So many answers for sale so nicely packaged and ready to be shipped right to your door, downloaded right to your smartphone. A wonder why everything - all questions and concepts - have not been nailed down to a science already. A wonder why we do not have ports in the sides of our heads to insert a flash drive and just upload all the knowledge we need. Sorry, that was last decade - more like a microscopic chip implanted in our brains that can receive updates via wireless networks. Learning for yourself is so old school.
We live in the golden age of information and misinformation. An age of mass distraction. An age where availability of information is not as valuable as the curating of information is. An age where old 20th century ideology still holds on for dear life while new progressive 21st century's version fights feverishly to kill off that ideology for good.
Instant gratification, quick fixes -- dopamine fixes galore. A wonder that we accomplish anything significant riding one dopamine fix to the next. Somebody please stop this train and add some badly need clarity to all this madness!
We are all making a living on this spinning ball together. We all have universal needs and desires. No matter how much noise the contemporary distractions try to trip us up, the fundamentals for success have not changed. All the centuries leading up to today and all the centuries to come will not change the fundamentals of success. Now a rogue planet could blast through the Milky Way and pulverize the earth and end all of human life, and at that point who cares? However, no matter how many or how invasive the bread & circuses become, the fundamentals for success remain intact and unchanged.
The Success Hope Ambition Potential Excellence (S.H.A.P.E.) Philosophy was designed to be your lighthouse in the fog of distraction. Your compass in the woods of information overload. A fail proof navigation system that will work when applied in any scenario in any culture under any circumstances. We did not create the fundamentals of S.H.A.P.E. Those fundamentals have been around for thousands of years and researched by many far smarter than me. Therefore, we are not recreating any wheels, recycling old programs, or repackaging themes to brand them as my own. Rather the S.H.A.P.E. philosophy was created to be a type of user-friendly reference guide to help anyone willing to help themselves reshape or enhance their lives. Share in the "student for life" philosophy.
Are you still skeptical at this point? Good, I recommend a bit of healthy skepticism. The proof is in the pudding and the recipe cannot contain any secret ingredients and remain credible. We did not create S.H.A.P.E. overnight with all the original thoughts floating in my head. I have spent nearly a decade researching and reading a lot of what makes us tick, and I fully intend and plan to explicitly cite every source that has helped create the S.H.A.P.E. philosophy.
Without further ado, let's explore at high-level overview the S.H.A.P.E. philosophy section by section!
Success
“Success is the progressive realization of predetermined, worthwhile, personal goals.” -- Paul J. Meyer
Just looking at the S.H.A.P.E. acronym initially, the question is begged why Success comes before the rest and not on the end. We decided to go with the late Stephen Covey’s: “begin with the end in mind” philosophy. Success cannot be achieved without first knowing what the definition of what success is for that given individual. One of the nine principles of war is to define a clear objective. How can one assess, quantify, and/or measure their level of success without first knowing what target they are aiming for? Lewis Carroll summed it up perfectly from his famous Alice in Wonderland: "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there." Success is not found by wandering aimlessly through life. Therefore, vision and mission statements need to be spelled out. Values must be determined.
Success is such a subjective term. We are not attempting to define success in one-size-fits-all fashion. Rather, we do want to provide and/or share solid fundamentals principles and values that will help you achieve your own success. The main goal here is to not let the ends justify the means behavior corrupt their pursuit. The means of pursuing their respective goals are just as important as the ends themselves.
Kay Sprinkel Grace speaks about her book, "Beyond Fund Raising", the notion of laying out your plans at philosophical, strategic, and tactical levels. Success in this portion of the program is directly focused on the philosophical level – really answering the questions: “why?” and “what?” success is to the individual.
We also want to focus on what is central to the entire theme of S.H.A.P.E. – the four wins. Stewart Friedman, author of Four-way Win: How to Integrate Work, Home, Community, and Self and founding director of Wharton’s Leadership Program at University of Pennsylvania, describes the four pillars/wins: Work, Home, Community, and Self -- we really want all of our S.H.A.P.E. students to succeed in all four of these.
We believe we can strongly benefit our S.H.A.P.E. participants by assisting them in defining success at a philosophical level with the focus on solid principles and values and with the focus on work, home, community, self.
Hope
“Hope is a waking dream.” – Aristotle
“Believe you can and you're halfway there.” ― Theodore Roosevelt
Success cannot readily be achieved with any percentage of probability or even possibility without hope thrown in the mix. People simply will not make any real concerted effort to pursue anything they do not believe can ever come to fruition. Therefore, we must address hope/optimism in our program in order to inspire and fuel the drive for students to succeed overall.
We plan on being open, honest, and transparent with our participants. S.H.A.P.E. has to be grounded in realism in order to meet its objectives. Unbridled optimism without a hint of realism could be as dangerous of having none at all.
Hope alone will not change anything, but it is critical for the student’s buy in. However, hope without a plan is meaningless and empty. We plan on including a lot about self-discovery in this section so the students can really obtain what they are really after with much more clarity than before they entered the program.
“Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Potential
Success cannot readily be achieved with any percentage of probability or even possibility without hope thrown in the mix. People simply will not make any real concerted effort to pursue anything they do not believe can ever come to fruition. Therefore, we must address hope/optimism in our program in order to inspire and fuel the drive for students to succeed overall.
We plan on being open, honest, and transparent with our participants. S.H.A.P.E. has to be grounded in realism in order to meet its objectives. Unbridled optimism without a hint of realism could be as dangerous of having none at all.
Hope alone will not change anything, but it is critical for the student’s buy in. However, hope without a plan is meaningless and empty. We plan on including a lot about self-discovery in this section so the students can really obtain what they are really after with much more clarity than before they entered the program.
Ambition
"There's no shortcut to a dream
It's all blood and sweat
And life is what you manage in between" - Broken Bells "October"
"There's no shortcut to a dream
It's all blood and sweat
And life is what you manage in between" - Broken Bells "October"
If hope is fueling the success, ambition is the engine driving it. Motivation is the key. We do not want to take our students in and recharge their batteries – enough for profit programs and books exist in that vein that do just that. No, we want to build a battery charger within each our students so they can become independent and tackle any challenge put forth in front of them or any of the many challenges life with throw at them in general.
Many motivating factors exist that especially most teenagers, no fault of their own, will not be aware of. And according to Leigh Branham, author of The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, most managers are not aware either. These can be make a huge impact if we would just teach them – most schools stick more to teaching what they call the hard skills (i.e., science, math, accounting etc.) rather than the interpersonal skills and other soft skills (i.e., emotional intelligence, EQ, related skills) absolutely needed to succeed. We want to not just help our students discover what motivates them but how they can motivate others as well. The Excellence section in S.H.A.P.E. covers that in more detail.
Many motivating factors exist that especially most teenagers, no fault of their own, will not be aware of. And according to Leigh Branham, author of The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, most managers are not aware either. These can be make a huge impact if we would just teach them – most schools stick more to teaching what they call the hard skills (i.e., science, math, accounting etc.) rather than the interpersonal skills and other soft skills (i.e., emotional intelligence, EQ, related skills) absolutely needed to succeed. We want to not just help our students discover what motivates them but how they can motivate others as well. The Excellence section in S.H.A.P.E. covers that in more detail.
Potential
“If you haven't confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. ” ― Marcus Garvey
Keeping an optimistic, open-minded, reasonable, rational approach with a great deal of motivation and a clear picture of what success looks like are all keys to reaching one’s full potential. By continually aligning daily achievements with principled goals and values, the students will learn how to track their path to success. Over time they will be able to develop these skills into talents.
S.H.A.P.E. is designed to teach the students how to recognize their individual potential and build self-confidence. Recognize it the point they can consistently evaluate where they are regarding their potential and improve upon it.
Excellence
“By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.” -- Voltaire
"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.” -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
Keeping an optimistic, open-minded, reasonable, rational approach with a great deal of motivation and a clear picture of what success looks like are all keys to reaching one’s full potential. By continually aligning daily achievements with principled goals and values, the students will learn how to track their path to success. Over time they will be able to develop these skills into talents.
S.H.A.P.E. is designed to teach the students how to recognize their individual potential and build self-confidence. Recognize it the point they can consistently evaluate where they are regarding their potential and improve upon it.
Excellence
“By appreciation, we make excellence in others our own property.” -- Voltaire
"Curious that we spend more time congratulating people who have succeeded than encouraging people who have not.” -- Neil deGrasse Tyson
Unless you are hopeless narcissist never interested in anything outside of fulfilling your own self interest at any cost and at everyone else's expense, successfully completing your own goals alone will not lead you to the promise land of fulfillment (excluding goals to help others). People are naturally inclined to be social and cooperative beings. Too many sources to site on this account alone. Therefore, the S.H.A.P.E. philosophy would be incomplete without a paying it forward model.
Mentoring is probably one of the first concepts to come to mind when thinking about excellence. However, the notion often leads to a weak connotation -- mentoring does not require a lot of or enough skin in the game. Easy to give out advice and help another with no real commitment especially if the mentored fall off the wagon motivation wise.
Sponsorship fits more in terms with what the S.H.A.P.E. philosophy stands by. Sponsors are more than just mentors. Sponsors are coaches in your corner through thick and thin. Sponsors actively follow up with their partners and encourage them. They operate with steadfast integrity. If you have an idea, they champion it and help move mountains for you to help make it happen. If you are gunning for a new position, they help clear the path to make it happen. Although just as one being sponsored (the protege) is not a mentoree, the protege is more than just a receiver of advice and feedback. Proteges operate in a quid pro quo relationship with their sponsors. In defining your success, we want to turn you into a protege. Upon reaching your potential and moving into Excellence, we want you as sponsor.
******
A lot of trees were slain and squids squeezed dry to print out all the books read to put S.H.A.P.E. together. And they only make a mere fraction of what is left to be discovered on this journey. We are just scratching the surface. We have a ways to go but rest assured the time and attention you invest in S.H.A.P.E. is well worth the effort. I hope you will find as much value in the program as I have along the way.
******
A lot of trees were slain and squids squeezed dry to print out all the books read to put S.H.A.P.E. together. And they only make a mere fraction of what is left to be discovered on this journey. We are just scratching the surface. We have a ways to go but rest assured the time and attention you invest in S.H.A.P.E. is well worth the effort. I hope you will find as much value in the program as I have along the way.
