The Wo- Man in the Mirror

From Michael Jackson’s song The Man in the Mirror, stretching back in time to William Shakespeare and further back to the Bible, it’s been understood that wisdom begins with looking honestly at yourself, and conducting your life according to that truth. In the folk sayings and scriptures of every culture, you’ll no doubt find the same basic principle. Just as surely, every one of us, including Michael, has failed this test at some point. And that’s why compassion and forgiveness (other aspects of wisdom) are the oils that keep the sometimes creaky machinery of human relationships functioning.

In the past, we mainly had to rely on hope that as we get older, we would somehow become wiser, almost against our own inclinations. But today we know from research in Positive Psychology, that these principles of folk wisdom actually work, and further, that they are skills or competencies that we can develop through practice. But rather than throwing out the ancient concept of wisdom for the scientific one of competencies, we can benefit from that legacy by combining the two. SOPPHIA – The 7 Dimensions of Wisdom, is a model that does this.

Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom, and was personified in mythology and in the Bible as a woman. In this case, I spell SOPPHIA with two P’s, to create a seven-letter acronym, representing the seven dimensions of wisdom. Each of these seven dimensions of wisdom is made up of skills or competencies that have been demonstrated to help people to be more fulfilled or successful at work as well as in their personal lives. The first dimension of wisdom is represented by the letter ‘S’ for Self. This consists of all the skills related to awareness and management of our own emotions and attitudes. The second letter in SOPPHIA is ‘O’ which stands for Others; and includes all of the skills related to understanding and relating to other people. The ‘I’ in SOPPHIA represents Innovation, the skills needed to generate creative ideas and to bring them into reality as products or services that produce social value or wealth. These are the three dimensions of wisdom that I’ll focus on today.

Now let’s get back to the (wo) man in the mirror. What do Michael Jackson, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and William Shakespeare have in common? The answer is that they each used great gifts of communication to convey complex ideas in ways that were immediately accessible to the masses of people. Each told stories based on themes, situations or characters that anyone could recognize and identify with. They used emotional intensity and deft esthetic techniques to engage audiences (who now become participants) in their stories. Thus they were all excellent entertainers, in terms of their ability to hold people’s attention, even on serious or painful topics. Some may take offense at the idea that Dr. King was an entertainer; but that’s partly what any great preacher or orator is. He or she doesn’t just convey information, but rather transports the listener into another place with the drama or humor of stories and the music of words.

It’s clear from looking at these three historical persons closely, that reaching high levels of achievement doesn’t require one to be a perfect human being. It does require that you tap into the core of yourself and release an almost explosive emotive and ideational energy; while at the same time expressing that energy in sounds, images, words, ideas, themes and stories that are connected to the shared present and past of a community (or world) of which you are a part. Each of us needs to do this to some degree in order to achieve our potential. This requires developing our skills and competencies in the dimensions of wisdom concerning Self, Others and Innovation.

This is process isn’t just limited to the arts or other expressive fields. All ideas, including scientific, business or engineering ones, are human creations and originate out of experiences of Self. Powerful ideas have that almost explosive intensity and their originators are usually very passionate about and almost obsessed by them. To have a social or physical impact, these ideas must be communicated to Others, in a common language (whether it’s the language of science, mathematics, music or something else). That communication must be persuasive enough to stimulate others to expend money, time and other resources on bringing the ideas into fruition as products, services, functional principles, works of art, etc.

The main tool needed to develop the dimensions of wisdom pertaining to Self, Others and Innovation is courageous reflection: looking at the man or woman in the mirror. This isn’t a single ah ha moment of insight, but a discipline that needs to be practiced and to become habitual. One of the primary aid that supports courageous reflection is life coaching. The goal of the life coach should be to help each person to find and set free that core of emotive and ideational energy that is connected to her or his life purpose; to communicate the contents of that energy to others based on shared interests; and together with others to build that shared future in which each human being can be a contributing member of a vibrant and sustainable community.

To learn more, go to www.sopphia.com.