pink and the way he distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. This is about you, and the way you lead your people.

this is a time-worn phrase whose continued existence reinforces it's value. Sometimes you have to take the reins.

Considering growth from both the personal and business perspectives.

Looking at the issues around the rate of growth.

The next three topics are taken from the psychometric tool, Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI). In amongst the many ways in which the tool can be used it has a component that focuses on strengths and weaknesses.

A quick reminder as you consider this issue. SDI defines weaknesses as overdone strengths. As a result correcting a weakness is not learning a whole new behaviour, it's just about dialing back a bit on that behaviour and creating a a strength.

A quick reminder as you consider this issue. SDI defines weaknesses as overdone strengths.

Remember, SDI defines weaknesses as overdone strengths. As a result correcting a weakness is not learning a whole new behaviour, it's just about dialing back a bit on that behaviour and creating a a strength.

Don’t forget, SDI defines weaknesses as overdone strengths. As a result correcting a weakness is not learning a whole new behaviour, it's just about dialing back a bit on that behaviour and creating a a strength.

The final view of self we’ll consider from SDI is the group they label as the hub – those flexible people who are motivated by qualities emerging from each of the other three.

In this section you might find some issues for which you don’t have an intuitive response.

Are you a hopeful person? I’ve used the metaphor about optimism to consider this question.

Enough – this is a question about how much of anything do we each want, do we each need.

I opened up this topic when we considered Left Brain and Right Brain. Depending on the definition of creativity with which you’re most comfortable will directly affect where you mark yourself on this continuum.

Little doubt what my answer to this question is if you know my optimism rating (Section 3 Topic 1).

In talking about Possibility I described an engagement with the world that took it’s foundation from the world of quantum physics.

Considering the question of Open Mind, Open Heart, Open Will

I must declare up front my belief in the value of this insight – that it is our light not our darkness that we fear most.

Mindfulness has won its place here not because in part because it is about our being, not our doing, and in part because of the message embedded in Tim Parks’ book “Teach us to Sit Still”.

Here is a topic that buck’s the trend in this book. We are starting with the negative to anchor the discussion, and from there search for the positive.

This choice asks that we accept thaqt much of what goes on aroind us and through US is hard to explain, and for many difficult to accept.

In this section of the book we’re upping the ante, reflecting on the self we are getting to know less ambiguously.

I first heard about Maslow’s theory in the early 70s. It was part of a lecture in part of a course – it didn’t seem to mean much and I treated it as just another thing to remember when exam time came around.

I’ve mentioned Scharmer and Jaworski more than once in reacjing this point. I’ve also talked in quite negative terms about the weight of the status quo.

A couple of things in that list about moving from self to Self speak directly to the question of our Purpose: “listening to what life is calling you to do” and “follow your heart” .

For many this will be a sensitive question. Some might even turn the page quickly.

The Viktor Frankl quote was made after a period of his life that might have robbed him of his sense of self and the power that it holds.

This is a natural end point. It’s the place where we make all of our choices. NOW.