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taking inventory

Eric and I recently started an adventure: a doctoral program with Bakke Graduate University for Transformational Leadership! These two weeks have been an incredible journey already and it’s an astonishing delight to me how much our current courses relate to our work — and can also relate to your life.

This term we are studying Asset Based Community Development; Appreciative Inquiry (ABCD;AI). As I’ve pondering our project as it relates to relationships, I realized something: this is what we do in all our work with couples. We help them map out the assets they possess in each other — what to appreciate in each other. We’ve been doing this ‘appreciative inquiry’ for years and didn’t even know it!

How would your attitude shift if, in every area of your life — your relationship, your family, your community, your work — you were to map out all the assets you personally add to those realms? And then, on top of that, if you were to map out what the other people in those realms add to you? How would that affect your outlook on every relationship in your life? It is truly a “glass is half full” attitude.

Next week we will talk about how to ask for what you need in an appreciative fashion. But this week, take an appreciative inventory. What assets do you see before you in your relationships?