“I’m good at saying yes. I’d like to be as sure about what I say no to.”
A clearer way to decide what to protect, what to change, and where to give your time. Authority Foundations is where you choose the core values that get the final say over your next two years, and start making decisions by them.
Self-paced, with a fillable workbook you can start today and three video sessions with James to follow.
Twelve months of a man’s calendar show what runs his life.
What he protects. What he makes time for. What keeps sliding to next quarter. Some of it he chose last year. Some of it he chose twenty years ago, for the life he was building then, and it still runs the week.
The work isn’t to reject the values that built your life. It’s to decide which of them get the final say now.
Goals tell you what you’re working toward. They don’t tell you whether you’d still choose it.
The standards that built a career rarely get reviewed, because they delivered. That’s why Inherited Momentum is hardest to see in the values that worked best.
Every career hands a man a definition of success. Which parts of it would you choose again?
The years ahead will be spent on something either way. Foundations is where you decide what deserves them.
Deciding what to stop is harder than deciding what to add. Thirty years of practice adding, and nobody ever taught any of us the other half: how to tell what still deserves a place.
That’s what Foundations gives you: five core values for the next two years, named from the evidence of your own last twelve months, and one real decision you’re already carrying, worked through in writing against them. It all goes into My Foundations Summary, the reference you decide from for the next twelve months. A yes you can explain, and a no you can stand behind.
It’s complete work in itself. Use it on everyday choices, or carry it into a larger change later, if you choose.
Before my first walk on the Camino de Santiago, in 2017, I wrote an assignment about characters who took that walk and how it changed them. As I completed it, I realized the characters I was writing about were actually me.
It doesn’t take a 515-mile walk to examine your own life. The evidence is already there. Foundations is a way to read it.
The question isn’t whether something is bad. It’s whether it still deserves the space it takes.
Foundations isn’t a values exercise where you pick admirable words off a list. It starts with what has actually happened in your life: what you protected, made time for, found frustrating, or kept postponing. Then it reads what that evidence is already saying.
Across the workbook and three video sessions with James, you’ll:
Your real values show up less in what you claim than in what your life keeps proving.
Allow about three focused hours for the videos and exercises, across as many sittings as you need. Then run a seven-day experiment in your ordinary week, and come back to read it and complete your Summary.
Gather the evidence before deciding what it means: what you gave time to, what you protected, what you wish you’d done differently.
Turn that evidence into five core values, ranked. See how your week reflects them, then put a decision you’re facing through the written questions.
Plan a seven-day experiment and record what happens. After Day 7, read the record and complete My Foundations Summary: what to continue, and what to adjust.
You don’t need The Four Signals Guide, our free guide to reading your values from four kinds of moments, before you start. If you’ve used it, bring your examples without rewriting them. If you haven’t, Foundations has everything you need.
For men who weigh every big decision carefully, and want to choose what they weigh it against.
You look at those standards again here, in writing, at your own pace, and keep the ones you would still choose.
When I began redesigning my own life, I realized the hardest question wasn’t what I wanted next. It was what still deserved authority over the life I was building.
Foundations is the work I wish someone had handed me years earlier. Not more goals. Not another optimization plan. A clear way to decide what matters now, and to start making decisions from it.
The workbook is in your library the moment you check out, and an email follows with the link. The three video sessions with James arrive by 22 October, and you’ll get an email when they’re in. Yours to keep, at your own pace.
All sales are final once access is delivered. If anything doesn’t open, we’ll make it right. See the Refund Policy.
It’s a self-paced program with exercises you complete in your own workbook and three videos led by James, which arrive by 22 October. Individual coaching and feedback aren’t included. No one reviews or grades your answers.
About three focused hours for the videos and exercises, plus a seven-day experiment in ordinary life and time afterward to review it and complete your Summary. You can spread the work across several sittings.
No. Foundations stands on its own. The assessment is a separate way to measure how well your life fits what you want next. Neither requires the other.
Five core values for your next two years, defined in your own words and supported by examples from your life; a written process you’ve used to weigh one real decision; a seven-day experiment you’ve tried and reviewed; and My Foundations Summary, your decision reference for the next twelve months, with your next action.
You keep your responses in your own saved workbook. You don’t need to submit them or have them graded to complete Foundations. You choose what to share if you later seek support.
Whatever you decide next will run on some set of values. Choose them first.
It doesn’t all have to be settled today. Start with the five that should lead, then put them to work on one real decision, and one small change with a date on it.
The next time something asks for your time, you have a written standard to hold it against, one real decision already examined, and a week of evidence from one small change in your real life.
The Life Fit Assessment is separate from Foundations. In about thirty minutes, it scores five areas of your life and shows where your life already supports what you want next and where it doesn’t yet. A welcome packet with three guided readings helps you read the result.
Foundations decides what should lead your choices. The assessment measures how well your life fits what you want. They stand side by side, and you can begin with either.
Explore The Life Fit Assessment · $67Your Foundations Summary can be a starting point for private coaching, if you choose it.
Precision Realignment is one month of private work with James to choose your first move toward the life you want, and start making it in your actual week. You test it for fourteen days as one manageable change. Authorship by Design™ is the fuller sixteen-week program for planning and beginning the next chapter, by application.