What Defines YOU?

What defines you as a person? We live in an age where too often the value of an individual is lost either in the corporate bottom line or we are part of a team where winning could mean that an individual could be cut or in some settings be fired.  It could also be what brand owns or defines you. I confess to being partial to Apple products, Tom’s shoes and a small hipster company based out of San Francisco that makes an assortment of briefcases.

What’s happened to the over arching notion that all life has value regardless of how you scored on a specific test in high school, college or grad school. What is required to empower one person to get it will always be different from another person. So what has to happen for me or you to see that success in life has to better defined as how we treat each other in life circumstances rather than possessions or position in a company?

The opportunity is for the little person to discover that they have just as much potential or value as the almighty CEO of any high tech or social media company. It’s even more important for the average person to see that they can impact the world just as much as their favorite celeb or sport’s icon. It comes back to some rather simple principles that my mom and I’m sure other moms taught their kids at a very young age.

I know that too often the golden rule has become the adage that those with the gold rule. (Is this why we listen to Warren Buffet, Bill Gates or Tim Cook?) Whereas most of us believe that how we treat each other should always be the way that we want to be treated. I had a rather interested scenario happen this last week with some new ASU interns that are from China observe youth from the hood playing basketball. My guy intern, who is a big guy that could crush any of my teens, asked, why do these teens all use the F word, asked me? I quickly called a few of the teen guys that had been playing basketball to give their response.

My new Chinese ASU intern looked at these teens as they shared how they expressed themselves when they get mad and frustrated with foul language. My intern’s response was why don’t these teens have better language skills? I explained later that all of these kids and teens come out of broken or misplaced settings where there are no dads and either single moms or grandmas who are raising them. I asked the intern where he got his morals or manners and clearly it was from his parents. Remember in China families only have one child.

It would be so easy for my new intern and others to look down on these foul-mouthed kids and teens and discount them from having any real importance. After listening to my new interns I was asked more questions by some staff at the rec center where we were playing games. The discussion still came back to what shapes a person’s life? Is it their DNA, their environment or their personal choices? I was put in the middle to solve the discussion and said it’s not either or but it’s both and when it comes to what makes a person tick ultimately.  My first point to my new intern and these close friends is that none of us choose our parents, environment or gene pool. This isn’t to excuse bad behavior or to make someone a superstar that has advantages over others.

The important point all must face is how do you want to define yourself as an individual? My intern drilled the guys with whether using the F bomb was their tag or should it be their ability to play basketball or excel in school or how they treat each other. We live in a crazy world where people are tweeting bomb threats, terrorist groups are beheading hostages and freedom of speech has seen people massacred in office complexes. What is going to define YOU?