Articulating Your Shared Vision Through A Physical Artifact

In my previous article “𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐕𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐚𝐥 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭” we talked about how:

1. The human heart is the strongest generator of both electrical and magnetic fields in the body;
2. It’s designed to change the electromagnetic field of our bodies and our world, in response to the feelings and emotions we create; and
3. The heart’s field radiates about 8 feet around us in all directions and is felt by all those who come into contact with us.

Which is why, whatever feeling we’re generating about our vision in the space of our hearts, is:

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆’𝒓𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈.

The article then went on to speak about how Einstein’s approach teaches us that when we start by envisioning a new world, free of the problems we’re concerning ourselves with addressing, that vision engenders alignment with, and embodiment of, the values, principles and designs of that new world.

And from there we can take the necessary inspired action to systemically and systematically create that new world.

In summary, what all this tells us is that we ideally want to be as CLEAR about our vision as possible IN CONNECTION with the other members of our team, so that we’re all ALIGNING around the same Shared Vision, emanating it out from our heart spaces together, allowing Nature’s intelligence to follow that intention.

And there are other reasons why coming to clarity around your Shared Vision is valuable:

1. The Divine Seed that you’ve received about your vision contains all the potentiality of your vision within it, in the same way that an acorn contains everything that’s needed to grow it into an oak tree.
   What kind of seed you have will determine what will grow from it and what fruits it will bear, so you’ll want to be very clear what the Shared Vision is that the agreement you will ultimately form, will pertain to;
2. The larger and more amorphous the vision, and the more novel the vision is (i.e. the less that the path to it has already been cleared by others in humanity already), the more residual old paradigm energetics the group will need to work through in order to actualize that vision into reality.
   As such, the more specific you can be, the less challenging you will likely make the journey for yourselves;
3. If you’re working in a group and the desire is for a distribution of ownership, responsibility, and decision making you’ll want to be sure that the vision is truly shared and not just the exciting idea of a compelling and charismatic leader.
   That way if any of the team is choosing to lean out of participating as fully, the other members of the team can stay true to the Shared Vision that everyone is holding.

And yet, more often than not, in the early stages of our relationship with our team, when we’re casting big visions and allowing ourselves to dream of an unfettered future together, while it may 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 like we’re in the same ballpark with what we’re sharing, the reality is that it’s really hard to know with any degree of certainty whether we’re actually using symbolic thought to envision anything close to the same thing.

Because for as long as a vision sits 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 of us:

• One person may be dreaming of the longer term vision of a whole new world and the kind of community they are living in within it….
• Another may be focussed on the medium term and what kind of business(es) they are running, what role(s) they are playing with in it/them and what kind of financial lifestyle that’s creating for them……
• Another may be focussed on the intimate relationship(s) they are having in their vision……
• Another may be focussed on the short term goal and revenue figures they want to generate in the next 12 months.

And these may all be good, true and beautiful heartfelt visions, that aren’t mutually exclusive of one another, but they are also so diverse and dispersed that it would be hard for Nature’s intelligence to know what to follow, organize around and magnetize into your experience.

So here are some things it might be useful to know about what’s happening behind the scenes when it comes to your vision (at least in the way that I’ve come to understand it):

As a human being you are a creator.

You are designed to receive Divine inspiration in the form of a creative impulse or vision (what I like to call a ‘Divine seed’) that’s seeking to express itself out in the world through you.

How you express that creative inspiration, or bring that Divine seed into form, out into the world is part of what makes you unique.

The experience of receiving the Divine seed of a vision is a lot like being able to see and feel something land 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣 us that the Divine is seeking to communicate and create 𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 us;

The energetic essence that we’re receiving is implanting or embedding itself inside of us, imprinting the vision within our bodies (not unlike a fertilized egg implanting itself into the uterus lining);

And as we’re carrying that vision in our body, if our energy field and chakra system is online, open and running smoothly (and we’re relaxed and operating from a parasympathetic state) the energy of that vision emanating out from us can be felt and picked up on by another person without us having to say anything about it.

Again, similarly to how someone can often intuitively pick up on another person being pregnant without needing them to say it or provide any physical evidence for it.

But until we are able to occupy an open and relaxed state pretty consistently such that the vision can emanate from our being and naturally transmit to our other team members’ reciprocally open vessels (which can certainly be challenging in a group while we’re navigating the trials and tribulations of the startup journey) in order for us to co-create our visions it’s going to be important that we can express our vision in a way that the other members of our team can understand.

One way of doing this is obviously to talk about it; to describe it as articulately as we can.

But, as we already discovered in the context of the values exercise (in my article “𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐲 𝐀𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐨𝐢𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐦), different symbols mean different things to different people based on their experience, language or cultural conditioning.

So even if we’re thinking that we’re aligning around something we’re envisioning, let’s say we’re envisioning “𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺”;

Depending on our background this may conjure something entirely different in the imagination of one person than another.

For example, “𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺” may conjure a potluck neighbourhood rotation for one person…

….and a Northern Californian polyamorous play party lifestyle for another.

So while there’s clearly immense value in each of us bringing our different and diverse perspectives to the Shared Vision, ideally we want to create a situation where all of those perspectives are aligning around something congruent, and this simple example shows just how easy it is for us to veer off in different directions in our imaginations without even realising it.

Which is why creating an actual physical artifact 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 of ourselves, not unlike how a traditional startup creates an MVP (or Minimum Viable Product), can be really useful for being able to point to something for other people to understand more tangibly.

So, with all that in mind, let’s go one level deeper into what it means and what it takes to truly create a 𝓢𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓥𝓲𝓼𝓲𝓸𝓷.

First off I wholeheartedly encourage you all to DREAM BIG!!

To take any limits off your imaginations of what’s possible.

I loved learning recently about how Einstein resolved a set of problems vexing the world of physics by proposing a new vision of the universe wherein the laws of physics were invariant, the speed of light was constant, space-time was relative, and the ether as theretofore supposed was not required.

According to the article “𝑨𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒏𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝑩𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝑨𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕” by 𝒀𝒂𝒔𝒖𝒉𝒊𝒌𝒐 𝑮𝒆𝒏𝒌𝒖 𝑲𝒊𝒎𝒖𝒓𝒂 © 2003, that revealed Einstein’s approach to me, and has already been referenced on a few occasions throughout this series of articles, the creation of successful alignment among a group requires a final cause, aim or vision, that transcends but includes individual intentions and concerns of the ego-logical self.

As I’ve shared, in our own team we have a guided visualization that has served as a powerful artifact and North Star for our Shared Visioning that proposes a new vision of a more beautiful world;

A different dimensional reality wherein all the trauma and suffering humanity has ever faced has already been alchemized and everyone is embodying the codes of unconditional love, sovereignty and freedom.

And that has served as a valuable template, guide and tool for us on our journey in service of embodying the more beautiful world.

So please, by all means, let your imaginations run wild in the early stages of this process.

Get clear on what problem(s) you see as totally resolved in your imaginations in that space.

For example, for us, we could see all the trauma and suffering humanity has ever faced having already been alchemized and everyone embodying the codes of unconditional love, sovereignty and freedom.

From there, perhaps you imagine what kind of business, fund, non-profit, church, community hub or learning environment you can imagine being created that could address that?

Personally, for me, at the early stages of our journey, I could see a virtual interactive learning platform where people from all over the world could non-locally hop into an experience and play a game together that would teach them how to embody those codes through a new way of self-organizing.

I wasn’t a technologist and we were nowhere near being able to create that at the time (the technology to do it had barely even crested into the world back then), but it supported me to pare my imagination back from the larger vision in a way that still created a longer term stepping stone toward it.

From there it pared back to imagining what that virtual learning platform would teach people.

What were the values, principles and designs that I/we could be embodying in devotion to that NOW?

What were the values, principles and designs that we all talked about consistently?

And that we wanted to see more of in the world now?

Which then led to articulating the first basic principles of our business model in a short handbook back in May 2016.

And that handbook was the first time that we took the visions and ideas that were bouncing around 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 of us, one step further than just 𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 about them and poured them into something tangible 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 of us.

Something that we could all point to, or share with other people and say,

“𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨.

𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙚’𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙.

𝙏𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙚’𝙧𝙚 𝙚𝙣𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜.”

The handbook essentially encompassed our values and our intentions around the organisational design model (insofar as we could understand it and envision it at that time) in a way that we could all align around and also share with people.

And through articulating it, just as Yasuhiko says in his article, we were well and truly called into aligning with and embodying what we’d expressed.

And all while we were operating on the outside as a social media marketing company.

Yep.

You read that right.

Because those were simply the nature of the business opportunities that reality was bringing to us in those early days 4 years ago, when what we were in the process of becoming was still very much emerging.

And so the artifacts were valuable because:

1. Being a social media marketing company wasn’t necessarily all of our highest passions, but by having the guided visualization and an artifact that outlined our intention and encapsulated our values, we all still felt intrinsically motivated, focused and aligned around the larger vision; and
2. The handbook was just the first artifact created in service of the vision of an organisational design model; that handbook then fractaled in our imaginations to larger and larger possibilities, all the way out to that other dimensional reality of the more beautiful world where everyone was embodying the codes of unconditional love, sovereignty and freedom.
   But each of those possibilities nested within one another like a Russian Doll, so they were congruent and as such, energy wasn’t leaking or dispersing away from our Shared Vision or out of our shared energetic field.

And FYI, in case there’s any question for you around this, your artifact can be 𝙖𝙣𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜:

- A 3D model

- A painting

- A collage

- A short video

- An animation,

- A song

…..you name it.

What’s important is that it’s something that everyone in the team aligns around.

So the invitation here is to:

1. Dream big — visualise a final cause, aim or vision, that transcends but includes your individual intentions and the concerns of your ego self;
2. Then pare that back by as many degrees of magnitude as you need to get to something that you can create now that still expresses the values, principles and designs (insofar as you understand them now) of the larger vision; and then
3. Create a physical artifact that encapsulates that, such that you can each point to the artifact as a representation (kind of like an MVP) of your larger vision.

So if your team is ready to articulate your Shared Vision through a physical artifact, feel free to DM me to explore how I can support you.