Integrity means, oneness or being homogeneous. When building a staircase, an engineer will be concerned about the integrity of the steel used to support the structure. This is the same definition I use for personal integrity. Instead of looking at your physical structure, look at your thoughts, words and actions. Only you know what your thoughts are, thus you are the only one that can really evaluate your integrity. Of course it is easy for others to see if your words and actions do not match. It sounds obvious, but we all have had times when our thoughts did not align with our words.

Usually, when we think of marketing, we think of the highway billboard, something designed to give us some message. This is what I call external marketing. Telling the world about who you are and what you stand for. There is also internal marketing. This is where you tell your employees who you are as a company, and what you stand for. When Steve Jobs does a big conference and speaks of all the great innovations and the things to come, he is certainly speaking to his employees as much as he’s speaking to the public. It is every bit as important to market internally as it is to market externally. If your sales people and product producers are not on the same page as you are, the structural integrity of your company will suffer, just as a staircase, or an individual’s character. Like with many things, many people never stop and think about what they are thinking about. And thus many companies never stop and think about the message they are sending to their employees and thus the owner doesn’t get a chance to know what the company is thinking. Just as it is up to you to guide what you think, it is up to you to guide how the company thinks as well.

What if we actually measured someone’s personal Social Capital? If it could be accurately measured, it could be used as an actual currency.

Utilizing the currency value of your connections and relationships as a means of contributing to personal success while enhancing the human condition.

The principles of Social Capital have always been an underlying current of human interaction and a function of currency. Throughout history, it has been used in discerning choices and as a means to make things happen.

It might be said, that those who were able to build and use it effectively are often remembered, for good or bad. Although you can judge its value either way, that it is not our concern here. The real implications are as a positive force for improving the human condition.

In its full glory, the idea of Social Capital can overcome many of the negative and tragic conditions of the human condition.

Connect with others to unify your networks around a common cause.

The ability to grow and utilize Social Capital can be the most rewarding skill you could ever attain! The extrinsic rewards are overshadowed only by the intrinsic joy and meaning experienced by those who understand and serve the precepts of Social Capital.

Being unified around a single purpose allows you to focus all your efforts in one direction thereby gaining the effects of exponentially growing momentum.

How to build personal networks that impact the world in meaningful ways while improving the human condition

As be blow into the holiday season, The thought of Love and all it implications pass through me.

As we discussed core values in great detail earlier this year, I realized there is a book that needs to be written. “The Ultimate Core Value, Love”. The more I think about it, the more it shines. Not Love as a sentiment, but as a way of being. It is easy to recognize with my daughter, I never fathom negative thoughts,  judgments, or impressions about her or her life because I love her and only want the divine in her life. That is because I know Love!

So, the great integrity begs the questions… Why do I choose to ignore this love with some other people in my life? Or am I just covering that love up with negative thoughts,  judgments, or impressions? You decide.

I believe the “skill” necessary to build true Social Capital, and the premise behind Truly effective leadership is, yup, “Love”, unadulterated, “Love”, yeah, that Godly stuff!

To paraphrase the Tao Te Ching

It is about the paradigm of contribution. It is the currency of contribution.

To be of service! I communicate to contribute. I do not communicate to get. I do not communicate to succeed. I communicate to fulfill the Great Integrity.

The other day I was telling a woman that her Drive comes from the thing that makes life worth living.  Then I told her that Business is what makes life worth living.  As you can imagine she looked at me like the RCA dog.

Let me give you an example.  I obviously had a different definition of what business is than she was used to hearing.  I said, we’re talking about business, not about making money.  Of course, no one gets into business to NOT make money, but let’s take a good look at what business is.

Business: The art of creating value

Money is just a byproduct of the value that you create.  Creating value for others is not easy, but greater value and the more people you can provide it to, the greater the reward.  Of course, this is true monetarily, but it is also true from the standpoint of having a rewarding life.  Clearly, the bigger the endeavor, the greater your leadership ability needs to grow.  Leadership is the most satisfying life attribute a person can obtain.

On the other hand, there are certainly people who have started a business solely to make money.  They prey on peoples’ weaknesses and make plenty of money.

The work, effort and skill gained in developing the second type of business does not transfer well to the other areas of a person’s life.

While you can see that the work, effort and skills gained in the art of creating value has great transferability to the rest of the areas of your life.

So yes, the art of creating value does make life worth living and it is where your true Drive comes from.

What Value Do You Create?

Can you really do that…? You better!  In fact, that’s all the time you really have!  You make the major judgments about a person within 90 seconds of meeting them.  You figure out if you are going to connect, or if you’re not.  The amazing thing is, is that it has almost nothing (7%) to do with what the other person even says.  So then, what does it have to do with?  The short answer is, YOUR DRIVE!  (What drives you and how driven are you for it.)

Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version of that short answer.  The thing that motivates you, your major ambition in life, dictates what goals you make.  How important it is for you to achieve these things dictates whether you actually make and stick to goals at all.  Jim Rohn says that when you make meaningful goals, it changes the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you shake hands and what people see when you look them in the eye.

Another expert in this matter, Nicolas Boothman explains that it is a person’s attitude that determines whether there is going to be a connection or not.  A person with a goal, has a completely different attitude than a person without a goal.  Your drive determines what kind of goals you make.

If you are driven by money, you will make goals that serve that purpose, and your attitude will reflect this.  Thus, it is predictable what kind of people you will connect with.  If your goal is to create a wildly successful business, your goals will serve that purpose.  (Let me interject here to make a distinction.  Seeing that most people do not get into business to NOT make money, I feel there needs to be a little bit of explanation to explain the difference between the two.   Business is the art of creating value.  Money is a by product of the value that you create.  There are people and businesses who aim solely to make money, and they are the first group I have described.)  Your goals to create value will be visible in your attitude.

These are the things that people make a judgment about within the first 90 seconds of meeting you.  These are the things that you pick up on in a person within the first 90 seconds.  Even if they haven’t said a word up to that point.   Now, you may not be able to write a blog on what that person’s drive is, but your brain picks up subtle movements, voice tones and other things in the other person that translate into, “GREAT CONNECTION” or “DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!”

This is another example of the “recipe” sequencing  behind the Six Steps to Social Capital Model.  Drive comes before Self-Mastery of attitude, which is the foundation for building Rapport and Trust.  To try and start at the Rapport and Trust step is like adding the eggs and sugar to your cake after you’ve baked it.

Engaging in ambiguous thought can be very powerful in the creation process. However, it can also become a serious liability toward achieving your true purpose. Application of a true purpose is very simple and unequivocal. In fact, to be simple it must be unequivocal.[1] Simple is easily understood and therefore clear.

There are very specific principles to achieving a true purpose and once realized can be generalized to your entire life. Simply, it is having a clear, positive goal. Clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning,  for it is this which determines the outcome. [1] Steven Covey calls it “begin with the end in mind“. At Six Degrees Leadership we study it in the “Drive” and “Self Mastery” sections of the Six Degrees to Social Capital.

Consider any situation in which you are uncertain, ask yourself “What do I want to come of this? What is it for?” [1] Without a clear and precise goal, set upon entering a situation, everything just seems to happen and not make much sense until you look back and piece it together. At this point you’ll clearly judge define the past without any real accuracy because no criterion for the outcome was ever set to evaluate and now it is a question of whether it is acceptable to you or not.[1] Now the only salvaging of the situation is to hope we can learn something from it.

Think about how powerful this concept can be! How much faster would you actually be living the life you truly desire,  if you were vigilant about being aware of what you really want at any given moment? The value of deciding what you want to happen in advance is that you’ll perceive the situation as a means to make it happen. Therefore, you will actively overlook what interferes with its accomplishment. [1] Have you ever wondered why some people are just so effective at achieving results and others are not? Those that achieve what they want are unequivocal in knowing what they want as an outcome in any given situation. Even though you can’t control everything, you can always perceive any situation in light of your objectives and use every thing to help you move forward. As Winston Churchill said, “When you are going through hell, keep going”.

[1] A Course In Miracles, Original Text.

I was reading Seth Godin’s book, Small is the New Big, which is jam-packed with great information and ideas.  One of the themes that kept sticking out to me was his promotion of subscription-based business models.   He made convincing arguments that these types of models will become more and more common as the information age matures.   He gave a few examples of where subscription-based companies did a poor job of executing, and where some traditionally non-subscription-based companies would have done amazingly well if they had switched to a subscription basis.  For example, he talked about a company he worked for that said, “Our best customer is one that signs up, pays the monthly subscription and never uses our product.”  Clearly, this company didn’t have a very good long-term strategy.  (That company is no longer in business.)  Then, he went on to describe how the music industry could have moved to a subscription-based model after the invention of Napster.  Pay some flat fee per month and listen to all the music you want.  This could have brought a lot more money to the industry. (And still could).

Sure, it would take a lot of work, some creative effort and a great deal of courage to make such a switch in a traditional industry but, how could you implement a radical subscription-based model in your business?  How could you create high levels of value to a large number of people who pay small monthly payments?  Play with the numbers, see what it would look like. Figure out what value you would be able to provide to a larger loyal audience.  As the Digital Native Generation grows (The Millennials) and becomes more of a purchasing force in the market, these kinds of models will be far more appealing to them.  Most industries could do it, but they’d have to be willing to be radicals, I can see how auto mechanics, Dentists, Chiropractors, coaches, grocery stores, and all sorts of other types of companies could employ such a strategy and have higher revenue and loyal clients… Are you that radical?

(Things you might not hear a Millennial say, “Dude, that was totally Rad!”)

Certainly something to think about.  If it spurs an idea, let’s talk!  If you think I’m crazy, let’s talk!

Sometimes you have to stand in THIS place and tell the world your story.

Unfortunately, it also seems, we MUST also polarize others to know if people hear us. Be unique, be yourself, all of you, even the one who wants to be more relate-able.

Standing for our joint freedom takes enlightened leadership. Not just an enlightened leader, but a team of men and women who have awakened to the fact that their own personal agendas do not facilitate the achievement and preservation of freedom.