“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.” George Carlin

Karen Armstrong in her presentation for the 2008 TED wish: Charter for Compassion , provides a suggestion for an  older and different meaning of the word belief.  Treating the word belief as a verb, she teaches, it becomes “What I give myself to” changing that word to be much like how we use “committed” or “commitment”

Don’t feel Challenged by your beliefs, they are yours!

What I like about this interpretation is that it is clear that it is personal. It’s about what I say I am willing to do and allows lots of room for others to want and do something different.

For a lot of reasons – generations, economics, bursting bubbles – instead of counting on a twenty or thirty year “gig” for you and your career big brand, it is proving to be more like 3 years and done. On to the next. The skills you want to have may have more to do with your being comfortable tackling change, being flexible and successful with something new that you don’t know very much about vs. what you did on your last job. (For this reason, it’s good to know that we can learn anything that we want in time.)

Hint: If what you did in the past was relevant you might still be there.

Branding and positioning have been around for a while. Trout and Reis wrote great books about it. Ad agencies made millions on developing them and  some brands have been made enormously successful through smart marketing – McDonalds, Nike, Etrade, GEICO are a few that come to mind. When it comes to branding yourself, a new set of challenges take the stage. Instead of looking at your resume as a set of things that you’ve accomplished, you need to be able to spell out a set of adjectives that you can bring to every situation. Yes, know your personal positioning – what’s unique about you and your skills, your educataional background,what you are passionate about, and your job results. Then do like one seemingly successful automobile manafacturer says when you buy one of their automobiles “you get in addition to the car, the following”…

• Something that is desirable,
• That is passionate,
• Sensual,
• Seductive,
• Artistic and creative,
• That is cool,
• That exhilarating
• And luxurious

What else are you bringing, what is your added value? If you were a lifestyle what kind would you be? Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Product and User Experience of Google says that when they are looking for new hires the top 2 qualifications they must have are “smart” and “take charge.” This is the kind of person fits the description, “When you hire the (background, education, work-experience fill in the blanks) you also get someone who is a leader, dependable and brilliant.” Likely in this economy, desirable too.

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Here’s more on this point-of-view from Michael Carlos Muhammad who posted this earlier: “Money and Religion/Spirituality. I have No issues, problems, reservations or hesitations with merging it all together. Because It’s All Good. Money in itself has no inherent value other than which we use it for. It could purchase and sustain life and it could contribute to ones demise. For too long we have accepted the notion that deprivation somehow pleases God. The poor are somehow automatically closer to GOD. Well, Abraham, Solomon, and many others were known to be favored by God and they had wealth. Thing is, we are Not to take any god beside God and that means your money, your job, your spouse, your government, your NO-THING.”

“It goes back to something we said earlier, we must engage life from a total perspective. Body, Mind and Spirit. To neglect any aspect of our being is to be incomplete. mcm@wealthuniversal.com”

All of these interests are important to me. On a personal level, what creates meaning in your life? For me, it’s when I feel fulfilled, when my heartfelt expectations are met, when it (whatever it is) strikes a chord within me…

The old business paradigm was based on a corporation’s ROI, return on investment. Seems we’re seeing the evolution of a new paradigm, one that embraces the familiar ROI while integrating a different sort of ROI. I’ve named it Return On Integrity. This ROI will certainly impact corporate and other cultures.

What are your thoughts and observations?

What is your company doing to create meaning?

What do you think is the reason for today’s renewed interest in spirituality and religion? Let me know your thoughts.

Recently read in the New York Times: Across the country, on secular campuses as varied as Colgate University, the University of Wisconsin and the University of California, Berkeley, chaplains, professors and administrators say students are drawn to religion and spirituality with more fervor than at any time they can remember.

More students are enrolling in religion courses, even majoring in religion; more are living in dormitories or houses where matters of faith and spirituality are a part of daily conversation; and discussion groups are being created for students to grapple with questions like what happens after death, dozens of university officials said in interviews.

A survey on the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed, and that almost 80 percent believed in God. Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Photo Kevin Rivoli NY Times