CHAPTER 6

the power of a personal vision

dreams, not just goals

A clear and compelling personal vision can transform your life. In 2013, Diana Nyad, at age sixty-four, became the first person confirmed to swim the 103 miles from Cuba to Florida. It was her fifth and final attempt; she had had to terminate four previous crossings since her first try in 1978. In an interview on CNN after her historic achievement, she described her motivation: thirty-five years before, she’d had a dream to do the swim—something that no one had ever done before—and each time, something prevented her from reaching her goal.

“But you move on with life,” she said, “and you turn sixty, and your mom dies, and you’re looking for something. And the dream comes waking out of your imagination.”¹

Dreams that are connected to values we hold dear, our deepest passions and purpose in life, are always there. They might take a back seat to duties and responsibilities in life, shoved into a metaphorical closet for years. But they don’t ever really die. What fueled Diana Nyad’s incredible ambition, fortitude, and resilience were the seeds of an exciting dream, planted in her twenties, that carried personal meaning and fulfilled a deep purpose for her well into her sixties.

Helping people identify their personal vision (what we call coaching to vision) allows them to remember their long-held dreams and provides a platform from which they can take flight and become reality. We know from sports psychology research, meditation, and biofeedback that we can engage emotional commitment if we can give life to our dreams. A compelling personal vision transforms purpose into action, makes order out of chaos, instills confidence, and drives us to fulfill a desired future.

Throughout this book, we’ve described how uncovering such a vision unleashes positive emotion in individuals as well as within the coaching relationship itself (or any relationship in which one person is trying to help another). It’s so powerful and important that it’s essential for guiding people to think more openly and deeply, to connect with who they are authentically at their core, and to ultimately foster learning and change that is lasting. With this chapter, we will explore the personal vision in-depth and discuss ways to help people tap into it. We’ll describe research showing that discovery and development of such a vision is the most powerful way—neurologically and emotionally—to engage the PEA and help a person open up to possibilities in life and work. But first let’s look at what a personal vision is—and isn’t.

dreams, not just goals

A person’s vision is her image of a possible future. It is not a goal or a strategy. It consists of neither actions nor obligations. It is not a forecast of what is likely. It is a dream! While coaching for performance emphasizes feedback as an intervention, vision-based coaching emphasizes discovery and expression of the coachee’s ideal self as an anchor for the engagement or relationship. The ideal self gives shape and color to what’s desired and needed for the person to be at her best.

Put simply, a personal vision is an expression of an individual’s ideal self and ideal future. It encompasses dreams, values, passions, purpose, sense of calling, and core identity.² It represents not just what a person desires to do, but also who she wishes to be.

Thinking about any one aspect of a personal vision can sometimes be a completely new or even uncomfortable experience initially because the invitation to introspection may represent foreign territory. Throughout our lives, we are mostly asked what we want to do and not about the kind of person we aspire to be or what kind of life we wish to lead. This starts playfully with toddlers and preschoolers, who are asked, “What do you want to do when you’re bigger?” by well-meaning parents, caregivers, and teachers. Children have fun dressing up in costumes to look and act like the person they might want to be when they grow up—a doctor, a firefighter, a ballerina, a nurse, police officer, and the like.

As children get older, they read about different careers, go on field trips, and listen to friends’ parents talk about what their jobs involve. All of these experiences help them begin to discover what they might want to do in life. In high school, students are often asked, “Where do you want to go to college?” Then in college, we’re coached to answer the interviewer’s inevitable question, “What do you want to do after graduation?” Later, in organizations, well-intentioned superiors and human resource managers ask employees, “What would you like to do here in the next several years?”

Clearly, then, we get a lot of practice answering questions about what we want to do—but tend to spend a lot less time asking ourselves a question that we think is equally or maybe even more important: “Who do I wish to be?” When we as coaches (or parents, teachers, managers, clerics) ask people to consider what they care deeply about, what they dream about, what they think about when they don’t have to be thinking about something else, a floodgate of new ideas and possibilities often emerge and flow. And while most organizations focus on career goals two to three years out, we advocate that people think in terms of ten to fifteen years in the future. Why? Because a longer time horizon pushes people past the comfort zone of simply responding with their most recent thought or idea or what’s socially expected or accepted. So we ask, “If your life were ideal (you could substitute incredible, amazing, awesome, etc., here) ten to fifteen years from now, what would it be like?” The initial response to that question can range from a blank stare to a look of anxiety to an expression of pure enthusiasm. But regardless of the response in the moment, the question often eventually results in a smile as the person envisions himself authentically in the distant future and free from immediate concerns.³ Such a response taps into his PEA and allows for far more creative ideas and solutions to emerge than he might have had otherwise.

Karen Milley experienced this firsthand. When she participated in a leadership development program at Case Western Reserve University, Karen was a vice president of research and development. One homework assignment was to practice drawing out vision in other people. She chose to practice first with her teenage son, John, one evening as they sat around their fire pit. “Tell me what you want to be,” she asked, “and what you see yourself doing in fifteen years.” He paused, then said, “That question requires me to imagine.”

That’s when a light bulb went on for Karen. “That is the power of coaching to vision,” she thought. “It requires people to imagine!”

When she recounted the story, she added that at her company, people are used to thinking in terms of “What role are you going after?” She said, “Everyone feels like they need a well-thought-out, five-year plan, ready to pull out of their drawer when asked. You stumble because you want to be impressive. But when you ask people to think much further out, you get way past next to what do I want to do last?” As a leader of a large division, Karen found this refreshing and exciting; and by using the longer timeframe, she immediately noticed a positive shift in thinking and energy in the people she managed.

“Today I give people permission to have two or three scenarios of a possible future,” she said, “and I assure them that we’ll work with those and figure out the path that’s best for them. You can see them light up—they are able to relax and settle down emotionally.”

We think Lewis Carroll best suggested the problem of not having a personal vision in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when Alice came to a fork in the road, saw the Cheshire Cat in a tree, and asked: “‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where—,’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter,’ said the Cat.’”⁴

But in reality, knowing where we want to go often does matter. Developing a picture of where we’d like to go—in our career, in our relationships, in our life—serves as a compass, pointing us toward our destination; it allows us to see various routes to travel versus just one and keeps us on the best path to reach it. That’s why it’s important to start the coaching process by exploring a person’s ideal self and translating that into an outward expression of some sort, often a written statement or an image. The process of unearthing and distilling a personal vision unleashes powerful positive energy and holds many benefits. It helps us to see a bigger picture, engage in intelligent thought, be more empathetic, move to action, enact a larger range of behaviors, and build resilience to get through the tough times. (See the sidebar “Healing and the Personal Vision” for a story from one of this book’s authors, Ellen, on using these tools to address a health crisis.)

Our good friend and colleague Angela Passarelli examined what happens cognitively, emotionally, physiologically, and relationally during contrasting coaching conversations anchored in the PEA and the NEA. Participants in her study met with two coaches who engaged them in different ways. One coach asked the participants to envision a positive future (PEA) and the other encouraged the individuals to focus on current problems (NEA), both in service of helping the participants advance their careers. Participants’ experience with the two coaches was notably different. After the vision-based coaching, they felt happier, reported a higher perceived quality of the coaching relationship and expressed more aspirational goals. Participants were also willing to exert significantly more effort to pursue goals set after the PEA-based coaching session than after the NEA-based session, and they found more joy in pursuing them.⁵

As beneficial and worthwhile as having a personal vision can be, sometimes the process of discovery isn’t straightforward or smooth. Take Amy Szabo, for example. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t know where she wanted to go. Rather, she was interested in so many different paths that it took her some time to develop a personal vision that could allow her to focus on her heart’s desire.

amy’s story

She got there just in time. Running with her jump bag, Amy Szabo stabilized another heart attack victim and got him to the hospital.

Today, when Amy talks about her early career as an emergency medical technician (EMT), her enthusiasm about helping people comes through. Before becoming an EMT, she’d earned her BS in education and worked briefly as a teacher and then a firefighter—one of two full-time women among 150 men.

Later, after her years as an EMT, she earned a second bachelor’s degree, this time in nursing. Before long, she became a clinical nurse manager and the Continuous Improvement Facilitator for the critical care and medical surgical value streams. When she noticed inefficiencies in what she saw at the hospital, she studied to become a Six Sigma Black Belt in Lean Processes. Heads of other units often asked for her help and perspective. Amy was then hired in a different hospital system to help develop a patient experience program alongside chief officers.

Clearly, teacher to firefighter to nurse to hospital patient experience manager is not a typical career path. Amy has gone from saving lives one at a time to saving entire hospitals. Along the road, she’s found unique ways to engage in her work, proving herself in each job against any set standard of physical stamina, technical knowledge, and speed. But looking back, she admits that rather than having a plan, she often picked her next steps one at a time, based on things other people had suggested, and testing them as she experienced them.

Fast forward—now in the middle of an executive MBA program, Amy is excited about future possibilities, but uncertain as to which path to choose. She is sure of one thing, however: her former way of choosing careers was an inefficient and ineffective way to move ahead in her life.

A leadership coach in the program worked with Amy to develop a personal vision. “If your life were perfect in ten to fifteen years,” he asked her, “what would it be like?” Amy said she hadn’t previously given much thought to her long-term future. Indeed, Amy came across as a humble, gentle person, ready to help others rather than focus on herself. Her coach wasn’t surprised, therefore, that in her first attempt at crafting a personal vision, Amy centered on her family and on creating more positive environments in health care—not on her own long-term dreams.

The coach decided to continue on for the moment and worked with Amy to decode a multi-rater feedback instrument, the Emotional and Social Competence Inventory (ESCI).⁶ Most ESCI users aspire to get eight to ten people to complete the 360-degree feedback survey, and they often have to settle for fewer responses. Not Amy! She set a new record. She solicited fifty people to answer questions about their interactions with her, and forty-seven of them did it.

Later, she reviewed the feedback with her coach. Aside from the incredible response rate, the greatest shock to Amy was the undeniable message in the data from those forty-seven people: Amy consistently demonstrated every emotional, social, and cognitive intelligence competency above the threshold level of “distinctive strengths.” She was a resonant leader with high emotional and social intelligence—and she hadn’t even known it.

When her coach asked Amy what sense she made of the results, she hesitantly admitted that she was pretty good at leading others. She’d begun to believe, too, that she was ready for a long-term view of her life and not merely the next job. This began another round of personal discoveries for Amy, and she returned to her work at the hospital with a new openness to discovering and seeking her dream future.

When she sat with her coach again six months later, however, Amy admitted to feeling a little lost. She’d had another promotion with more responsibility—a chance to create yet another innovative, new center at the hospital focused on reorienting the entire system or, more accurately, sets of systems in a large health-care faculty around effective and efficient patient care.

Her coach asked if her vision had changed in the months since they had last discussed it. It had. Amy had begun to see herself as a leader and someone others valued as a source of help. She had tackled new challenges and made it a priority to help other hospitals seeking her advice on starting similar initiatives. She’d even begun teaching seminars on emotional intelligence as a way to bring others along in creating high-impact, positive patient-care experiences.

The coach asked her the same question he’d asked earlier that year: “If your life were perfect in ten to fifteen years, what would it be like?” He wondered if she might want to be a president or managing director of a hospital. But she surprised him by leaning forward and excitedly reporting what she would love most: helping hospital leaders see how their behavior affected others and exploring with them better ways to interact with staff and patients. Amy wanted to be a coach for health-care executives.

“Aren’t you already doing that?” the coach asked. Amy looked at him with a puzzled smile and said, “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, “you regularly have conversations now with a wide variety of leaders in your hospital about their units, their behavior, and style.”

“Yes,” Amy said. “But I am not their coach.”

“Are you sure?” he replied.

She thought a minute. “You know, one of the hospital directors called me recently and said that some conversations I’d had with her had been very helpful. She wanted to continue them. I guess that could be the start of a coaching relationship.” Amy then asked her coach how she could further develop her skills through advanced training and education in coaching.

Today, when she talks about her dream of coaching and running a major department at the large hospital system where she works, she leans in, smiles, and talks fast. Her energy is infectious. Amy will soon complete her training as a coach—something she credits her own leadership coach for helping her to begin. By guiding Amy to think ahead and construct a comprehensive personal vision, she developed a holistic map for her career and life that she describes as “liberating.” Now she wants to help others do the same thing.

Next, we’ll look at another individual whose personal vision led to growth and change—at several different points during his career.

bassam’s story

Bassam was becoming more and more frustrated with others in the project teams on which he worked in the health-care industry. When he was project leader, he realized that he was aggressive and impatient. It was an odd feeling. He’d always been the nice guy to whom people talked about a wide range of problems and issues. Now it was as if some alien species from another planet had invaded his body and he was the nemesis of the person he’d once been.

He decided he needed a tune-up on his vision and his plan for moving toward it. A year before, in an MBA program, Bassam had worked with a coach and developed a personal vision. He had learned a great deal about himself through that experience and thought working with a coach again might be a good idea since he now faced a different puzzle. Although he was moving along on his career in health care, he wanted something more. Originally from Jordan, Bassam had lived in Dubai for years but had hoped to change his leadership style to become more effective, even charismatic, by gaining international experience and an MBA.

Once again he met with a coach, who asked him about his vision. Bassam described a thoughtful and compelling dream that included maintaining his friendships and being an authentic, friendly person, whom others saw as caring and nice. The coach asked, “So what is the issue?” Bassam explained that in his eagerness to innovate and solve organizational problems, he was often in or leading special project teams. Some team members didn’t take their work seriously and weren’t very engaged, doing the bare minimum. Social loafing, or freeloading, is a common complaint in project teams, and it made Bassam angry. It did not take long in the new teams for others to see him as the angry task manager—not the caring and innovative leader he wished to be.

The coach asked Bassam where he wanted to be on this apparent continuum between frustrated taskmaster and caring team leader. He said that although being innovative and achieving goals was a part of his personal dream as an effective leader, being seen as an angry person and losing friendships as a result were not a part of his ideal self. This clarification of his vision meant that he needed to adjust some of his behavior.

The coach pressed him around what he thought of the apparent tension in his personal vision. Bassam’s answer was quick and clear: he didn’t want to achieve team goals at the expense of his relationships.

“Before your team meetings,” asked the coach, “are you aware of your growing frustration?”

Bassam said he was, but didn’t know what to do about it.

“If you did know what to do,” the coach asked, “what would you do?”

Bassam thought for a minute. “I could just ignore the freeloaders and move on with the others who care!” he said smiling, only half-joking. Then, he grew more serious. “I’m not sure what else to do.”

The coach invited him to brainstorm and several ideas emerged. Before team meetings, Bassam could take a few minutes to review his vision, even recite it out loud, and reflect on its relevance to the team project. “Reflect on your core values and personal purpose,” he encouraged, “and imagine how you want to show up with the team. At the beginning of each meeting, help the team to remember their shared values and vision.”

“Focus on the purpose shared by the group,” the coach continued, “and acknowledge the efforts of those helping to contribute to the overall outcome. Invite others to reflect and share what they are excited about. In essence, shift the focus to the great progress of the team and let the team share in the need to bring the others along.”

This was a shift in thinking for Bassam. He felt relieved at the idea that he alone didn’t need to carry the burden of the team’s work. Then the coach helped him consider different approaches he might take with the team that would enable him to stay true to how he wanted others to experience him and contribute in significant ways to the team’s productivity.

Like Bassam, we all need to update our personal vision on a regular basis. Events may occur that precipitate a change or at least, a reexamination of one’s vision, like getting fired or a major promotion, getting married, having a child, losing a parent, or experiencing a natural disaster like a hurricane or a terrorist attack. Sometimes it is not the setting but the people around you who change. Sometimes, however, it isn’t an event but the effect of the passage of time.

We all can expect transitions in life and jobs, and those changes can remind us to update our vision. Richard has begun a series of studies with Udayan Dhar on how a person’s ideal self or personal vision changes over time and events throughout life.⁷ But even without specific events, Richard and Udayan found in an earlier study that our lives and careers seem to rotate through cycles lasting five to nine years (with an average of seven years). Often, in our forties and fifties, these are labeled midlife crises, but they really are a natural rhythm of life and work.⁸ It’s important for people to use these natural cycles (or when major events transpire in their lives) to reexamine their personal vision.

how a personal vision creates change: more evidence

It took us years to understand why there was such a difference in an individual’s response between listing “goals” and discussing a personal vision, as Amy and Bassam did with their coaches. Goals ask people to declare something to which they aspire and are supposed to achieve. For many people (other than those with a motive called a high need for achievement, such as people who seek a career in sales), this creates an obligation.⁹ The obligation creates stress and begins to add to the negative process in the brain that we’ve described throughout this book. The goal then may become something to avoid rather than pursue.

And yet, in earlier research in psychology and management (conducted by Richard and others), we found that goals are helpful but differ in usefulness based on the situation. The difference lies in whether the context is performance oriented or learning oriented. A performance orientation emphasizes a demonstration of competence in pursuit of external recognition and achieving specific goals. A learning orientation is characterized by a desire to acquire deep knowledge and skill mastery to apply to a variety of current and potential scenarios.¹⁰ Other well-established research suggests that setting specific performance or learning goals leads to different outcomes. When a task is complex and requires learning and adaptation, learning goals lead to better performance. Participants stay engaged with the task longer. When the task is simple or routine by comparison, performance goals motivate greater performance by providing direction and clarity.¹¹

Emerging social neuroscience research helps us to understand the dynamic of why this occurs. When we set a goal, we begin to think of how to work toward it. This invokes the analytical brain. As we first discussed in chapter 5, parts of this network invoke our stress response and often impair us cognitively, emotionally, and physically. By focusing on the goal, we tend to see what is directly in front of us and lose sight of other possibilities on the horizon.¹² Researcher Tory Higgins offers that setting a specific target shifts our focus into preventing the possibility of missing the goal (that is, a preoccupation with achieving the goal itself)—rather than searching for a new possibility altogether.¹³ His work shows how this impacts the way we regulate and engage our perceptions. A prevention focus makes us feel slightly to highly defensive—and that limits how we can draw on the internal energy required to initiate something new as well as sustain our efforts toward it. An example that many of us can relate to is the practice of setting a New Year’s resolution. With the promise of a brand-new year and a clean slate, we enthusiastically declare a commitment to eat better, get more sleep, call our mother every day, go to church every Sunday, or correct certain bad habits once and for all—only to lose steam after a few weeks. Just ask fitness club managers who love the month of January when people sign up, pay their dues for months or more, and then stop showing up by March. This is because change is difficult, and for adults to change in ways that stick, the desire has to run deep. It has to connect to our passion, our purpose, and our core values.

As we saw with Amy Szabo, she started out her career wanting a job (teaching), then an exciting job (firefighting and being an EMT), then a job in which she could focus on helping people (nursing and hospital administration). As her dreams for the future expanded and crystallized, she became more confident in the idea that the dream could become reality—and in her ability to manifest it. It became her personal vision with a deep sense of purpose.

In an interesting twist, we discovered in one of our fMRI studies of coaching that writing one’s vision did not activate the same neural networks as talking about it with a coach trained in evoking the PEA.¹⁴ As we discussed in an earlier chapter, results from two fMRI studies conducted on PEA-based versus NEA-based coaching showed the power of coaching to one’s vision.¹⁵ In the first study, we found that PEA-based coaching to vision activated the portion of the brain most associated with imagining. In the second, we showed that coaching to the PEA, again even for just thirty minutes, activated a person’s global focus and ability to see the big picture—versus the NEA, which activated a much more limited local focus.

All of which is to say that discovering one’s personal vision—essentially, an ideal vision of one’s self and one’s future—unleashes positive emotions of hope and excitement that in turn, propels our motivation and appetite for growth and change. Suddenly, we believe that something worthwhile and desirable is going to happen.¹⁶ And that hope is propelled by self-efficacy—a belief in our ability to manifest what we set out to do or be—and optimism. So, hope fueled by self-efficacy means that we not only imagine that good things are about to happen, but we also believe in our ability to achieve them.¹⁷

In a study of engineering and science professionals focused on why women leave or stay in the field, researchers Kathleen Buse and Diana Bilimoria found empirical evidence for the power of having a vision as a way to equip women in technical fields to develop self-efficacy. For these women, taking the time to reflect upon their passion, purpose, and values increased their engagement in work and strengthened their commitment to a career in engineering.¹⁸

That was certainly the case for Brandi DiMarco, who worked in information systems at a food-processing manufacturer. While attending a leadership development program, Brandi created a personal vision with the help of an executive coach. She shared the following reflection:

crafting a vision

Creating a vision can be best considered as a process of crafting that requires us to be imaginative and creative. The best way to help someone identify their ideal self and convey their personal vision is to encourage them to dream. A favorite exercise in our leadership development programs is called “Catch Your Dreams” (more pragmatic folks call it the “Bucket List” exercise). The activity asks individuals to consider twenty-seven things that they would like to experience, try, or accomplish in their lifetime. After attempting to write as many as possible on a number of sticky notes, the person is asked to place the notes on a flip chart, then group those ideas into themes. Some examples are: career, family, travel, health, adventure, etc. In group settings, a good next step is to allow time for a “gallery walk.” This is when people can walk around reading others’ flip charts and viewing them as if they are fine art.

Most people enjoy the experience and find it helpful in imagining possibilities. We often see smiles, hear the laughter, and feel the positive energy in the group. Doing this exercise with a work group or even your family is a great way for people to help each other dream. It’s inspiring and humbling to get a glimpse into the dreams and aspirations of others around us—like peeking into another’s soul. This is just one example of how to prime and facilitate an experience of dreaming and discovery. See the reflection and application exercises at the end of the chapter for additional suggestions.

For many people, coaching and developing a vision for their future is mainly about work and their career. But the stories of courageous and curious people we have told so far show that work is but one part of our lives. While our professional lives can be a source of enjoyment and satisfaction, it’s often the activities outside of work that fulfill a deeper sense of purpose and meaning. Amy Szabo found that things she was doing with other hospital executives that were not part of her day job were actually the activities that left her feeling the most satisfied and energized. Helping others was bigger and more meaningful than leading a hospital department. It tapped into Amy’s sense of purpose. In our work as coaches, we’ve found that helping people uncover a holistic view of their hopes and dreams—one that considers and integrates all aspects of life—helps them to connect with and to develop a more comprehensive and authentic image of who they are, including passion, purpose, values, and identity. The process of helping a person discover her personal vision begins by asking her to reflect on her future life and work: her dreams and hopes regarding her physical health, romantic life and friendships, family health, spiritual health, community involvement, financial matters, and more. Of course, considering one’s work (whether paid or not) is a part of the reflective process, but we do not presume that it’s the center of a person’s dream. Often, as we’ve seen in several examples in this book, coaching conversations equally encompass our professional and personal identities and activities.

All helping and coaching is about change or how to maintain a desired change that has occurred. For change to be ignited and sustained, a personal vision provides the essential foundation because it is a meaningful expression of a person’s passion, purpose, and values. It is a comprehensive image of what we wish to do and who we wish to be in our lives. Crafting a personal vision is an iterative process that is different for each individual. But regardless of how the process unfolds, it will be obvious to the coach when the vision is “well-baked” because the individual is often filled with energy and can’t wait to get started. This is inspiration and intrinsic motivation in action.

In chapter 7, we’ll focus on what the coach, manager, or other helper can do to nurture a high-quality relationship with the individuals they help, in order to sustain that energy and help them turn dreams into reality.

key learning points

1. A personal vision is a holistic, comprehensive expression of a person’s ideal self and ideal future, including dreams, sense of calling, passion, purpose, and core values.
2. A personal vision should be more like a visual dream than specific goals.
3. A personal vision should be highly important and meaningful to the person.
4. Although some aspects of a person’s personal vision will change during various phases of life and work, others, such as core values and a sense of purpose, often remain the same.

reflection and application exercises

EXERCISE A: CATCH YOUR DREAMS

You will need a pack of sticky notes and a large piece of flip chart paper for this exercise. Using the notes, list things you would like to do or experience in your lifetime until you get to twenty-seven. Write each idea on a separate note. These are things that you’ve not yet begun or completed. Some tips to help: allow yourself to think freely and without imposing practical constraints. Reflect back to your childhood and what you dreamed of doing someday. Turn off the inner critic—it’s impossible to dream while simultaneously being judged.

After your best attempt to write as many as possible, place your notes on a piece of flip-chart paper and group them into themes; for example: career, family, travel, health, adventure, spirituality, material goods, professional development, recreation. Write the theme near the sticky note groupings.

This exercise can be easily adapted to groups. Individuals would follow the steps above. Once every person has a flip chart with sticky notes grouped into themes, ask everyone to post their flip charts on a wall in the room. Then, allow time for a “gallery walk.” A gallery walk provides an opportunity for everyone to walk around the room and view others’ dreams. Be sure to add the guideline to approach viewing as if looking at fine art—with humble curiosity, appreciation, and even admiration. Individuals sometimes like to add a brief, personal note of inspiration to others’ flip charts. Some examples of what we’ve observed are: “You inspire me,” “You got this,” “Very cool,” and so forth. The key is for comments to be respectful and affirmative in nature and not evaluative or laden with advice.

EXERCISE B: MY VALUES

You’ll find a list of values, beliefs, or personal characteristics for your consideration below. Identify which are most important to you and are guiding principles in your life. It is difficult to choose, of course, because many of these values and characteristics will be at least somewhat important to you. It is also hard to choose because you might find yourself thinking, “I should value X and put it first on my list,” even though it really isn’t. So force yourself to choose, and choose based upon your true feelings, not the shoulds in life.

You might find it useful to determine the degree of importance by imagining how you would feel if you were forced to give up believing in or acting on a particular value, belief, or personal characteristic. Or, think about how you would feel if your life revolved around certain values and beliefs. How would this make you feel? Sometimes you might find it helpful to consider two values at a time, asking yourself about the relative importance of one over the other.

1. Start by circling the fifteen or so values that are most important to you.
2. Then from this list, identify the ten that are most important to you and write them in a list.
3. From this list of ten, circle the top five that are most important to you and then rank them from most important to least important.

Values, Beliefs, or Desirable Personal Characteristics

• Accomplishment

• Achievement

• Adventure

• Affection

• Affectionate

• Affiliation

• Ambitious

• Assisting others

• Authority

• Autonomy

• Beauty

• Belonging

• Broad-minded

• Caring

• Challenge

• Cheerful

• Clean

• Comfortable life

• Companionship

• Compassion

• Competent

• Competitiveness

• Conformity

• Contentedness

• Contribution to others

• Control

• Cooperation

• Courageous

• Courteous

• Creativity

• Dependable

• Disciplined

• Economic security

• Effective

• Equality

• Excitement

• Fame

• Family happiness

• Family security

• Forgiving

• Free choice

• Freedom

• Friendship

• Fun

• Genuineness

• Happiness

• Health

• Helpfulness

• Honesty

• Hope

• Imagination

• Improving society

• Independence

• Innovative

• Integrity

• Intellectual

• Involvement

• Joy

• Leisurely

• Logical

• Love

• Loving

• Mature love

• National security

• Nature

• Obedient

• Order

• Peace

• Personal development

• Pleasure

• Polite

• Power

• Pride

• Rational

• Recognition

• Reliable

• Religion

• Respectful

• Responsible

• Restrained

• Salvation

• Self-controlled

• Self-reliance

• Self-respect

• Sincerity

• Spirituality

• Stability

• Status

• Success

• Symbolic

• Taking risks

• Teamwork

• Tender

• Tidy

• Tranquility

• Wealth

• Winning

• Wisdom

My Ten Most Important Values

My Five Most Important Values

Finally, rank each of your five most important values, beliefs, or characteristics, with “1” being the most important value to you, to “5” being the least important of these five values.

EXERCISE C: WINNING THE LOTTERY

You’ve just won the super lottery and received $80 million. How would your life and work change?

EXERCISE D: A DAY IN YOUR LIFE . . . FIFTEEN YEARS FROM NOW

It is fifteen years from today. You are living your ideal life. You are living in a location that you have always dreamed about. You are living with the people with whom you most want to be living. If work is part of your ideal image, you are doing the type and amount of work you love.

A netcam is attached to your shirt or blouse. What images would we see in a video stream of your day? Where would you be? What are you doing? Who else is there?

EXERCISE E: MY LEGACY

What would you wish to have as your legacy in life? In other words, what will remain or continue as a result of you having lived and worked all of these years?

Source: These exercises are reproduced from Richard Boyatzis, The Ideal Self Workbook (1999), used at Case Western Reserve University in courses and programs, and were printed in A. McKee, R. E. Boyatzis, and F. Johnston, Becoming a Resonant Leader (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2008); and R. Boyatzis and A. McKee, Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2005); and used in the Coursera massive open online course, Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence.

conversation guide

1. Share any three core values that are at the top of your list. Pick one, define what it means to you in your own words, and think of an example of how the value plays out in your life. Take turns each sharing your value, definition, and example. When listening to others, take care to not evaluate or critique their values.
2. As we suggested in chapter 3, think about the social and professional/organizational relationships in your life. Of the people who you spend the most time with or those with whom you are the closest, who among them really “gets” you or understands what really “makes you tick”?
3. What are your social identity groups? For example, what do you wear with pride? What fan sports clubs do you belong to? Are you part of some neighborhood or religious community from which you draw pride and a sense of belonging? In what ways do your current social identity groups help you move closer to your ideal self and personal vision?