Harmonic Visions: Crafting a Future of Fulfillment and Integrity

For a long time, I have had the same vision of how I want my last 15 years of life to look. It can be summed up in a single picture. My husband, our kids, grandkids, friends, and extended family joined together at our family beach house. The sun is setting, someone is playing the guitar, dogs and kids are running on the beach, and I am serving libations. As I sit and enjoy my handcrafted signature cocktail, I feel a deep sense of love, fulfillment, and gratitude.

Having a vision like this has invited me over the years to become clear on my strategic priorities. Having a loving family requires investment in them over time. Owning a family beach house means I need to invest in the way I earn income and find ways to add tremendous value in the world. To look around at my kids and grandkids with a sense of pride means I need to invest intentionally in the community I live. Who my kids are regularly exposed to should be diverse, inspiring, and fulfilled. To live a long and healthy life, I need to invest in the controllable aspects of my health today. Simply put, in order to be guided toward an ideal future state, I realized I needed personal strategic initiatives.

We most commonly think of a "Strategic Initiative" as something we do at work. After talking with many business owners who are older and wiser than me, when asked if they could go back and do it all again, a common response is something like "I would have invested in my whole life, not just work."

My approach to most things in life is beginning with the end in mind. As I crafted the image of my final years it was clear to me, I had it right when I felt warmth radiating from my heart. From there I created the following personal strategic initiatives to keep me on course for this future: my relationship, my business, my friends and family, my community, and myself.

As I came to understand these important investment categories, I then had to ask myself “What does it mean to be a human part of creation?” and “What ethical and moral principles should I hold myself accountable to?” In today’s world, we have too many examples of people who have achieved what appears "successful" but later we learn they lack a moral and ethical code of conduct resulting in harm to creation.

In 4th grade after my mom remarried and we moved in with my step-dad, I needed to make friends in the new neighborhood. The kids on the bus were talking about the Nutcracker on ice which was playing locally. One asked me if I had seen it? "Seen it?!" I impulsively remarked, "I am the nutcracker..."

Lying became a habit at a young age. Who knows why kids choose to lie but this habit was something my mom was determined to break. She finally got through to me with a parable. “I want you to think about trust like a mountain, Chad,” she began, “each time you tell me the truth, it is one step up the mountain. Eventually, you will be at the top of trust mountain, where anything you say I will believe. However,” she warned, “one lie, negates all truths and puts you at the bottom of trust mountain.” In other words, integrity matters...a lot.

As I’ve navigated spaces requiring the highest ethical and moral practices, such as conservative churches and banks, I’ve seen the harmful side of rigidity, fixed beliefs, and groupthink. That said, as I've stepped into the entrepreneurial world, I recognize the need for a shared agreement, amongst humanity, of what our moral and ethical responsibilities are as individuals who make up the whole of our families, communities, workplaces, states, countries, and world.

We are personally responsible for being empowered individuals who seeks out these moral and ethical guides and follows them. The challenge is many of these guidance systems exist within organized religions. For many, religion is something they were born into, not something they sought out. We accept what is told to us, rather than doing a deep dive to understand what our faith is teaching. Being human, walking with spirit, managing the ego, and existing as a steward of creation are all in there, but let's be real, Spiritual texts are long. They use language that can be hard to understand. The parables can be overwhelming.

When I was becoming a preacher, my mentor had me read the Bible three times and said, “The third time is when you’ll start gaining understanding.” The reality is in a TikTok generation, people are simply not going to read it even once, much less three times. As I pondered this reality, I decided to utilize emerging AI to help simplify the challenge. I had ChatGPT reference the world's top five religions and tell me what core guiding principles they have in common. It produced six, and I call them “The Harmonic GUIDES.”

1. Generosity. Give freely. Treat others as you wish to be treated.
2. Unity. Unite compassionately. Foster connections that transcend differences, embracing unity through shared empathy, compassion, and understanding toward all beings.
3. Inspiration. Inspire through action. Encourage altruism and support for the needy by leading through example, inspiring others to engage in charitable acts, and contribute positively to their communities.
4. Discovery. Discover truth. Pursue knowledge, wisdom, and understanding actively, seeking deeper truths about life and spirituality, and the interconnectedness of all things through continuous learning and reflection.
5. Ethics. Embody principles. Live out ethical and moral values in every action, demonstrating integrity, fairness, and moral courage in personal and professional life, upholding high standards of conduct.
6. Serenity. Seek peace. Cultivate inner peace and serenity through mindful self-reflection, meditation, and prayer, focusing on personal growth and emotional balance to navigate life’s challenges with grace and resilience.

Personal Strategic Initiatives with Harmonic GUIDES have helped me be more engaged and fulfilled in my whole life...today. When I feel stuck in the business, I’m able to take a step back and see if one of the other four strategic initiatives could use my attention. By shifting my energy and focus to something unrelated to the business, it allows me to come back to the problem where often my subconscious mind has figured it out.

Two weeks ago, it was my boyfriend’s birthday, my mom and aunt were in town, and I had an event with a non-profit board I’m on. Each of these are three different strategic initiatives that, at first glance, were competing priorities. Instead of making them compete, I was able to integrate my mom, aunt and boyfriend into the board event and get my mom and aunt fully integrated into the birthday festivities. I knew this was the right move because the feeling I felt through integration versus competition was that same feeling I associated with the image of my last 15 years.

So much of life focuses on ways we are different - gender, race, sexual orientation, political party, religion, country of origin, etc. If we are not clear with what we want our future to look like, intentional with the initiatives we give our attention to, and have integrity with our values and guidance system, then our differences can become ways we compete against each other, rather than an integrating us as part of the whole. Together, our differences have the potential to weave a beautiful and unique tapestry. Like any great creation, we are invited to see how these differences work together with the whole in harmony.