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Las Vegas Lessons is my journey or initial exploration of the Flawless Living Operating System that I was introduced to by Mike Jay back in Vegas in August 2010. It amuses me to realise now that I was immersed in a new way of seeing the world and my life in the place where most people go to gamble and get high on whatever cocktail of drink and drugs suits them.
There are 12 elements of Flawless Living, which is really about accepting your flaws and limitations and designing your unique structure which eliminates your limitations. Like all 12 step programmes Flawless Living depends for your success upon you collaborating, peering and sharing with others who are also exploring the Flawless Living paradigm.
The 12 steps or elements are structured with 4 pillars:
• Awareness
• Purpose
• Competence
• Wellth =well being + wealth
Awareness
Step 1: Happiness is Natural
As children we tend to do what makes us happy naturally. Happiness emerges over time when we can play to our strengths and get into ‘flow’ states by expressing our passion and doing what we are good at. We are all ‘wired’ differently with unique combinations of intrinsic wiring and values.
Step 2: Know Thyself
You might think you know yourself quite well until you are put under pressure to produce or find yourself in a totally new situation, then you may discover aspects of yourself you didn’t know yet. Online testing systems such as Strengthsfinder 2.0 and reissdesireprofile.com and other tests such as the Enneagram and Myers Briggs can also bring subconscious self knowledge to light.
Step 3: In, not Up
The secret to finding values based happiness AND success is go within; the direction is in and down, digging deep within yourself rather than continual striving upwards whether for status or on the career ladder or for ‘spiritual enlightenment’.
Purpose
Step 4: Stop Pretending
The paradox here is that pretending is a survival strategy, it gets us through crisis and trauma, however we need to let go of hoping this or that system that worked for others success will work for us or hoping someone will rescue us. Just because it worked for them, DOES NOT necessarily mean it will work for you, because your system may have different motivational preferences.
Step 5: Yes & No
Our Yes/No decisions are more unconscious that we like to think, so observing what we say yes and what we say no too can inform us of our deeper underlying values and motivations. Did you know that 70% of us are not motivated by goal setting? Yet those who write down their ‘goals’ are more likely to fulfil getting what they want. Those who are not motivated by goals are often motivated to solve problems.
Step 6: Reaching Out
Key to nurturing resilience in these times of complexity and fast paced change is resilience, meaning the power to bounce back from set backs and create alternatives to impasses and blocks. Resilience is impossible without reaching out and collaborating with others.
www.createconnexion.com
https://www.createconnexion.com
Competence
Step 7: Getting FeedBack
Simple to say but not always so easy to do, yet necessary to make sure we’re not pretending or fantasising our reality. For High acceptance types this can be really difficult as much feedback is perceived as criticism where as for low acceptance combined with high power motivation types their skin may be so thick that they may not even ‘hear’ the feedback.
Step 8: Success By Design
Only 5% of people are naturally wired for both success and happiness, ie their happiness needs mesh with the success requirements of their culture. Learning to accept your unique combination of strengths and motivations and your preferences means you can get real about designing away your limitations by collaborating with others who have the skills and preferences to be good at what is necessary for your success but nigh on impossible for you to do on a regular basis over time.
Step 9: Values Matter
Know your own values. Recognise that others values, even significant others values may be different. honour your values and work toward creating values based happiness by accepting who you are and your unique combination of strengths and limitations. Conflicting values within leads to conflict on the outside with others.
Wellth (= well being + wealth)
Step 10: Keep Score
Absolutely necessary to create a scorecard that includes measuring whats necessary to your own happiness: the culture usually lets us know soon enough when we don’t measure up to ‘success requirements’. Part of keeping score is recognising need for objective measurements or ‘data points’.