Cebu Leadership Final Integrative Paper by Genevieve Ramos

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Genevieve Ramos <gerica_ramos@yahoo.com>
Date: 18 January 2016 at 14:54
Subject: Integrative Paper, version 4, ALL EMBEDDED, Genevieve Ramos
To: Gem Reuyan <gsreuyan@gmail.com>
Cc: Jon Aa Ramos <jramos@premierfamilybusiness.com>

 Introduction

The last 32 hours and more of studying, this class brought me to a lot of realization and great learning. Though I am not saying that applying all those learning and realization that I discovered is easy having those ideas will be my guide on my journey toward, discovering within me the truest leadership. On my way, a lot of tumbling blocks came but I succeeded and conquered. Many among them are very significant experiences; lessons I have learned which I believe would help me a lot in my journey towards achieving my highest purpose in this life. There were some points that I entertained giving up but that was just an option where God in his mercy and grace helped me fight those moments of struggles and difficulties. As it is, part and parcel of life purpose and lessons.

My experience especially in doing the teambuilding was redefining, I realized then that I can do more if only I have focused on it. For the longest time I was sitting in my comfort zone until that experience were unfolded to me, I was grateful for the opportunity to discover my strength and potential that I can able to do something more and even to the least likely I am.

This paper is very timely, doing this on the first month of the year would be very much helpful in planning on what I will do for the year and the next 5 – 10 years of my life that is aligned with my new discoveries. This is a very great opportunity for me in revisiting my personal vision and mission in life, in which I was even surprised that there is such thing as a "Personal strategic Plan" all I know is that strategic planning is for the business only, and not for personal. I am so fortunate to attend this class for many reasons, but I would like to highlight that for all my life I had been thinking of other people needs and wants and what's best for the company, never did I examine or listen to my personal needs and what really my inner self is telling me, this class gives me this opportunity to discover myself better, the things I want, and the things I wanted to pursue, and most importantly discovering my true happiness and purpose in life.

Writing has never been my strength and passion, I'd rather talk to my client in a one on one basis and sell to them an idea or anything, or do some creative stuff, like designing and re-arranging our room or some part of the house to make it look nice. But this experience I had for this course I realized that writing something about your life is much easier and a little bit exciting realizing that doing such reflection will lead you to your discovery of who are you really as a person and what really do you want to pursue in life.  From defining moments, the internal and the external influences, the Genogram, the J Campbell monomyth and the Enneagram, and the other discussions that we had the Heroic leadership and the HBR, all this has a significant contribution and importance and has influence in discovering my passion and purpose.

Below are some of the highlights of my paper, which lead me to know better of myself …

Where I am now….

Step 1

The Defining moments

"As I continue to reflect on my life, there are some values and principles of leadership that I was able to embrace that is very relevant to my experiences.

1.  Humility is for me a key to great leadership, a key to be able to open up and hear the opinion of others, to seek advice from different perspectives to fill for instance the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle that your solving.

Being humble is for me to admit that all that I have isn't mine but rather allowed me to use this as an instrument to add value to others, as stewards of God's blessings and wisdom, in the end, God is still my great master amongst all and therefore  I will always reflect and ask for his blessings and guidance.

2.  Leadership by example is another principle that I was able to relate in the process of my introspection. A kind of leadership that starts from within takes me to be more aware of myself and be transformed using my heart, soul and mind. A discovery of purpose and passion, after sometime I realized that after all the successes that I have been through in my early career in the insurance business, I felt empty inside because I never put my heart in it, the purpose and passion was never been their, it was a band aide solution of my dream to improved financially, until that story and seminar I attended on financial planning came where I was able to connect the significant and importance of planning ahead helping people achieve their financial dreams and aspiration. Moreover, the call to give back the blessings I received to others came into serious consideration.  As I develop myself, I see the need to develop leaders within our team I the hope that they also share move the value beyond us and let other discover beautiful and transformational experiences we experienced.

Basically, this drives me to enhance myself further and eventually integrate myself back to pursue my mission in my AGENCY- family business to influence more people become stewards of financial freedom and satisfaction.

3. Leadership is always a continuous learning, innovating new ideas, a thought leadership. The idea of Community market is a perfect brand though it comes with a wrong location and wrong timing. What I saw in my husband leadership is that, he always innovate things and always one step ahead of the game. Have a positive outlook and execute things he plans to do. This is the kind of leadership I also learned from him. Though the community market was a failure but the concept anchored with core purpose is good and given the right execution plans including finding the right location, there is no way it will not succeed.

Movie Synopsis - The J. Campbell MOnomyth

In the movie synopsis, one value lesson I had learned from this exercise is that I find the Hero in me. No matter what life had become in retrospection, there is always something to be grateful for be it a grace or a challenge.

"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value." 
― Albert Einstein

In Gods perfect time, He will show us his greatness and lead us his path. Continuously we seek for his guidance. We are back and this time we are committed to succeed not for us, but for others whom who needs our service. I know that there is so much of work to be done yet, but as long as we commit to follow his will we will never go wrong.

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed"

- Proverbs 16:3

I was in awe of how God has showered his blessings upon us, after all the failures that we have been through. First, I am forever grateful for the experience of failing cause without failure, we will not able to appreciate his blessings that he has been showering upon us.  Second, I am so grateful for giving us the opportunity to serve our clients while we are serving ours too. Third, I am so much delighted with the blessing of shelter that He gave us, its more than we ask for, and lastly for blessing us with the love in the family that after all those moments of failures we remain steadfast of his love and we conquer all the difficulties that come our way.

Genogram

As I reviewed my genogram I noticed that entrepreneurial mindset runs in the family and that I think is the one thing that I was able to get from my parents and my grandparents, it seems like every generation has an entrepreneur be it small or big kind of business in both sides. I really appreciate the process in making my genogram its just like an affirmation of the things I'm doing and the things I like that basically connected to my strength and eventually my passion.

Step 2

Reflection Paper # 2 - The external and internal Factors that shape me

External

Family

            Parents – My mom being a teacher has showed me how she was able to raise us seven siblings to become the better persons we are now. Despite our humble beginnings we are able to grow the person she wants us to be with good values and with character. My parents taught me the lessons on how to serve others and to be a person with high integrity.

            Siblings – Growing up with my siblings is a foundation of how I able to relate to other people with different personalities. What I also learn from my sibling is the value of relationship that no matter what happens sibling partnership still the best through thick and thin.

           

Current family

            Children – My children are the gift from God, they give me inspiration and they are the reason why I continually enhancing myself and taking care of myself so I will be there for them until my last breath. What I learn from my children is adjusting to four different unique personalities, applying different strategies in order for them to learn and grow the children with good values and with character like what my parents did to us.

            Husband – My great mentor and influencer to the many weaknesses I have. I am very my thankful to God for giving me such a wonderful husband who understands and supports me all the things I like to do. He also influences me to a lot of entrepreneurial lessons in which I was able to experience.

School – School is where I started to develop my social and technical skills. Being in the MBA now is the manifestation that school is the foundation of the new learning that will help you sharpen your saw of what you really wanted to pursue.

Work – My working experience thought me many lessons, from the successes and failures I have I have gained a lot of wisdom on shaping my thoughts, actions and the choices I have. Though I am not saying that the road that I am still going to take is as smooth but I should say that our experience can able to help us in choosing what works and what not works.

Internal

From my parents, siblings, school, current family, my work and my new learning from this class contributed to my internal operational value that I have set for myself. These values will help me in taking actions whenever I am pressed with situation that needs for me to decide on things. This values serves as my guiding principle in molding and protecting my personal being. These values where anchored to the four pillars of leadership by Chris Lowney…

Self-awareness & Love

           

Love for God

Love for oneself

Resilient

                        Stay grounded or Be Humble

Work with High Integrity and all honesty

            Ingenuity - Love for continuous learning

Heroism  - Service for others

These are my values and principle that will guide me in every decision I have along the way.

In summary, these reflections in a way contributed in shaping my thoughts of what I really wanted to pursue and focus on, in discovering my strength and weaknesses from the many task at hand. These lead me to realized further that these exercises is an affirmation of the value of the things I have been doing, and that gives me a valid reason and decision to what ever my chosen path I have to take.

Step 3

Enneagram

Prior to taking my enneagram I was able to take the strengths finder 2.0, my enneagram results actually confirms and define the results of my strengths finder.

Understanding deeply my enneagram results and reflecting on my life story and my defining moments I realized that somehow it has connections. During my childhood and my years in school being creative, innovative and inventive are already manifesting in me, I remembered how my math teacher was so amazed when I showed a different style and approach in answering the problem and still got the right answer, such is innovation and creativity. I also remembered one time that I won in the art contest when during my elementary years and I got to represent my school and eventually to the entire region to compete. These little achievements are some of the strengths I attributed from my number 5 type of a leader.

I also recognized and realized that the success that I had during my early years in working also attributes to my strengths. Being a 5 type of leader, which generally defines as focused, observant, curious, insightful, expert are the key ingredients of how I achieved my accolades at an early years of my life. I started focusing on upgrading myself in terms of knowledge and expertise. I bombarded myself with trainings and education to better serve my clients. Being highly innovative helps me more to have stood out among my competitors. This experience I recall is very much true to the result of my enneagram.

Being a type 2 Leader, a helper at that, led me to naturally develop relationships with my clients and colleagues.  As a matter of principle, I have set up a mechanism to ensure that the interest of the client must come first, to serve them at best. I realized that being selfless and passionate are two great characters that I have developed. To help is   my interest; it gave me an opportunity to do more business beyond my circle of influence like referrals. Being a helper also able me to connect the values that I have to do insurance selling.  It is not about just selling the product, but it's the love and care that you show to the family such as planning to any eventualities that may happen along the way making sure that the family will always be economically protected, no matter what happens. My # 2 traits are very much aligned with those that I need in order for me to execute well my plan and strategy in dealing with my clients and my team.

Analyzing my strengths and weaknesses and the opportunities and threats

Step 4

Where I am going

            I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere… then I ask myself the same question.     Haryn Yahya

My call to arms, my AVP and my Reflection Paper no. 3 talks about my purpose and passion. Giving is always in my veins ever since I want to give back to the society whatever I can. Some excerpts of my CTA…

"It's been my passion to help others ever since, and I would like to attribute this to my being type 2 personality.  We have been extending financial support to our less privileged relatives for their education. We also plan to sponsor scholars beyond our family, hopefully next year to the foundation and the orphanage we regularly visited.

Lastly I just want to share my dream of putting up our own foundation with the primary goal to sponsor less fortunate children to go to school because I believed that education could make a difference not only on their lives but also in the society. Likewise, I will also instill the value of reading early on, to these children so that they will grow in love for reading, for in reading deepens and widens wisdom…"

My reflection paper no. 3, talks about my being type 5 personality, which I attribute to some of the qualities such as being independent, inventive, innovative, insightful, enjoy living in own mind and a world of ideas. Ever since I want I was a child being artistic is also in my veins I had been wanting to do something that will able me to satisfy my curiosity at the same time earn in order for me to support my advocacy, and it was indeed a blessing for me to discover this passion, I am forever grateful to my God for giving me this talent and its time for me to focus and make this work through developing a very unique kind of business model, after it was cemented by my reflections and realization with this class. Some excerpt of my RP3..

"Growing up year for this little girl has been very artistic, because of her passion in doing all kind of little things she can amazingly make these into something that exudes excellence. Even how little things they are, she believes that it has its own worth and value.

Today, this little girl finally connected her passion and talent into handcrafting her own piece, expressing beauty and elegance that comes with a perfect fit to anyone looking for an expression of self confidence and practicality through manufacturing costumed made jewelries and accessories placed in the digital platform, a work that started in her early age wishing to inspire and just have fun…"

Lastly My AVP, started with my purpose since it will be the center now of my journey in fulfilling God's plan for me, to serve and make people happy in my own little way. My AVP also highlights the people surrounding me who has a great influence in fulfilling whatever plans I am going to pursue, each of them has a certain role in my journey in making my plans comes to reality, they are my family, my children, my siblings, my friends and the people whom we partner and work with they are all significant in achieving my plans.

After all those reflection I have come up with my Personal Mission and Vision as a start to make this things happen. Each of my Vision is equally important to me, these are all part and parcel in achieving my Mission

MY MISSION

            To live a happy, meaningful and extraordinary life, to serve and make a positive impact to the society and encourage others to do the same.

MY VISION (2016-2020)

Personal  

            Personal Commitment to God – Develop more personal encounter with God. Offer one hour of silent personal prayer daily.

            Health - To have a healthy life, loose 80 lbs by January 2017,

Family – To continuously develop and guide my children to become the best they can be by setting up mechanism in order for them to be guided as they grow and become more expose to this most advanced world.

            Develop stronger bond with my husband and children. Making sure that love will always be present in our family no matter what happens.

Work/Business/Passion – To develop the agency together with my husband, influence at least 20 financial advisers to join our team for the first quarter of 2016, and eventually develop 200 happy financial advisers in the next 5 years.

            To put up and established one store for my Jewelry business this 2016, and eventually grow by 20% every year.

Fun and Leisure – To travel with my family at least one local and international travel in a year.

            Develop a sport which the whole family can enjoy and play.

Finance – to become good stewards of God's abundant blessing, achieve financial freedom by the end of 2020.

Social Responsibility – to have at least 3-5 scholars for this year, 2-4 visits in the orphanage in a year, start to build the foundation by the end of 2020.

Step 5 - How I will get there

"It's not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?"  —Henry David Thoreau

In reality, execution is a challenging task for me, sometimes with so many tasks at hand and other whirlwind activities that I am facing on a day to day basis, this plans and goals are being parked at the corner and worst is it will just remain as is - nothing happens. To insure that all these goals I have, will come into a reality I researched a lot of materials on execution and came up with 4 disciplines of execution.  Coupled  with my new learning now as a leader, particularly on chapter 11 of the book by Chris Lowney "The way we do things" Four core values, but one integrated life. Chris Lowney is saying that values and ways of working must form an integrated - self-reinforcing whole or as Jesuits called it a "modo de proceder". The key word for me is self-reinforcing, there has to be something that will make you move and go back to, every time you feel frustrated and when it feels like something is not working, which is your strong operating values. As the book says "The paradox is that the energizing power lies precisely in the combination of non-negotiable core beliefs and a willing embraced of change". This drives me to create my own execution plan in order for me to make this things happen. These are the combination of what I have learned and through my experience. To continue my journey there has to be change that will going to happen...

First there has to be change as I have learn from my previous class, the Lewin's change theory, this is very helpful for me since I have to align my values and the current situation I have, my negative thoughts and my lack of focus and attention to what is important, my indecisiveness that hinders my action to what is necessary and important, these are the restraining forces that will make me stuck to my comfort zone at present, and eventually hinders in fulfilling my passion and purpose.

And to continue the transformation and the willingness to change, I looked for the right model to help me and on that research I was able to combine those of my learning from the past and the experiences I have had and combined it all together to ensure that I get results…Hence, this this framework is created as my guiding principles and discipline in order for me to achieve results on my journey to my personal leadership…

My Leadership execution model

My Leadership execution model explained

Internal – soft part

Mission Vision – This is the main focus and the purpose of my existence for the next years ahead of me.

Family – In achieving my Mission and Vision my family is the number one stakeholder, they are the source of my strength and my inspiration towards achieving  goals. I consider them as part of my consideration in my structure; decision process. They are the one whom I will go back to every time I am faced with  challenges that will come along my way.

Values and Culture – these are my doctrine, my guiding principle in making decisions, these are things that are non-negotiable and the core belief that I will be carrying as I journey to my personal leadership

Skills and Passion – skill without passion will not give you excellent result both will go hand in hand in order to achieve great work.

External – hard part

Strategy – strategy is very necessary in order to achieve my goals, they are the ones who will drive me- my core values in order to arrive at my destination.

Structure/my pillars – my pillars are my education, my experiences the finances, that will help me support my goals

System – one of the system in order for me to make sure that everything is taken into account is the framework that I have learn like, the 4 discipline of execution, and the balance score card

Performance – make sure that at the end of the day or along the there has to be measures or the compelling scoreboard for me to know my progress.

Rewards – rewards will keep me motivated, it will ignite me in continuously achieving my goal ….

The 4 Discipline of Execution – by Franklin Covey

Focus on the wildly important goals  - now that I was able to process my thoughts I am now aware of what is important to me, then I can able to focus.

Act on the Lead Measure – lead measure is actions that will make your goals move or your lever, like for example if my goal is 80lbs weight loss, then my lead measure would be like stick to 1000 calorie everyday, or walk 30 minutes everyday, lead measure Is something that you can control doing.

Keep a compelling scoreboard – From time to time check if how far are you from your goal or how much did you achieve so far, rather than not checking until you discover that its already too late for you to achieve your goal.

Create a Cadence of Accountability – there has to be someone that you can trust and be with you in this journey, to support you when your down and celebrate with you with your little successes, and for me its my family.

This, maybe, are simple goals of mine to pursue; but what is important now is that my goals are clearer and I am determined to pursue the passion that was unfolded to me now.

The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do.    Steve Jobs

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