Future Flywheel

Discover Your Authentic Identity

History's greatest achievers - a Napoleon, a da Vinci, a Mozart - have always managed themselves. That, in large measure, is what makes them great achievers. But they are rare exceptions, so unusual both in their talents and their accomplishments as to be considered outside the boundaries of ordinary humans. Now, most of us, even those of us with modest endowments, will have to learn to management ourselves which really comes down to knowing who we are. Our authentic identity.  

There may not be a more important time in human history than today when it comes to that challenge. In the past, people had little need to know much about who they thought that they were. A person was born into a position and a line of work: The peasant's son would be a peasant; the artisan's daughter and artisan's wife; and so on. 

But today, with the integration of our lives of social media which effected how we viewed the world, other people and ourselves, we now are looking at learning to manage our lives through the use of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). 

The other challenge today is that the institutions meant to help us to understand our identity have failed us. Identity used to be infrastructural, but now it isn't. We are left to manufacture it privately and most of us can't. 

So here is a great metaphor to use to help us understand where we are right now. Consider amblyopia. You don't fix a lazy eye by exercising it gently. The doctor patches the good eye and forces the weak one to work. Since our identity is driven by our imagination then this is in fact today's lazy eye. We do not know how to use it any more. The strong eye has been doing all of the seeing and that is coming from our rational mind which is rooted in avoiding fear. 

The only way to discover your authentic identity is through feedback analysis. Whenever you want to make a key life decision or take a strategic action, write down what you expect will happen. Then send that decision into the future. When that information comes back from the future in 1 week, 1 month, 1 quarter, 1 year or even 5 years later, compare the actual results with your expectation. I have been using the Future Me Method for 5+ years now and every time I do it, I am surprised. The Future Me Feedback that I get is priceless. 

Feedback analysis is by no means new. It was invented sometime in the fourteenth century by an otherwise totally obscure German theologian and picked up quite independently, some 150 years later, by John Calvin and Ignatius of Loyola, each of whom incorporated it into the practice of his followers. In fact, the steadfast focus on performance and results that this method produces explains why the institutions these two men founded, the Calvinist church and the Jesuit order, came to dominate Europe within 30 years. 

Practiced consisently, the Future Me Method  will show you with a fairly short period of time where your authentic identity lies. In this day and age of artificial identity everywhere you look, that can act as a real True North in your life. The Future Me Method will show you what you are doing or failing to do that deprives you of the full benefits of your true identity. It will show you were you are not particularly competent or where you have a very unique intuitive gift. And finally, it will show you where you where your intuitive mind does not fully activate and can not perform. 

Several implications for action follow from your future feedback. First and foremost, it allows you to concentrate on your strengthens. Put yourself where you authentic identity truly produces great results. 

Second, work on improving your authentic identity. Analysis will rapidly show where you need to get more clarity or acquire new awareness. It will also show the gaps in your knowledge about yourself and those can be filled . 

Third, discover where your Authentic Intelligence is causing either great results or perhaps disabling ignorance, and then overcome it. For too many people, especially people with a great expertise in one area, they can be very contemptuous of knowledge in other areas or believe that being bright is a substitute for knowledge. But taking pride in such ignorance is self-defeating. Go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realize your strengthens. 

Comparing your expectations with your results also indicates what not to do. We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas of person and especially a knowledge workers, should not take on work, jobs or assignments.

One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity that it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. And yet most people, especially most teachers and most organizations, concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones. Energy, resources and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer.