“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 getting pushed 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 (the expectations and commitments that keep running long after they stop fitting) 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. We’ve had 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 facing now, worked through in writing and weighed against those five. 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 asks what that evidence already says about what matters to you.
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.
Here you look again at the standards you decide by, 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. James is recording the three video sessions now, 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 he is recording now; you’ll get an email when they’re in. 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, the standard you’ll hold your decisions to 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.
The next time something asks for your time, you have a written standard to measure 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 either program, if you choose one.
Precision Realignment is five weeks with James and a small group of men at your stage to choose your first move toward the life you want, and start making it in your actual week. Seven small-group sessions across five weeks, then a private session with James; you test the move 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.
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, start one small change, and put a date on the day you’ll look back at it.
Every time, you make a decision and take the first step.