The Value of Knowing Ourselves

THE VALUE OF
KNOWING
OURSELVES

with Bonus Material My Vision Statement

By Oscar Crawford



Dedication

To every person committed to building their future on
the foundations of a painful and traumatic past, to every
person that will not quit in the face of adversity, and to
every one that pushes past the pain every day because
they are hungry to let go of limiting beliefs to go forward
creating the life they want to live; I HONOR YOU and
dedicate these words and pages to you.

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Spiritual Principle

7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh
findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
~Matthew 7 vss 7 - 8

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The Value of Knowing Ourselves

To thine own self be true.
~(Hamlet, Act-1, Scene-III, 78–82) by William Shakespeare

The value of knowing ourselves is clarity of being and
purpose. This means we have achieved a clear knowledge of
who we are, what we do, and why we do what we do. When
we have become clear about our raison d’etre, our reason for
being, our purpose; we can begin to contribute our gifts and
skills to build a better world, locally and globally.

It is important to know who we are, what we do, and why
we do what we do. For relationships to work, transparency of
and among participants must be intentional. This is necessary
so that participants can make informed decisions about their
intended level of engagement based on what they have
learned about each other.

This is a challenge across the social media world. In our
profiles, we assert ourselves in the most positive light
possible. We work to make clear who we are and what we
do. We seldom share why we are who we are and why we do
what we do.

I know who I am but I must always ask myself if I am
clearly communicating that awareness to others. Recently, I
made a LIVE ANNOUNCEMENT on my social media

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platforms about who I am, what I do, and why I do what
I do.

I have been around social media for years. The people
that know me for a few years know my work and know
me. Many of them know me personally. More know me
only through my work.

People that do not know me often ask me questions.
Some ask why do you do what you do? Why do you do
what you do the way you do it? Why do you live your
life so out in the open for everybody to see? Nobody else
does that.

As I consider those questions and appropriate
responses, I feel this component of my self-awareness rise.
I have never had the desire or the need to be a clone of
anyone else. I am thankful to be who I am. I have no
desire to craft my life and service around the expectations
of others. That is not who I am.

WHO I AM

I am a man, the son of Betty and Clyde Crawford, Jr. I
am African American by bloodline. I am husband to my
wife Bonnie for more than 30 years. We have children

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and grandchildren. We often work together as
consultants and trainers.

I am a helper, healer, and teacher providing direction
for spiritual formation, guiding healing from trauma,
facilitating learning strategies for relationship
development, and strategies for personal growth and
development. These serve for me, spiritual contexts.

Pain, suffering, and failure provide learning
experiences. All taught me what does not work. All
taught me the costs to be who I am. I know these
experiences first hand. I have been willing to pay the
price in my own blood, sweat, tears, and scars. I have my
share and more.

I discovered slowly that suffering, pain, and failure are
the fastest tickets to discovering what I did not want and
do not want to become and be. The profit of this
experience was to discover my awakened aware self and
my priorities. The value of knowing ourselves is clarity of
being and purpose.

WHAT I DO

My personal experiences taught me that I could use
the story of my own experience to not only help me heal

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but help others heal, become free of their emotional and
physical pain, learn how to live, and learn how to love
and feel good about themselves. Our hurts never go to
waste. They serve as launching platforms for us to serve
others.

We help others when we help them heal. We help
others when we help them move into the purpose. We
help others when we help them achieve freedom from
their pain and suffering. We help others when we help
others move on to living loving and productive lives.

I made clear in my announcement that I am not on
social media solely to sell my stuff. I am on social media to
SELL YOU ON YOU. If I can help you catch the vision
to use your pain and suffering as a launch platform to
discover the possibility of the new life you have the
power to produce, I am living the dream.

Most of us most of the time want to feel good from
helping others heal and discover their potential. Every
time I help a woman move from the pain of her
experiences of sexual violence while a child, I am thankful
to be an instrument of healing. If I can further help her
awaken to her possibilities for personal development,
achievement, and successful relationships, I am even more
thankful to be a bridge from a dark and painful past to a

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a bright present and even brighter future.
Every time I help a man move past the pain and

suffering inflicted upon him by the people that should
have loved him as a child to become a confident and
competent man, I am thankful to be an instrument of
healing. If I can further help him awaken to his
possibilities for personal development, achievement, and
successful relationships, I am thankful to be a bridge from
a dark painful past to a bright present and even brighter
future. The value of knowing ourselves is clarity of being
and purpose.

WHY I DO WHAT I DO

I do what I do because I am that man that discovered
that I possess within me the potential to be the love I was
looking for everywhere. I am the man that discovered
how to transform his pain and anger into love. I
discovered I could get all the love I want and more by
investing in giving away all the love I need.

I am the man that discovered how to move from
healing myself to helping others heal. I am that man that
is not practicing theory but practicing real-life application
for healing, growth, personal development, and human

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relations skills.
Why I do, what I do is because the more adults I can

help heal, the more children have the potential to grow
up without the need to heal from family-oriented
developmental trauma. Why I do, what I do asserts to
alleviate suffering experiences of violence among
children, women, and men.

Why I do, what I do evolves from the discovery that
pain hurts. It hurts some of us much more than others.
While there are some amongst us that possess a
counterintuitive perception of experiencing the joy of
pain, most of us most of the time will pass on that.

Tragically, it is usually our pain, suffering, and sorrow
that can become the most significant teacher and catalyst
to life lessons that we need to learn. Sometimes the
behavior of others acted out onus causes us immediate
and lingering pain. Sometimes when no one is available
to cause us pain, we find ways to cause it ourselves.

We, humans, are a complicated species as individuals
and as a collective. The more we create an opportunity to
engage and get to know other people, the more we have
the opportunity to help other people know they can make
choices in their lives in their own interests without the
approval or permission of others. They can do what they

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want because that is what they want to do.
This is who I am. This is what I do. This is why I do

it. The value of knowing ourselves is clarity of being and
purpose.

--------------------------

Follow me on Instagram @oscarcrawfordmedia and
@personaldevelopmentwithoscar.

Email me at [email protected] and
[email protected].

Join me on Instagram LIVE mornings Monday
through Friday at 7 AM PST.

I invite you to schedule a free 30-minute consultation
with me to focus on enhancing your clarity of who you
are, what you do or want to do, and why you want to do
what you want to do. It would an honor to meet you, talk
with you, and serve you.

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A vision statement describes an
incubated idea resulting from an
individual or organization's intention
and desire to produce and present in
final form conclusively achieve in the
future.

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE

Where there is no vision, the people
perish. ~Proverbs 29. vs 18

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BONUS
MATERIAL

My Personal Vision Statement

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My Vision Statement

WHAT IS MY VISION?

My vision is I seek to create a secure social and
spiritual environment called home. Home is to be the
place where people can feel connected without judgment.
It is where people from all nations, cultures, languages,
beliefs, conditions, and perspectives can live open and
secure.

Home is the place to experience acceptance,
empowerment, and to heal from individual and collective
traumas, while learning how to live together in a spirit of
peace, love, and productivity. Home is that zone where
needs are met and where wants, desires, and dreams can
be freely pursued.

WHAT IS THE WHY OF MY VISION?

To achieve peace on our planet through the exercise
of intentional love and goodwill premised upon the desire
to live without the constant fear of life-threatening
conflict and violence.

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HOW WILL YOUR
VISION AFFECT YOUR LEGACY?

I would like my legacy to declare my investment in
the development of a spiritual civilization where all live in
peaceful love and productivity.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE
YOUR LIFE TO SAY ABOUT YOU?

I want my life to record I was a continuously
awakening soul to be aware of the privilege to be aware
of the consciousness that we are all one. A life seeking the
exploration and potential to harmonious existence is a
qualitatively better experience than to experience a life of
fear, exploitation, and denigration.

WHAT DO YOU DESIRE YOUR VISION TO
CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR FAMILY,
COMMUNITY, STATE, NATION, AND THE
WORLD?

My heart’s desire is the provision of a secure social and
spiritual environment called home that is conducive to

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honoring difference and celebrating the discovery of
possibilities to make life better for all life throughout
creation. This means none would do without things
necessary for life. These include security from harm and
danger; decent, safe, and sanitary housing; food security;
health and education where genius develops and its
reward shared to the growth, development, and
enhancement of all. Ultimately, this would become a
natural state for which purpose is clear through loving life
and each other to the desire of contributing one’s best for
the benefit of self, family, community, and the world.

DO I HAVE THE TIME, TALENT, AND
RESOURCES TO ACHIEVE MY VISION?

I believe I have the time to set the vision in motion. I
do not consider I have the time to see it fully realized. My
sense is that when my work and life are finished, the
vision will be in capable hands to continue the journey of
its production and realization.

I do possess the talent as a human relations expert,
personal developer, and spiritual guide to attract and train
all persons called to share in the vision’s development.
Many from all cultures will be necessary to market the

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message, “WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE”.
Specialists in the matters of spiritual direction, practice,

and traditions, technology, agricultural, construction,
organization, health, education, security (individual and
collective), the arts and sciences, explorers of inner and
outer space, resource developers, leaders, project
managers, and fundraising specialists. This is not an
exhaustive list. Further needs will reveal themselves as
growth and development proceeds.

All points of view among the people considered in
established periodic appointed times not to be less than
once a quarter. All with the capacity to participate are
welcome to share views from the youngest to the oldest.

All individuals have the opportunity to share points of
view in small group collectives beginning with
immediate family.

Family representatives will gather from communities
to share all points of view heard and build consensus
perspectiveS to share with families for presentation at the
next level when a council of three representatives from
each community will gather to share consensus
perspectives. Individuals and families making
recommendations that do not receive favorable reviews
may present further information to support their point of

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view at the next appointed time.
The lack in my capacity is the lack of experience in

significant fundraising. The first financial benchmark to
begin the enterprise of working towards the fulfillment of
the vision established at five million dollars seeks to search
out like-minded people, kindred souls, and kindred spirits
with a passion to support the production of the vision
over a period of ten years. This facilitates beginning the
design of organized activity to blueprint the project
management of the mission over the next twenty-five
years, fifty years, and one hundred years. Fundraising
specialists and project managers serve as keys to this
enterprise.

HOW LONG DO I FORESEE IT TAKE TO
ACHIEVE MY VISION?

In the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speech,
he spoke of going to the mountaintop to look over into
the Promised Land. These are the final words of the
speech, “And He’s (the all that is that is in us all) allowed
me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And
I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will

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get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not
worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine
eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

In as much as we humans that populate Planet Earth
seek to spread our influence throughout the galaxy, we
have yet to learn how to live together in loving peace and
productive harmony. We carry our limitations wherever
we go and we must work to minimize them.

This vision, my personal vision seeks to help us going
further into who we are and what our possibilities are to
build better families, better communities, better states,
better nations, and ultimately a better world. That will
not begin on the Moon or on Mars. It must begin right
where we are.

I have no notion of surviving until this vision is
complete. It is possible I experience visions of grandeur. If
I do, I want them to be the best they can possibly be and
offer hope to all that can feel and share the hope of the
vision.

That is why my time will be spent organizing people
and money to achieve the vision set forth. We can build a
better world, one relationship at a time by intention.

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DOES MY VISION ENERGIZE ME
WHEN I WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?

Love is the only thing I think about and how the
experience of love provides real ways for the many and
the more, opportunity to awaken and become aware of
our unique individual and shared collective human
possibilities. The human potential knows no limits except
those we accept and impose on ourselves. We possess the
power to become exponentially more and better.

The thought of this privilege and power drives me
from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to
sleep. I am personally convinced that my subconscious
mind works on this while I sleep. I would not have it any
other way.

This is my vision statement.

Oscar Crawford

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Follow me on Instagram @oscarcrawfordmedia and
@personaldevelopmentwithoscar.

Email me at [email protected] and
[email protected].

Join me on Instagram LIVE mornings Monday
through Friday at 7 AM PST.

I invite you to schedule a free 30-minute
consultation with me to focus on enhancing your
clarity of who you are, what you do or want to do,
and why you want to do what you want to do. It
would an honor to meet you, talk with you, and
serve you.

We build a better world
when we recognize the
value of knowing ourselves,
knowing what we want,
and knowing why we want
what we want.
We build a better world
when we cast individual and
collective visions to produce
a better world. Let's get to
know each other and find
ways to build together.
WHAT WE SOW
TOGETHER, WE GROW
TOGETHER.

Oscar Crawford