Welcome to the Creative Agent topic.
The course seeks to clarify you own unique personality type and strengths and guide you through the recognition of where your strength, interests and opportunities overlap.
Once your natural areas of strengths are identified (using the Clifton Strengths Finder) you need to find particular areas to focus those strengths upon to leverage your strengths and create valuable, rare and quality output. The most fundamental work in this regard is finding what is your value system and how does it align with a particular output of creative strength.
The central concept is shining awareness on your personality strengths and skills and identifying those values you identify most strongly with. Using this framework we will explore how to develop a vision, mission and life philosophy - based upon principles that will guide your actions to outcomes aligned with achieving your vision and mission.
We also explore how to start the process of building your own personal code of conduct - where you develop a set of actions (principles) aligned to achieving the outcomes (vision and mission) you hope to achieve in your life.
Values are often derived from societal and family influences and with areas of activity where you have been valued and been regarded highly by your peers and parents for your accomplishments. Underlying this is our need for belonging, which shapes our value system so that we ‘fit-in’ within the social context we were born into and areas of activity which our need for belonging and recognition were positively reinforced.
Start by reviewing the background reading 'the creative agent' below and then use the 'design task 1a' workbook to navigate the resources.
The course seeks to clarify you own unique personality type and strengths and guide you through the recognition of where your strength, interests and opportunities overlap.
Once your natural areas of strengths are identified (using the Clifton Strengths Finder) you need to find particular areas to focus those strengths upon to leverage your strengths and create valuable, rare and quality output. The most fundamental work in this regard is finding what is your value system and how does it align with a particular output of creative strength.
The central concept is shining awareness on your personality strengths and skills and identifying those values you identify most strongly with. Using this framework we will explore how to develop a vision, mission and life philosophy - based upon principles that will guide your actions to outcomes aligned with achieving your vision and mission.
We also explore how to start the process of building your own personal code of conduct - where you develop a set of actions (principles) aligned to achieving the outcomes (vision and mission) you hope to achieve in your life.
Values are often derived from societal and family influences and with areas of activity where you have been valued and been regarded highly by your peers and parents for your accomplishments. Underlying this is our need for belonging, which shapes our value system so that we ‘fit-in’ within the social context we were born into and areas of activity which our need for belonging and recognition were positively reinforced.
Start by reviewing the background reading 'the creative agent' below and then use the 'design task 1a' workbook to navigate the resources.

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Myers-Briggs Personality Types
The Myers Briggs personality types, based upon research by Jung, is another useful area of self-analysis. Based on the answers to the questions on the inventory, people are identified as having one of 16 personality types. The goal of the MBTI is to allow respondents to further explore and understand their own personalities including their likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses, possible career preferences, and compatibility with other people.
According to Carl G. Jung's theory of psychological types [Jung, 1971], people can be characterized by their preference of general attitude:
Isabel Briggs Myers, a researcher and practitioner of Jung’s theory, proposed to see the judging-perceiving relationship as a fourth dichotomy influencing personality type [Briggs Myers, 1980]:
According to Carl G. Jung's theory of psychological types [Jung, 1971], people can be characterized by their preference of general attitude:
- Extraverted (E) vs. Introverted (I),
- Sensing (S) vs. Intuition (N),
- Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F)
Isabel Briggs Myers, a researcher and practitioner of Jung’s theory, proposed to see the judging-perceiving relationship as a fourth dichotomy influencing personality type [Briggs Myers, 1980]:
Tapping into your natural gifts is foundational in creating a life aligned to your purpose. While everyone can be good at something with practise, people have innate capacities that are strongest in them and their results in life are going to be more successful if they focus on developing quality output in those areas.
There are a number of online tools for gauging your personal strengths and identifying the areas to focus on to leverage your natural strengths. One of the most popular is the Clifton Strengths Finder assessment. This assessment identifies particular types of output most aligned to your character type, like being inventive, social, well-organised, etc and by determining your relative strength in particular areas can start to craft life outcomes best aligned to those areas.
In the early 1950s Donald Clifton began a study to determine the most natural thoughts, feelings and behaviours of “the best of the best”. He quickly discovered that our talents do more than make us unique individuals. Our greatest talents also serve as our best opportunities for excellence and success when they are intentionally leveraged. He developed the CliftonStrengths as a means to identify what your core strengths are - so that you can create a life strategy around work aligned to making the best use of those strengths.
Once we discover the talents in individuals we begin to recognise where investing time and energy, skills and knowledge are best placed to develop that talent into a Strength.
There are a number of online tools for gauging your personal strengths and identifying the areas to focus on to leverage your natural strengths. One of the most popular is the Clifton Strengths Finder assessment. This assessment identifies particular types of output most aligned to your character type, like being inventive, social, well-organised, etc and by determining your relative strength in particular areas can start to craft life outcomes best aligned to those areas.
In the early 1950s Donald Clifton began a study to determine the most natural thoughts, feelings and behaviours of “the best of the best”. He quickly discovered that our talents do more than make us unique individuals. Our greatest talents also serve as our best opportunities for excellence and success when they are intentionally leveraged. He developed the CliftonStrengths as a means to identify what your core strengths are - so that you can create a life strategy around work aligned to making the best use of those strengths.
Once we discover the talents in individuals we begin to recognise where investing time and energy, skills and knowledge are best placed to develop that talent into a Strength.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
When people explain what makes their lives meaningful, they tend to describe four things: having rich relationships and bonds to others; having something worthwhile to do with their time; crafting narratives that help them understand themselves and the world they live in; and having experiences of awe and wonder.
Self-actualisation was a term used by Abraham Maslow to describe the pinnacle of a hierarchy of needs which provide a sense of peace, belonging and contentment in life. At the lowest level our lives our governed by survival and we operate in high levels of stress to acquire the basic resources to sustain us. As basic resources are provided, we then seek to build positive relationships to create a sense of belonging and acceptance within our peer group and community and endeavour to align our efforts in areas of work that are fulfilling and meaningful to us. At the highest level of self-actualisation a person’s efforts in life are aligned with the highest expression of their a capacity and that derive a string sense of satisfaction from knowing that through trial and growth they have achieved things of great meaning and value in their lives on a consistent basis.
In this course we explore how this sense of self-actualisation can be moved towards through self-knowledge and creating a meaningful pathway of achievement that is supported through clear goals and habits that we have control over and ability to manipulate in clear and precise ways to move towards the results we want from life.
Self-actualisation was a term used by Abraham Maslow to describe the pinnacle of a hierarchy of needs which provide a sense of peace, belonging and contentment in life. At the lowest level our lives our governed by survival and we operate in high levels of stress to acquire the basic resources to sustain us. As basic resources are provided, we then seek to build positive relationships to create a sense of belonging and acceptance within our peer group and community and endeavour to align our efforts in areas of work that are fulfilling and meaningful to us. At the highest level of self-actualisation a person’s efforts in life are aligned with the highest expression of their a capacity and that derive a string sense of satisfaction from knowing that through trial and growth they have achieved things of great meaning and value in their lives on a consistent basis.
In this course we explore how this sense of self-actualisation can be moved towards through self-knowledge and creating a meaningful pathway of achievement that is supported through clear goals and habits that we have control over and ability to manipulate in clear and precise ways to move towards the results we want from life.
Clifton Strengths Finder
Goal Planner
This planner helps you map out and clarify your strengths - which acts to identify worthwhile areas to pursue and form your personal mission statement.