BTL CORE…

Today, I found myself with another client working our way through the CORE section of the 12 Playbook.  This was the fourth or fifth consecutive day that I had been listening to client after client rereading the first 5 pages of this section.  Isn’t it funny how we pick up clarity?

The CORE section is currently made up of a “six pack” set as we call it.  Here they are.  These are really cool and really foundational to our work.

Worldview is one’s deepest held beliefs.

Purpose is why you live and work.

Principles is how you live and work.

Character is who you are becoming as you live and work.

Competence is building excellence as you live and work.

Culture is building influence as you live and work.

Together these elements make up one’s CORE.  Like the hub of a wheel, the CORE, is where all the other spokes attach.  The 12 Essentials has 11 other spokes, beyond the CORE that get their strength and meaning only when deeply and tightly connected.  This is our framework for building excellence individually.  Very cool.  

This playbook has been rewritten over a dozen times and is about to receive it’s 13th or 14th rinse.  This time the entire band will be practicing and playing together, I’ll simply be the final editor.  I am really looking forward to our best music EVER.  

In preparation for additional clarity, we’ve already begun the process.  In fact, true to form, the orange barrels have been out all along, we’ve just recently started a wholesale repaving job!!

Here’s a sneak peek at how we’ve come to see the 12 and specifically the CORE essential.  This is NOT the finished product but it’s definitely our new direction.  I and the entire band would LOVE to offer you to weigh in and contribute.  We know that none of us is as smart as all of us, so feel free.  Here’s the new and refined “six pack.”  Check it out…

Worldview remains in it’s place of prominence.  This is the element of the CORE that ties and binds ’em all together.  Your worldview  represents your deepest held beliefs and serves as your internal “matrix” through which you interpret the meaning of life and try to make sense of it.  

Identity flows from one’s worldview and represents your view of how you see yourself.  This one is captured by writing,reflecting, and discovering who you are.  Our family, friends, and clients are introduced to “identity” through the writing of their “I am” statements.  Very cool.

Principles are how you live and work.  These are the values that mean the most to you.  

Passion is what you LOVE.  The discovery of your passions, through the writing of your “Love to’s” is the roadmap toward a clear sense of purpose.  We have been wired and gifted all in unique and stunning ways.  There are no mediocre humans.

All are made for magnificence.  

Most have simply never discovered their unique strengths, talents, and abilities that offer them the opportunity for seemingly endless energy.  Of course passion is more than love, but we are only focused on the discovery of this form of passion because, it alone, provides the long lasting burn we’re after.

Purpose is why you live and work.  Discovering your CORE purposes connects you with your deepest passions and energizes you to dream and do.  The most powerful force in the universe is a soul that is both on fire, AND aimed toward their big dream with a real sense of purpose.  

Process is how you do it.  This is where most of us stop.  We dream but never seem to do.  We brainstorm a bunch of great ideas for what might be a really cool work and life, but stay stuck in our current state and slowly settle.  At BTL we help our clients dream and do.  This process lasts a lifetime.  Very cool.

So, the new “six pack” is really a work in process, as you can see above.  Let me further illustrate.  We’ve broken the six pack down to two three packs.

Worldview, Identity, and Principles comprise your CHARACTER.  Your character is the proverbial W.I.P….

A lifelong work in process.

Passion, Purpose, and Process represent your COMPETENCE.  According to all the latest brain research it takes around ten thousand hours to master just about anything.  Mastery is the kind of competence we want to be a catalyst for building.  We can only build mastery in a few areas which is why we have to discover the other elements ahead of just getting busy.  Do you see it? 

Your strong CORE is comprised of these six elements and broken into these two buckets of character and competence.  The result of all this is your CULTURE.  The most powerful individual cultures are those built around strong character and equally strong competence.  We all know of examples of one without the other.  Strong character but weak competence is someone that we like but we don’t want to work with.  They have a hard time focusing and finishing.  Strong competence and weak character is someone that we see as productive but we don’t like how they get it done.  They create problems and oftentimes leave a lot of bodies in their wake.

Individuals with strong character, strong competence, and an attractive culture are built to lead.  These few but fortunate, experience something very rare in our world today.  They are internally aligned and engaged.  They are alert and oriented times four.  They have answers for life’s tough questions and they’ve authored them from deep inside their CORE.  They may or may not appear to be strong to the untrained eye of another, but make no mistake, they are.  They are tasting what it’s like be who they are regardless of where and with whom they find themselves.  They have become ONE.  This is real strength and real power.  These individuals feel it with uncommon clarity and act upon it with incredible, often unimaginable consistency.  These individuals have dealt with the toughest leadership challenge of leading themselves.  Now, and only now, are they ready for you and me.

These few but focused individuals are on their builder’s journey and aimed toward their OPUS.  Their disciplined productive action keeps moving them around and over life’s adversity with hardly a break in stride.  Like minded folks are coming alongside and, as a band, they are picking up speed with their ever deepening sense of trust.   This team is becoming a “community with chemistry.”  No surprise, they are magic, for those that see through a performance trained eye, to observe.  Their performance is almost mesmerizing in it’s simplicity and crispness.  They make the difficult look doable.  They, in fact, make it look it easy.  Their size and their audience are exactly what, organically, they are meant to be…for the moment.  This team is becoming ONE.  Here’s the truth about this team and this process.  Do NOT miss this.  This is HUGE.  

Becoming one internally is a long hard journey of discovery, reflection, and productive action.  Becoming one with another, a few, or with many is seemingly impossible.  Only time and deep practice make it possible.  The enemy is to do what is expected.  The enemy is to simply focus on results.  This is where the world lives and this is why there are so few individuals, teams, and leaders that are built to lead and becoming ONE.  

They key question remains and it requires an answer…

Are you?

Who are your builders?

Are you building you?

Are you becoming so internally aligned and engaged that, to yourself, you are becoming ONE?

Do you have a truth teller to aid your discover, encourage you to keep going, and hold you accountable?

Does your team resemble a band of like minded builders or simply a collection of laborers?

Tell me more…