Day 2 – what are your values, strengths, and weaknesses?

Your fundamental beliefs are your values. Values are also known as principles, ideals, convictions, or purposes. Your beliefs are important to you, and will motivate you. The following exercise will help you set your life's priorities.

Values are the basis for the laws that govern society. Murder, theft, and assault, for example, violate society's common values. Society's values, and by extension its laws, provide us with the structure that helps us organize our lives.

By clarifying your values, you create a structure upon which you can build your personal and business life. You must understand your values before you can master the rest of the disciplines in this book.

The following table lists many of the things that motivate people. Rate each motivator according to how much you value it as always, often, sometimes, seldom, or never. Then go back and rank your "Always valued" checks in order of their importance to you. It is these values that will help you find your passion and motivate you and ultimately motivate your team.

Motivator	Always valued	Often valued	Sometimes valued	Seldom valued	Never valued
Advancement
Adventure
Aesthetics
Authority/power
Challenge
Change/variety
Community
Competence
Competition
Creativity
Decision-making
Excitement
Family
Freedom
Friendships
Group affiliations
Helping others
Helping society
Independence
Influencing people
Intelligence
Job security
Knowledge
Location of home
Location of work
Money
Moral standards
New ideas/things
Personal contact
Personal security
Physical challenge
Public contact
Recognition
Religious beliefs
Salary level
Stability
Status
Supervision
Tranquility
Working alone
Working under pressure
Working with people
Other

Now that you have ranked the motivators that you always value, you can answer the following two questions in your notebook:

• What is important to me now, in the short term?

• What is important to me in my life, in the long term?

Listing assets and liabilities

Another exercise to get to know yourself better is to identify your strengths and weaknesses. It is important for you to take the time to do this, as it is an exercise that will be repeated later with your team where everyone on the team will contribute to each others' list. For now, list your strengths and weaknesses:

STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
I am good at:	I need improvement in:
1.___________________________ 2. ___________________________ 3. ___________________________ 4. ___________________________ 5. ___________________________ 6. ___________________________ 7. ___________________________ 8. ___________________________ 9. ___________________________ 10. __________________________	1.___________________________ 2. ___________________________ 3. ___________________________ 4. ___________________________ 5. ___________________________ 6. ___________________________ 7. ___________________________ 8. ___________________________ 9. ___________________________ 10. __________________________

Note

Make a note

Asset Message: Refer to and re-read, relish, and dwell on these strengths (assets) constantly. They will take you anywhere you want to go, providing you with the energy you need to keep moving forward.

Liability Message: Pick the top three weaknesses and do something about them.