Our Golden Core

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We are born with a unique genetic make up that gives us our physical characteristics and psychological preferences – our Golden Core; our Soul. We are truly unique; a one-off. There is no-one else like us out there. 

And then in our earliest formative years through the attachments we form and the care and guidance we receive, we take on beliefs, principles and values. And we start to display the talents and skills we possess and that are available to be nurtured. What Ken Robinson would call our ‘Element’. 

Our Golden Core is who we really are - the beautiful, flawed, vulnerable, somewhat unknown, irresistible, human being we really are at our core

And we go through life as souls searching for human connection. Some philosophers argue that it is our life’s journey to work out our purpose, guided as we are by a largely unconscious set of principles and beliefs – our Core values. 

When running workshops on this subject at this point I show a photograph of a butterfly with wings closed. It is clearly a butterfly but I really thought it impossible to tell what sort, since the wings are what I thought to be anonymously brown. Until I did the exercise with the senior management team at a client company and one of the managers piped up “It’s a Peacock Butterfly” thus in one moment both spoiling my reveal (the next photograph reveals the Peacock Butterfly in all its stupendous glory – the point being I wonder if Mr and Mrs Peacock Butterfly told Junior not to show off and therefore to keep his wings hidden in public) and proving how extraordinary people are. I was stunned by the manager’s incredible powers of observation. Asking him about it afterwards and still unable to hide my stupification, he recounted stories of his childhood when he had been taught about butterflies by his father. It was a lovely human moment as he then told me that it was the first time in probably over 30 years that he had accessed his knowledge of butterflies, and I could see (and feel) his emotional connection to his childhood and his relationship with his father. 

The person who is calm, centred, happy and fulfilled is the person who knows themselves, who is comfortable with every aspect of themselves, including their flaws and frailties, who has integrity in that they live by their Core values, and who follows a meaningful purpose to their lives. 

We automatically and unconsciously trust the Golden Core in others, since nothing is hidden, and since what is being communicated is honest. I may not like you, but I trust you. I may not follow you, but I trust you. Psychopaths are often totally trustworthy since they are being authentic, honest and predictable. You can trust that they will kill you if they get the chance, and so you can adopt the correct strategy in relating to them. 

The most wonderful thing about a corporation is the potential for human beings to come together in a common purpose, but more of this later. 

Read: Personal Core Values Process