“If you don’t stand for SOMETHING, you’ll fall for ANYTHING.”

I’ve had the opportunity to work with a couple politicians recently, and while I might not agree with everything they stand for - I love that they stand for something. Too often we meet people who seem to just be along for the ride in life. They believe whatever is popular or convenient or easy.

What we need is a Personal Platform? Think Mission Statement - but cause based. Something to tell the world what we believe in.

My 8th grade English Teacher Mrs. Holden used to say: “Stand up for the courage of your own convictions.” But it’s hard to stand if you don’t know what your standing for. So here is a quick and easy exercise to help you build your own Personal Platform.

Step 1: Make a list of the Top 10 Things that inspire you. What is the reason that you get out of bed in the morning? What moves you? There are no wrong answers here - so be honest. No answer is too big or too small. Sometimes even small things hold great power and magic. As my friend Hugh MacLeod would say - “The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.”

Step 2: Write a sentence about each of your 10 inspiration triggers - use phrases like I believe - I dream - I hope.

Step 3: Turn these beliefs into a manifesto or personal credo. One of my favorite examples of a Personal Credo is below:

All I Really Need to Know - I Learned in Kindergarten

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

(source All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten - http://robertfulghum.com/)

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