May
7
I have a great exercise for you. I still remember the first time I did this exercise myself, it’s such an eye-opener, it’s very empowering. I loved it, and I’ve carried it with me since.
Go ahead and do the exercise first.
When you’re done, I want you to come back here and share your experience in the comments, and share it with your friends, so they, too, can have a great day today.
Comments
27 Comments so far
Thanks for a great exercise. It was definitely an eye opener for me as well.
Keep it up,
Jonas
It made me smile – because of the people I know and admire – and because I am not doing as bad as I thought….
And the three “to-dos” were circling about the same subject hence a priority that should be taken care of. And actually not that difficult to overcome!
Thank you!
Katrine
This exercise was very positive for me. But not only the exercise itself, also the audio is very nice. It made me feel more comfortable and in the mood for really concentrating on the exercise. This is a very important part.
Also I, like Katrine found out that the most of all qualities that I like in other people and that I would like to have myself are related to one basic thing. If it’s accomplished, the others will be so easy to live.
I have a very good feeling about this blog.
Good luck!
Many thanks from here, too.
A very nice eye opener indeed. I suspect my list became a tad inflated…I had to use the margins – now requiring a bit of structuring to distill it all down to a few, concrete actions. But key words have certainly emerged.
A nit-picking methodological observation; I found that when I had to rate the qualities in terms of my own living, my estimates changed a bit whenever I considered the person behind the quality. So, if I gave myself a 7 or 8 on ‘spontaneous’ – and then went back and compared to the initial person, I tended to downsize my score 1 or 2 notches. Not sure if that is intended or even relevant, but there you have it.
Hi Lars – I haven’t done such an exercise for a while and it was great to get re-connected with my core values. I thought your presentation was excellent: personable, energetic, and authentic/credible speaking. Good analogy with Lisa Simpson too; I was reminded I’d never put my child in a school system where she has to sink to the lowest-common-denominator.
How about ‘we could be heroes’ playing in the background, well maybe not.
Good stuff, more of this kind of thing.
A good exercise and excellent reminder of what is important to you. Definately worth spending time on. And nice presentation, keep’em coming.
Thanks.
Hey Lars, the exercise was great, but so was your commentary.
“we notice the things that we ourselves are”
Cool! So I’m not sure about focussing on the qualities that rank 7 or less – 7 was my highest, and I was probably being generous with myself!
Keep it up
“We notice the things that we ourselves are.”
A pleasant respite from the usual trope of psycho-analytic practice which has us transferring our negative qualities upon others. I had never considered the equation as being possibly reversed (inversed?).
An excellent exercise for clarifying one’s core-values and life goals. I thought I was doing quite terribly in terms of my life values and goals – in fact, this exercise made me realise that what is really in order is a mental “tune-up” and some follow-through.
Will definitely pass this along.
Lars, thanx for a really nice excercise, i’ve done it before but doing it again only makes it better and more specific. The audio was great, more of that.
damn – good stuff. Thanx Lars – it helped me remember things I knew about myself but tend to forget in the everyday hassle.
Keep’em coming please.
Rasmus
Hey Lars, Thanks for the exercise. I have done this a lot of times before, and I love it every time. Manifesting those words on a piece of plain white paper, make my sub conscious mind clear on my goals, and drags my body towards completing them by taking massive action.
It would be great if you could explain to the listener why they are actually doing this exercise. Maybe as an introduction or an after-the-exercise thing. Why am I doing this? How does it help me? When I’m done taking action, what’s next? etc.
.. forgot to mention. The audio was ok, not great, but it did what it should. And I think you are great at communicating this stuff in English. Actually you should be happy that you send this around, even though it wasn’t perfect. You just eliminated whatever procrastination that could have killed the project, by doing that.
I would kill the “I sound a bit goofy at times…” crap. You don’t need it. Actually you are not selling yourself that great by telling me that. Stand by your current situation and skills. In that way you will seem much more trustworthy.
Wow. I’m not sure that was fun but it certainly was illuminating. Even if intellectually I’m not sure I buy the whole premise there’s enough there to get a lot out of. Good stuff I think.
Some boring comments on the presentation…
As you say the audio needs work. I like the informality, but you need to stop saying ‘um’. If you nail that one, you’ll find a lot of the other stuff gets better quickly.
The visuals I found a bit tricky. If I left them displayed at the normal size I couldn’t read them, if I went full screen they were blurry.
Liked the PDF download.
Liked the ‘pause, come back, do this bit’ I think that was better than say having multiple files or something like that.
Thanks for doing this – I hope to see more.
yeah, fun, would have liked a bit stronger cliffhanger for the last part
Nice exercise, it tends to encourage explicit positive attitudes… though while reading this blog, I noticed that I am generally “spiritual-phobic”… relation between: attitude – emotion – spirituality?
Thanks for a great exercise! It gave me a lot of energy to pursue my dreams, small and big, with a new and fresh attitude. Keep’em coming!
This was helpful. I often neglect taking the time to think about people I admire and their qualities, so the exercise was a bit of a challenge and refreshing.
Good presentation.
I really liked the break in the middle of the video, feels like you’re somehow “present” in the exercise and one (almost) feels obliged to continue. Ended up identifying five people I admire and know personally. From them I discovered a kind of composite personality with all the traits I would like to have more of. So all in all, very helpful!
Effective exercise for me. The exercise gave me a different and new attention on myself.
The exercise got me realize what qualities by myself I can and will work on to improve.
Keep up doing the good work!
Thanks Lars
I thought the exercise was really good. But is it really true, that what we admire in other people is the qualities we have ourselves too? I didn’t quite like the idea that we project so much of ourselves into other people, made me feel kind of a lonely island.
Thanks Lars! I enjoyed this exercise a lot. It was pleasantly surprising to see a little of myself in my heroes, or a little of them in me. Look forward to your next one…
Fun,and usefull thanks!
Hi Lars,
I came to your site in a roundabout sort of way. From Philip Greenspun >> history of aD >> Eve and every ones history and finally to your page. I’m glad i watched your video. I like the fact that it starts out abstract and then really comes to the specifics, like what we should be doing this week, today, now. Thanks for your time.
Siva
Lars,
I appreciate this exercise very much. It reminded me of my values and top priorities in life and the great thing is that I now have a long list of action items to help me “own” them as you so well put it. That’s a great feeling. It’s also great to be reminded of my friends who possess those values and who have inspired me.
I think Start From the Heart is a very fine initiative.
Thanks!
Peter
Lars, you’re doing a great job!
I was reminded how important it is for me to create, to actively get out there and seek feedback. The main place I want to do this at is my blog (which I’m going to move away from blogger by the end of the year, and where I’m going to post once a week).
I did NOT see that coming! Very cool and awesome perspective. Very true, too. Thank you for bringing this to my attention as it was an eye-opener.