Why it is critical to develop and grow a personal foundation to make our dreams a reality!
By Jatinder Singh, Associate Partner & Mentor, Lighthouse Global Can you remember the day that you gave up on your dream?! Let's face it, how many people, despite what they say, are working towards their dreams every day in such a way that it isn't a pie in the sky fantasy? That it is actually something that they wake up striving for and believe is possible?!? In my experience as a mentor and coach and speaking with thousands of people over the years, very few people are working towards something that is meaningful to them, that inspires them, something that is their highest ideal of living the life they desperately want. Now, some people reading this may protest at what I've just said. They may say that they like what they do. They may even say they are doing what they want to do. But is it the best life that they envisioned when they left school or university before the realities of life started to weigh them down?!?
Why Is It That Most People Aren't Living Their Ideal Life?
The intention behind this article is to help our readers understand that what we have learnt at Lighthouse Global is that most people don’t have a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual FOUNDATION within themselves to solve problems and build value at a much higher level than they currently are. A foundation across these four human dimensions would give someone a genuine sense of confidence and strength of character which would enable them to build high levels of competency and in particular be able to deal with their problems and challenges too at this higher level in line with their potential.
What Happens If We Don't Build Our Personal Foundations?
In fact, one of the biggest discoveries from our research is that without a personal foundation, we will run away from our problems which will only get worse and cause even more pain when we do. However, when we do build a foundation we are far better equipped to deal with problems. Our foundations can be developed if we are willing to invest the necessary time, money and effort into ourselves. In fact, developing such a foundation within ourselves is critical if we are to live the best lives possible - and we are not talking just about money here. What good is it to have millions of pounds if our spouses and children don't want to talk to us?! What good is it having millions of pounds if we are desperately unhappy?
However, what makes striving to achieve our ideal and dreams even harder, which is why most people give up on them, is that most people don't know why they feel so unable to achieve them. They just know there is a massive gap within themselves so they tell themselves a story - that they can't achieve what they want and that those that do are somehow 'special'!! This is simply not true. It's that we lack a personal foundation and most of the time we don't even know it.
What Is The Most Important Part Of A Building?
Have you ever seen a towering multi-storey building before? Perhaps it was the Empire State Building in New York? Perhaps it was the Shard in London? Maybe even the 163rd storey, 830 meters tall ‘Burj Khalifa’ in Dubai? These structures are without doubt impressive from an architectural and engineering point of view - with their magnificent dominance of a city skyline and glistening reflections from the sun.
Which part of these buildings are the most crucial though, without which they would most certainly collapse?!? That's the foundation! The hole in the ground which seems to take an eternity to create and which is often an eyesore and hindrance when being laid. Yet without it, the first storey of the building can’t be created which prevents it from being scaled another 162 storeys high in the case of the Burj Khalifa. Without a foundation, it becomes impossible to build the rest of the building safely for its intended purpose.
What Has Building A Foundation Got To Do With Living Our Best Lives?
Just as it is with developing a building, during our 18 years of pioneering research at Lighthouse Global, we have found that human beings have the same problems when building value in their lives. Whether that is in their career, business or personal lives - they lack a foundation. What makes this worse in humans though is that they rarely realise that they lack a foundation. With a physical building, a lack of foundation is quite apparent - there will be cracks in the structure which will get bigger and bigger and if not dealt with, will eventually cause the building to fall down. The irony is that the consequence of the problem will cost a lot more than having the building foundations fixed in the first place.
What Happens In A Human Being When We Develop Cracks?
However, unless something very drastic happens emotionally within a human being, usually preceded by a major life situation that acts as a catalyst - such as a relationship break up or losing our jobs, we don’t realise we lack a foundation! And that is what we have found at Lighthouse Global. Human beings underestimate what they are capable of achieving because they overestimate their current foundational strengths.
I can relate to this in myself. I qualified as a Chartered Accountant after going to a well-regarded university. Compared to my parents who used to run a post office, I thought I was doing exceptionally well, particularly in relation to financial success. I had more at 30 years old, in terms of wealth, than they had accumulated in their entire lives. However, what I didn’t realise, was how little I was achieving compared to my potential and how limited my emotional and spiritual dimensions were. I looked at much more successful people, the multi-millionaires and billionaires like Bill Gates and Elon Musk and put it down to the fact that they were just 'super intelligent'. While this is no doubt true, I have come to realise that I lacked a foundation that I never received from childhood.
What Is A Foundation In Human Terms And What Have We Learnt About The Lack Of One During Our Research At Lighthouse Global?
While there are many elements to building a human foundation which will be discussed in future articles, in summary, a foundation can be seen as our ability to solve problems. As an acclaimed psychotherapist, Dr M. Scott Peck shared in his seminal work The Road Less Travelled, which has sold over 20 million copies, that virtually all human beings struggle to solve problems because we want to avoid the pain involved in this process. So when we see good problem solvers such as Bill Gates we put them on a pedestal. Dr Peck says of our willingness to solve problems:
“This inclination to ignore problems is once again a simple manifestation of an unwillingness to delay gratification. Confronting problems is, as I have said, painful. To willingly confront a problem early, before we are forced to confront it by circumstances, means to put aside something pleasant or less painful for something more painful. It is choosing to suffer now in the hope of future gratification rather than choosing to continue present gratification in the hope that future suffering will not be necessary.”
And we have certainly found the above to be true during our 18 years of research into human potential at Lighthouse Global. Many people have degrees, have decent-level salaries in relation to the masses... but take them out of an institutionalised environment where systems are already in place like those in their company and they struggle to solve problems because they don’t have the foundation!! A very prevalent example of this is the army - many ex-servicemen share how they fall into addiction because they lack the institutionalised structure that they had in the army that replaced their lack of foundation.
How Does The Lack of Foundation Relate To Solving Global Problems Such As Clean Water?
Because most human beings lack the foundation they cannot solve complex problems. As a result, a problem such as helping 800 million children to get clean water, which is one of the aims of Lighthouse Global, has been proved to be virtually impossible so far. That’s why it is crucial that there are enough people in the world who develop their foundations so that this problem can be solved.
At the moment there are not enough people who have the prerequisite foundation. This is why, despite all the charities, government and institutions like the United Nations, a problem like clean water is not closer to being solved than it was 50 years ago. This is because the average person has such a limited foundation that they struggle to solve their own personal issues let alone being able to create solutions to global problems, like children drinking toxic water, that are multi-dimensional and multi-faceted. This is why they leave problems to charities and governments because they are simply overwhelmed by their own basic challenges. I can relate to this - I’ve been overwhelmed by doing monthly consolidated accounts for a subsidiary of a multinational - how on earth could I help solve a global problem?!? This is why I have spent many years working on my own foundation.
Why Can You Expect To Be Criticised If You Want To Develop Your Potential Through Building Your Foundation?
However, problem-solving is like any skill or learning a sport, it can be improved if someone is willing to develop a foundation within themselves through a mentor, coach and counsellor. It does, however, also take time, money and lots of effort. And through engaging with 70,000 people over 18 years, we have simply found that most people are not willing to invest this time, money and effort within themselves.
In fact, recently we have had some of our part-time Associate Elects leave while criticising us for how long it was taking us to get to a situation where we could scale our business globally and help millions of people develop their potential through building their foundations. This criticism has also come from our families (mine included) who don’t understand the years it takes for a business to prepare when it is pioneering in nature. It took Thomas Edison over two decades before the lightbulb was commercially viable with General Electric. It was a similar story with Soichiro Honda, who built the Honda Corporation.
It is very easy to snipe from the sidelines while others are sacrificing in the arena! What we learnt through this is that they were not willing to dig a foundation in themselves. They wanted the fruits without doing the hard work of preparing the soil for years and planting the seeds within themselves, then helping them grow.
How Can Lighthouse Global Help You Build A Foundation?
For the last 18 years, Lighthouse Global has been learning what it takes to build a foundation in human beings. We’ve learnt this through many empirical projects, and many wrong results through these projects... each project teaching us something new about what we have lacked in our foundation from our upbringing and what needs to be done instead. We have been learning how to build foundations so that we can scale our business to solve complex problems when we have our foundation right.
Indeed one of the major benefits of building our foundation is the speed at which we can scale our ability to solve problems, meaning we can also solve a greater number of more complex problems. It’s like compound interest. The rate of growth is slow initially but the more that is invested at the start, the greater the eventual return. The same principle applies to our personal success too. It is scalable!
If you would like to learn more about what building a foundation within yourself entails and why it is so critical you can contact us here.
You can also learn more about our discoveries into human potential from the last 18 years through our pioneering research in this video featuring Lighthouse Global's Head Mentor, Paul S. Waugh and the social media channels below.
Awesome JT. There's so much in this article that resonates with me and what it means to be well-founded; highlighting the consequences of when we are not. I hope that there are many others who will read this, be inspired and want to understand more about themselves and how to go about building a foundation. The impact that this will have in their lives and for the lives of others is incredibly powerful. I also wrote an article related to this too 😉😊
Great analogy JT! It is astounding how much work goes on behind the barracades around a building site for years sometimes with no apparent progress, and then Boom! A skyscraper appears!! It's the same with our own growth. We keep working at understanding and learning about principles, keep building our foundations for years with no apparent success, then very quickly the changes come one after another as all the little advancements, brick by brick, add up!
Thank you Jatinder for your article. What I liked is you showing how important to have a foundation in life, the example from the army is brilliant, being very capable and producing in an institute, but outside too often they fall a part, to the extend some commit suicide. I’ve been in that camp of trying to attain the fruit without a foundation, what’s dawned on me through my years and your article nails it, you can’t reach the fruits without having something to stand on…a foundation…that is based on fundamentals that created well rounded highly effective person. Nice work!!!
Wow, very inspirational Jatinder. I relate to not having the confidence to further in my career, having opportunities come up for me to progress, but never applying because I didn't feel that I was good enough. I thought that they needed those with the degrees, not having gone to university, I felt that I was lesser of a person because of it. It was due to the lack of encouragement and self belief, which was due to the lack of seeing and knowing what my potential was as I had never been shown or educated about it. I have over the past 7 years realised just how unstable and broken by foundation is, the cracks and breaks that have been…
Awesome article JT, thank you! I really appreciated in particular that people don't know that they lack a foundation until something goes wrong in their lives, it just goes to show how deluded we are about what we're actually lacking in our foundations. Otherwise, if we had a strong foundation, we would be unshakable in the face of challenge and we can build on that. It's such a powerful, not even metaphor, but principle! Thank you so much!