“… are those who assume responsibility for a creative task, not as an assigned role, a routine function, or an inherited duty, but as a venture of faith, including risk and danger, in order to bring into the world something new and profitable to mankind.”

From Os Guiness’ Long Journey Home: A guide to your search for the meaning of life. Page 2. ISBN 1-57856-846-3.

We live by rules and principles daily. We modify our behaviour to work within (or outside of) them on a continual basis. On the surface, they both affect (or control) our actions. But there is a subtle and important difference between them.

Principles are: bought-into, believed-in, understood innately, interpreted individually (inclusive of individuality), lived, makes sense to the individual, congruent with individual and organisational …

Os Guiness identified the following in his book Long Journey Home:
A clear sense of personal identity.
A strong sense of personal mission.
A deep sense of life’s meaning.

Translating this into a business context (where business is a major tool for self actualisation) I proposed the following:
A clear brand identity founded on a coherent alignment of beliefs and actions.
A strong cause/purpose powered by passion and dreams.
A deep sense of participation in …

The word “lifestyle” really gives me the shits. Apart from the fact that it is yet another meaningless gumpf word endemic in advertising, it belittles Life itself.

Someone said to me last week that when they bought an Apple computer, they were not just buying a computer, but rather buying the Apple “lifestyle”.

All well and good for Apple, but isn’t the idea of buying …

Can you outsource innovation? Can you buy an innovation as an outcome from a consultant - much like you would but a business process, a compliance certification, or a piece of information technology?

Of course you can buy a contained and discrete innovative solution or product. But I am referring to innovation as a culture thing here, something that innate to the being of your organisation.

If you want to …

I am already working on two pro-bono projects: with a youth community centre in New South Wales, and a Victoria-based international charity fighting poverty.

What are you doing? What is your business doing?

Download the the official Pay It Forward Day flyer (59Kb PDF).

Find out more on the official Pay It Forward Day website.

Looking to do some volunteer work? Try …

Take a moment out to reflect on and reveal you innermost truths to the world at Hidden Lives. And of course see what other people are unveiling!

“People with high LQ value life and invest it wisely in what really matters in the larger scheme of things. They do not ask how they can get the most from life, but how they can give their uttermost to life. Their starting point is not how they can be happy, rich and famous, but how they can be most useful …

People with malleable morals that can be bent to exploit every advantage are not “agile” or “adaptive”; they just plain lack integrity.

Spin can’t change reality. A dishonest act is still a dishonest act regardless of how it is rationalised.

If you found $200 on the street, the right thing to do is to hand it in at the nearest police station. A dishonest person would keep the money and …

Human intelligence has many dimensions, and this article explores Howard Gardner’s notion of Multiple Intelligences.

Evaluate and plot your Multiple Intelligence Quotient (MIQ).

Here’s mine: