Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The first conversation we're going to have is asset mapping. So, any time you see a group
of people together I'm wondering if you think, "that's a real resource - that's a real asset"
when you see those good relationships where people have spontaneity. I think after
you begin to think about people and good relationships as assets, you begin to get an idea of the kind of
networking that can help you move planning forward. I'd like you to look at page 2 of your workbook.
This is a sample of an asset map. As you look, the asset map is divided into three pie pieces.
One of them is skills and interests and gifts. The other are groups that we might be involved in.
And the third are names of places - places that we go to in our lives. And if you look
at this asset map, you'll see that the skills, interests and gifts are anything you like
to do for fun, you're good at or you're interested in. And there are several examples listed
under there. The name of the groups are the names of the groups and/or organizations or associations
that you are part of. So I wouldn't just put my work group, I would put the name of my
work group. So for me, I'm a member of the Learning Community for Person Centered Practices.
So one of my groups is TLC *** because I have to abbreviate that. But I put the actual name
of the group down. Another group I'm a member of is my Kernan family and I would put the
Kernan's. And that encompasses at least 150 people in the Quad City area. We're a big
Irish family. What can I say? The other are names of places. The names of the places
in your life. And one way to think about the places in your life is, 'where do you go to
every day, where do you go to every week? As you leave the house, what's the next place
you're likely to go to?' Think of the names of the places in your life. Now, the purpose
of this is not to say that every single person you connect with has exactly what you want
or need. The purpose of this is to demonstrate that we have many, many more connections than
we are actually aware of on a day to day basis. And there is a good reason for that. There's
a really functional reason for that. And that reason is that we build routines and rituals
to help us get through our days and our weeks, that helps to ensure that we're successful
in what we have planned on behalf of our family and in our days and in our weeks. And that as we're
going through those routines, we're screening out certain information and focusing in on
other information. So that the purpose of the asset map is there's another reason to
do this kind of thinking. I've found when I use this in planning whether I'm doing large
group planning - large groups of people coming together to do planning or a team coming
together to do planning on behalf of one person, that usually as we go through our day, in
order to start thinking about what a good life can look like, it helps us to expand
how we're thinking - to break out of the every day kind of thinking that we're likely to
be doing and to expand how we're thinking. And it usually takes an outline or an organized
way of thinking about that to help bust us out of that daily routine. Now, again, daily
routines are very healthy and there's lots and lots to learn from a daily routine. But
the purpose of this is to look at how we are connected in communities. So, think about
the person that you love in your life that you're likely to be doing a plan for. You might think
of one person if you're doing plans with lots of people or, you might think about your own
family member. Think if people who are around the person you love loaned one or two of their
connections. What does that do to expand their connections? What does simply picking up a
phone call and making a call do to strengthen a team? So, a story I have about that is,
in February, I was working with two people who are living together and they each had
a plan done. The people who were around them and they were kind of tired and they were feeling
as though the things they needed to do, they didn't have the resources to do. So we did
a modified version of this map where people had the opportunity to be comfortable, to
relax, to have something to eat and to spend ten minutes getting to know the other person
in the room perhaps in a different light and to think about the resources and their assets
perhaps in a different light. And that team of - and there were six people in the room
- when they explored one organization that each one if them was a part of, came up with close
to 1000 contacts in one organization. And what they realized and what this does frequently
is it helps us to see that there are other places that we can look, there are other people
we can include. So, when people come through the room and I see each of you coming in the
room and I'm thinking about assets, I have a tendency to do that a lot. I look at each
of you and multiply you by 7 because, at minimum, I know there will be 7 people I can connect
with through you on behalf of someone that will make a difference for the person that we're
planning around. And you can do that too. Now think about it if you are a person who
is developing jobs for everyone you know - like 20 people. What if you're developing jobs
for 20 people? How soon do you think it will be before you begin to exhaust your connections?
Pretty soon, right? But if each person comes with a team that is willing to share a few
connections, to share a little bit of insight and maybe ask the question, "Who do I know
who might know something about..." maybe we expand - we almost always expand those connections
and create more resources that are available to us right now, other than paid resources.
Now, there are also paid resources because we are in partnership with people who are
paid to help ensure that life is good. But, when it comes to looking for a job, not every
professional person is going to be the person who is going to find the best match. Sometimes
we have those connections right in our own lives. Or, if sometimes someone we know has
those connections in our own lives. So, to think about what are we asking for and what are
we after and what exists right now that I can have access to? Now, the other thing that
this asset map exercise does is when it comes to looking at options, it gives us the opportunity
to step back, take a very few minutes and look at what we can pull together. Then, what
if somebody knows us well is looking at our assets with us and can ask us a few other
questions? How many more assets would we come up with? How many more possibilities would
we come up with? And in this one conversation you're looking at, what are some real strengths.
How do we give back to our community via sharing our interests and gifts? How are we already
engaged in our community? Can we strengthen any of those ties? Is there somebody there
that we would like to get to know better who knows things - who shares our interests? And
what are our places? When we walk into places, are these places where we think they're friendly,
where they're welcoming? Is there more opportunity for community through those places? So that
there's an abundance of resources to create what really is about meaning in life. How
do we create meaning in life and where do we find that meaning? So, the purpose of the
asset map is to help us to see another way of looking at things but also to help us to
come together with other people.