The “Three Pillars” of Cornerstones define “what you must have in place in your life in order to participate fully in the program.”
So we could just as easily call the “Three Pillars” by another name such as:
- the Three Non-Negotiables of Cornerstones, or
- the Minimum Standards of Cornerstones, or
- the Basic Working Parts of Cornerstones
The “Three Pillars” of Cornerstones as related to an individual member of Acacia are to have :
1. A Growth Mindset (aka growth attitude, growth perspective, or growth paradigm)
2. An Organized Plan
3. A Demonstration of Your Achievement/Efforts (in some form)
- Pillar One: A Growth Mindset
In the book Influencer, by Kerry Patterson, he and his co-authors describe the importance of having a growth mindset, as opposed to a fixed mindset.
- Growth mindset - to learn how to develop a set of high-level learning skills and techniques, to strive for continual learning
- Fixed mindset - if one believes they cannot improve, then they won’t even try, and he’ll create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and as a result will not grow
- these definitions come directly from the book Influencer by Kerry Patterson, which you can check out here.
In our usage here, “mindset” could also be interpreted as: ”attitude“, “perspective“, or ”paradigm“.
Each member either has a “growth mindset” or a “fixed mindset” when it comes to his own personal development.
To paraphrase the definition of a “growth mindset”, it is “learning how to develop … learning skills“.
Having a growth mindset is the first step in realizing that there is a whole world of learning & discovery out there for you, but you must have the awareness and the humility to readily accept that fact, then go about the business of learning what you need to learn in order to get where you want to go.
Here’s a couple of examples of what a “fixed mindset” might sound like:
- “Dude, I don’t need to do that Cornerstones stuff, I’m already learning as much as I can in my classes.”
- “No way, I’m not spending even more time learning skills, I’m already totally swamped with academics.”
- “All that personal development stuff is just fluff. There’s really nothing for me in those lessons or activities.”
- Pillar Two: An Organized Plan
Organized Planning only happens if you already have a Growth Mindset. You now have the attitude and ability to learn new skills and techniques. Now it’s time to talk about your Goals and your Plan to reach those goals.
By completing the Cornerstones Personal Development Plan, you will identify and state your personal Strengths, Values, and Life Purpose/Mission/Definition of Success. Once you have clarified those aspects, it is your responsibility to identify Goals/Objectives to work toward in the short-term and long-term.
There are many methodologies, guidelines, or frameworks within which a person can complete this sort of reflection and planning. The framework that we are going to use in this document is based on exercises in the following books:
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 8th Habit by Stephen Covey
- The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
- The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal , by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Permission was granted by the Human Performance Institute (which the authors founded) to use the “Corporate Athlete Training Program.”
Once you have completed this introspection and reflection, it is your responsibility to transfer your plans into a format that will be useful to you, and that will be helpful to you in pursuing your goals/objectives. One might consider using:
- a calendar (online or print)
- a planner
- an online task manager or to-do list manager
- a Word document or Excel spreadsheet
Get the point? Make it your own. Do it your way, just make sure you do it.
- Pillar Three: Demonstration of Your Achievement / Efforts
The mission of Cornerstones states “The resulting outcome (of program participation) is graduating seniors who are able to articulate the positive impact of Acacia Fraternity in their lives, as well as their plans for staying involved as an alumni member.”
The whole point of Cornerstones is to prepare you to be able to articulate, or explain, or demonstrate the journey of personal development that you have been on in your life.
The whole point of Cornerstones is NOT to get you to complete a checklist of activities, but rather to “get you in shape to be the leader whom you are becoming, or the leader that you want to be.”
At some point, you have to demonstrate your participation and engagement with the program by creating something external that other people can experience.
Once you have completed your development activities, it is your responsibility to document your achievement and reflect on your progress in a format that can be communicated to others. One might consider using:
- your ACACIAconnect account
- a Word document or Excel spreadsheet
- a blog site
- an ePortfolio
Get the point? Make it your own. Do it your way, just make sure you do it.
A Final Word on Reflection – Reflection includes taking some time to reflect on what you’ve just done, and reset for future action. This could also be described as self-monitoring or self-observation. This is closely related to tracking your progress in some way (GatesofSamos.org, on paper, on a blog, etc.). Reflection can be done by simply answering the following questions:
- “What?” – What did you just do, learn, or experience?
- “So What?” – What is the relevance to your life?
- “Now What?” – What will you now do with this new knowledge, awareness, or experience?
