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Values—a platform for our vision, goals, and the difference we are out to make
“. . . Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to be. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you are being a lot of other people; but the moment you are being, you’re nobody but yourself.”
—e.e. cummings
In being nobody but ourselves, our values are always at play. Values are ongoing, they’re never completed. They create a context, an environment, a dynamic equilibrium; they contribute a certain order; they service our purposes (the direction we’ve chosen for our lives, what we’re out to create, the difference we are out to make). Values aren’t conditions for satisfaction—rather, they are conditions for wholeness, for integrity, for fulfillment. They don’t determine success and failure, but have a lot to do with our experience of being alive. We are never stuck with inherited values or yesterday’s values; values are declared, made up, invented, created. We can invent new ones tomorrow or we can make the ones we already have “forever” values, but only because we said so—as it’s in language that we shape, articulate, and define who we are.
In inventing an enterprise for our lives—one built on the foundation of our created values—our vision and goals begin to emerge and flourish, to invite a plan of action. They interact with each other, augment each other, accelerate each other, and become a platform for knowing ourselves powerfully, for making the unique difference we are out to make—for being nobody but ourselves.
Steve Zaffron
CEO of Vanto Group
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