Leveraging The Power Of Perspective

By Arlin Sorensen, O and Founder of the Heartland Companies which includes HTG Peer Groups

Perspective.  What exactly does that mean today and why is it important?  Over the last year I’ve come to truly appreciate the importance of perspective when it comes to planning.  It is a core element to the Paterson Center tools – StratOp and LifePlan – where about 2/3 of the focus is actually taking a look backward to determine how we got to the place we are today. 

In most planning systems, the tendency is to start where you are today and then attack the future from that vantage point.  The benefit of the StratOp and LifePlan systems use of perspective is that you learn from the lessons of the past, and examine the underlying reasons for the current status of life or business.  This simple insight – the power of perspective – is what makes planning with LifePlan a very different experience from other strategic planning systems.

I’ll speak to the LifePlan system in this post as I am spending a significant amount of time facilitating LifePlans for HTG’ers and others.  Perspective is all about looking back to inform the future.  LifePlan participants use the facts of the past to help us understand how and where we should go in the future.  The simple reality is that we were created as individuals and have a unique personality, thinking wavelength, internal wiring and other qualities and characteristics.  These things are part of who we are, and the best way to identify them is to look in the mirror and over our shoulder at the past and really dig deep into how we have lived to this point.

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