What a wonderful question! The saying goes: “you never have to recover from a great start.” Ask any Olympic sprinter and they will tell you that starts are important. So, where is the ideal place to take the first step in our journey towards multiplication?
The better question is: What is so valuable that you want to multiply? Dr. Tim Elmore in his book Generation iY has outlined these five V’s as five decisions we must walk through. He says the first decision we must determine is our values. He goes on and emphasizes this being priority number one as it will keep a person “on course” as they pursue their vision.
Therefore, the most critical aspect of living the exponential life is setting your internal temperature. Each of us have values by default or by design that guide and shape what our lives reproduce to the people around us. We multiply what we value. If our lives do not reflect anything, it may be because we truly value nothing. It could also mean that we try to value everything.
Imagine with me for a moment that one Monday morning you wake up and head off to starbucks to learn how to become a blogger. On Tuesday you decide that community is more valuable that computers so you spend all day with a group of friends talking about nothing. Wednesday arrives and you remember that you don’t have food to eat, so you decide you must make some money to not starve and get a job at the same coffee shop you sit just two days prior. Then on Thursday you don’t show up at work on time because you heard an Oprah show about sleep depravation; the real cause of anxiety. Your boss decides to release you the same day. Finally Friday rolls around and as you walk aimlessly through the park, you wonder why your life is going nowhere.
Isn’t the allegory above an over overexaggerated mirror of many people today. Because we haven’t determined our values and set our internal temperature, we end up reflecting our emotions and feelings from day to day. There becomes no single focus or direction of our life and we end up having spent a lot of living with no life to show for it.
EXERCISE: Create an acronym that lists 5-10 values that you desire to increase in you and then multiply through you. This can be your name used as an acronym or a word that means something to you. For example, my last name is Foliart and I came up with Faithful. Oneness. Learning. Integrity. Attitude. Rest. Truth. These are the values that I hold dear an want to reproduce in the Earth. Take the below 10 blanks and set your internal temperature. Ask these questions about as you pursue your values:
What do you want to be remembered for?
What qualities in other people do you admire the most?
What statement will be written about you in your obituary?
