I am getting all kinds of energy from reading these posts about VISIONARY and self-definition, and reached a point where I felt I would try to express my thoughts on this, and share for the purpose of providing a voice for the un-expressed self-named visionaries in question…
As a adopted child and artist, I have spent most of my life involved in the ways of understanding identity and self-expression. These are my passions, and as one of the primary vehicles of self-expression is work, I have spent much of my energy understanding how all these arenas intersect and how one might create beauty and balance and internal harmony and a authentic alignment within all these realms of our experience.
I notice within career management, that self-knowledge is the first step to successfully integrating all of this. One benefits enormously from accurate self-understanding and the ability to articulate and demonstrate this. Early on, in coaching clients in career transition while working for a major outplacement firm, and later as a practice leader within the field, I found that while many people (I would even argue, ALL) know what they want in life, most are not able to articulate clearly and compellingly, why this makes sense for them. This is a major aspect of coaching folks to network, interview & NEGOTIATE! With myself and my clients, I noticed a tendency to not understand the hierarchy of skill development, and to thus underestimate their value and opportunities. Upon further conversation, we often began to work on ideas about permission and a sense of worthiness—what one felt they deserved, having unearthed these as the root cause and obstacle to going after the ideal work situation.
Within our MLPF, we have talked at length as a community about JOB HOPPING. Many of us expressed the need to get to know an individual and (I paraphrase) to seek first (as Covey says…) to understand, rather than to make assumptions. The same might be true in assessing the use of the word VISIONARY.
Why have we added a value judgment to this term? Is a VISIONARY really a better person than an ORGANIZER? Or a MANGER? Or an INVENTOR? Or…[insert any other functional skill]? Or is it simply a qualitative term, which because it may be perceived as more rare, or who know…maybe it is simply more rarely EXPRESSED? Has this caused us to think it is better, and more ELITE and therefore, NOT appropriate to recognize in ourselves?
Furthermore, why do we think it is more legitimate if others name who we are then us naming ourselves?? Where do we get the ideas that self-definition is more accurate from outside than from within? What makes us think another knows better than us where our true abilities lie? What makes us think that an individual who is self-aware and conscious would not grow clear in understanding their own abilities, and then choose to describe themselves as such, so that we might understand what specific form their abilities take? Of course, in all areas of life, not everyone is honest, or accurate in expressing who they are…but isn’t that, however, different from deciding on what criteria we are allowed to self-define?
It seems to me, that I will accept whatever someone tells me about themselves, as long as my internal guidance systems in life reads them as sincere, genuine, real and that the other information I receive in interacting with them is consistent with what they’ve shared about themselves—be it qualitative or quantitative…
Isn’t our entire LinkedIn Profile one of self-definition???
Just a thought.
May your day be just what you want.
Best regards,
Meredith
Self-defined Entrepreneur & Lifestyle Visionary
http://www.linkedin.com/in/meredithmurphy
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--- Original message posted by "WashingtonDCLobbyist" <dclobbyist@yahoo.com> on 2007-12-28 19:12:33 ---
I noticed many people on LinkedIn list their profession as "visionary". I've always reserved that word for true pioneers; a VERY rare class of people. Yet in my network there are over 300 people who call themselves visionaries, visionary officers, and the like. Am I honored to have so many visionaries in my network or do the people in my network have a very broad understanding of that word. Thanks. JT Jeffrey L. Taylor / email: Linkedin.lobbyist(at)gmail.com / Profile: www.linkedin.com/in/washingtonlobbyist
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