From Jason Payne, Management Consultant & Leadership Coach …
There is a HUGE difference between “knowing” and “doing”.
Think about it. What good is knowing how to make an omelet if you never actually cook one for breakfast?
And what good is knowing how to how to speak Klingon if you never actually converse with similarly fluent aliens from Neptune (or wherever the heck those ugly dudes are from)?
And what good is it to know the importance of aligning your investments with a comprehensive life mission if you never actually craft a personal mission statement and apply it to your own life?
(It’s no good at all, I tell ya!)
This is why I’m introducing two very practical lessons today, in the wake of my previous two lessons about the importance of adopting a unified mission for your personal and professional life:
After all, that’s what my new consulting firm is all about: Here at Groundwar Group, we know investors and business leaders are increasingly overwhelmed by the abundance of information competing for their respect online (aka. “the air war”) …
… so we strive to provide investors and entrepreneurs with practical transformation across each area of their personal and professional lives – through profitably applying only the best academic insights in each client's unique circumstances (aka. “the ground war”).
That’s my personal mission. And that’s my professional mission. All my Mogul lessons and all my real estate investments (and all my other investments) are guided by this comprehensive concept. Today, for the first time in more than a decade, most areas of my life are delightfully aligned – and it is no accident.
You see, after learning about the importance of crafting a comprehensive mission statement for my personal and professional life (which is a fun story for another time), I needed to do the hard work of actually crafting one …
… and then I needed to reorient my entire existence to accommodate this healthier integrated approach to my own human experience!
Have you ever crafted a comprehensive mission statement for your personal and professional life?
If not, here is a great way to begin this fruitful (but sometimes painful) transformation.
First, Identify Your Personal Strengths
First of all, you will need to identify your own personal strengths.
No two people are exactly alike – either externally or internally. Of course, we all have our own unique flaws and imperfections … But more importantly, each person also possesses his/her own unique strengths and talents.
As a Christ-follower, I am quite fond of the apostle Paul’s biblical analogy regarding “The Body of Christ”, in which each of our God-given strengths (ie. “gifts”) are designed to function as unique body parts – such as “feet”, “hands” and “eyes” – within the unified “body” of Jesus’ apprentices throughout history. In this manner, I find that Jesus has created me to be a unique “mouth/heart” hybrid – because I am a gifted communicator who derives great joy from enriching my fellow humans.
(But please don’t ask me to play sports! Especially those sports which require talented motor skills! I am constantly in awe of professional athletes, because they are very skilled with their hands, feet and eyes – whereas God certainly did NOT create me to be a “hand”, a “foot” or an “eye”!)
-sheepish grin-
And even if you don’t share my belief that Jesus is the Supreme Creator of the Universe Who Gives Good “Gifts” to Undeserving Knuckleheads Like Us, then I am sure you will still agree that the following people were supremely gifted in certain areas:
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Mozart was a gifted musician.
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Picasso was a gifted artist.
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Caesar was a gifted politician.
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Patton was a gifted general.
“But wait!” you may object. “Weren’t each of those people 'special' and 'elite'? Didn’t Picasso possess a capacity for achievement that dwarfs most other people’s capacities? And is it really fair to compare an ‘exceptional’ person like Julius Caesar to a ‘normal’ person like me?”
Great question, my friend. Here’s some good news …
It may be true that your own artistic capacity falls short of Picasso’s. (Mine certainly does!) But this would only mean that your greatest strengths lie outside the artistic realm.
And it may be true that your own political capacity falls short of Caesar’s. (Like mine!) But this would only mean that your greatest strengths are not political in nature.
Yes, most people spend so much of their lives obsessing over their comparative weaknesses that they never take the time to identify (and nurture) their own unique strengths! And this tragedy results in most people lying on their deathbeds after 85 years of trying (in vain) to live somebody else’s life!
I mean, c’mon, fellow humans! Can you imagine what the world would be like today if Julius Caeser had wasted his time practicing basketball – a sport at which he would have totally sucked (because he was far too short) – rather than using his God-given political savvy to build the Roman empire?! Little Julius would have never made it past the eighth grade student council elections!
Fortunately for all modern democratic societies, Caesar appreciated his own unique political prowess, and he wholly devoted much of his personal and professional life to the comprehensive pursuit of a singular political mission to transform the most powerful government on earth.
And he succeeded.
And that’s how you should begin your own approach to forming a comprehensive mission statement in your own life. Simply forget about your numerous weaknesses for a few minutes and begin to identify your top few talents.
As the apostle Paul wrote circa 60 A.D. …
“If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”
And as Einstein quipped circa 1940 A.D. …
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
So the first thing you need to do in crafting your personal and professional mission statement is to identify your personal strengths, talents and gifts.
How to Identify Your Strengths
After journeying down this road for a while, I am now certain that most of the “personality tests” found online are useless (at best) or harmful (at worst). I won’t even try to list them all here, because there are simply too many of them …
… but I will explicitly warn every self-respecting investor at Mogul to stay away from any quiz on Facebook claiming to identify “Which Disney Princess Are You?”, because that one is especially bogus.
(The Little Mermaid? Seriously?! I know I’m not very athletic, but she doesn’t even have feet!)
Instead, let me conclude today’s lesson by listing my five most highly-recommended methods for identifying your own personal strengths.
Your ability to follow these recommendations will help you to lay the foundation for crafting a comprehensive (and profitable!) mission statement for your own life:
Recommendation #1: Ask God to Help. If you wanted to know how your cellular phone was designed to work, it would make sense to ask the engineer who originally designed your phone. Similarly, if you want to know how your cellular body/mind is designed to work, it makes sense to ask the Creator who originally designed your body/mind. That’s how I got started with my own personal mission several years ago, and I am very pleased with the enlightening nature of this fun/fruitful ongoing dialogue.
(Warning: Jesus might eventually tell you to do something weird – like writing provocative blog posts for the real estate community!)
Recommendation #2: Consider What Brings You Joy. Make a list of the activities that bring the most joy into your heart; then look for patterns in those activities. The presence of joy typically indicates that a person is operating in his/her “sweet spot” as a unique contributor to the human race, and any such patterns will help to identify which specific strengths you are bringing to the proverbial table each day.
(For example, if you find unparalleled joy in conversing with other investors, then your primary strengths may be relational in nature – and you will eventually want to craft a mission statement for your personal and professional life that emphasizes your powerful relational talents.)
Recommendation #3: Ask Your Friends, Family & Colleagues to Help. Don’t want to pray? Lost your joy? Ask the people who know you best – probably your friends, family and colleagues. These insightful individuals have been watching your life for years, and they can be very helpful in articulating accurate summaries of your skillset.
(Warning: In some tragic cases, friends and family can also be quite hurtful, senselessly choosing to emphasize your weaknesses rather than your strengths. Stay away from this sort of counterproductive dialogue until your mission has been well-defined and well-executed for a reasonable period of time.)
Recommendation #4: Ask a Respectable Advisor to Help. Don’t trust your friends, family and colleagues? Want an objective third-party analysis of your personal strengths and talents? Ask a respectable advisor to help – and be sure to ask a real human (not an online quiz). This person may be a therapist, or a pastor, or even the barber who cuts your hair.
Recommendation #5: Be Courageous. Don’t want to talk about your strengths with God or with other people? Don’t feel like crafting a mission statement for your life? Then you are probably feeling very insecure, inadequate, depressed and/or hopeless … And you probably don’t want to investigate your strengths with anybody because you incorrectly fear (as many people do) that you are incapable of building your personal and professional life around a profitable mission.
If you are feeling paralyzed by this sort of hopelessness, then please borrow some of my hope, and please believe me when I assure you that you have MUCH to offer the world! You CAN live a life of enormous purpose and meaning – just like Picasso, Caesar and Mozart. Just allow a respectable advisor to help you identify the areas of personal strength in which YOU are uniquely designed to thrive!
It will be two weeks before Mogul publishes the second half of this lesson, in which I will explain Step #2 for crafting your own comprehensive life mission. This means you have plenty of time to conduct a thoughtful and encouraging inventory of your own personal strengths and talents!
:-D
In the meantime, enjoy your introspection, and get ready to apply your insights. But remember, you gotta break a few eggs to make that omelette.
Understand the Need for Application – Understand that it is not good enough to simply appreciate the importance of a unified mission statement. You must actually craft a mission statement (and apply it!) in order to transform the informational “air war” into a profitable “ground war” for your personal and professional life.
Understand Your Design as a Human – Remember that everybody possesses their own unique talents, gifts and strengths to help humanity, including real estate investors like you!
Identify Your Personal Strengths (Recommendation #1) – Ask Jesus to help. If you want to know how your body/mind was designed to work, it makes sense to ask the Creator who designed your body/mind.
Identify Your Personal Strengths (Recommendation #2) – Consider what brings you joy. Make a list of the activities that bring the most joy into your heart; then look for patterns in those activities.
Identify Your Personal Strengths (Recommendation #3) – Ask your friends, family and colleagues to help. These insightful individuals have been watching your life for years, and they can be very helpful in articulating their observations of your skillset.
Identify Your Personal Strengths (Recommendation #4) – Don’t trust your friends, family and colleagues? Want an objective third-party analysis of your personal strengths and talents? Ask a respectable advisor to help – and be sure to ask a real human. This person may be a therapist, or a pastor, or even the barber who cuts your hair.