From Performance to Personhood: Reclaiming the Lost Art of Being Human
A reflection on what happens when education forgets the human being—and why character is the key to rebuilding what we’ve lost.
When was the last time someone asked you—not what you do, but who you are?
Not what you’ve accomplished, but what you stand for?
We were taught to perform. To meet expectations. To produce. To impress.
But we were rarely taught how to be. To reflect. To choose. To build a life rooted in character and purpose.
For many years, I worked in higher education. I taught brilliant students and watched closely as universities focused on preparing people to meet market demands: to be efficient, employable, and productive.
What I saw, over and over, was how our educational system trained people to perform and get results, but not to reflect. To meet standards, but not to know who they truly are.
They were taught how to do, but rarely how to be.
Apparently, we forgot that we are human beings, not human doings.
Later, when I transitioned into the corporate world, I began to see the long-term effects of that type of education.
People chasing KPIs but lacking inner direction.
Leaders managing teams but disconnected from their own purpose.
Highly educated professionals, competent and successful but yet burned out, fragmented, and unsure why they felt so empty.
And at the heart of it all, I realized we had stopped seeing the person.
We saw roles. We saw output. We forgot the human being. Our human needs, values, and dreams.
In this post, I want to share how personalism, a philosophy that places the human being back at the center, offers the foundation we've been missing. It is one of the reasons I created Character Builders Academy. And it may be the final push for many of us ready to begin again, from the inside out.
Why Personalism?
Founded by French thinker Emmanuel Mounier in the early 20th century, personalism emerged as a response to ideologies that reduced people to mere tools of production, cogs in a machine, means to an end.
What personalism asserts is simple, yet profound:
Every person has an inviolable dignity, not because of what they do, but because of who they are.
A person is never a means to an end. A person is always an end in themselves.
This philosophy affirms that:
We are relational beings, who grow and evolve in connection with others.
We are capable of moral responsibility and freedom.
And we are called to construct meaning and live with purpose.
What does this have to do with character?
Everything.
Because character is the ongoing process by which we become fully human.
As I define it:
Character is the living expression of our virtues, shaped through daily choices, revealing who we are at our core and who we aspire to become.
In a world that trains for performance, I believe in education that teaches us how to build ourselves up.
Education that guides us in the construction of a personal philosophy of life and the cultivation of core virtues through daily habits.
Education that teaches people how to lead from within.
Education that helps us become builders of our own character so that we can become creators of more humane communities.
Why Character Builders Academy?
I founded Character Builders Academy to fill a gap I’ve felt deeply in both academia and business: the absence of intentional character formation.
I’ve seen firsthand the consequences of this absence: disengagement, mental health struggles, leaders unable to connect, and workers unable to find meaning in their roles. Unhappiness of monumental proportions.
I’ve also coached leaders who, quite frankly, were a nightmare to work with. They caused massive misery and left their teams feeling less than human.
Most of them were not bad people.
They were simply never taught how to lead.
They had never stopped to reflect or craft their own personal philosophy.
They were focused on results, not people.
Ironically, that often led to unsatisfactory results, even when the metrics were met, because there was no human advancement behind the numbers.
In my current role as a corporate leadership educator, I’ve had the privilege of working with experienced professionals—many of whom simply learned to lead by imitating those around them.
And yet, when given the space to reflect, to ask deeper questions, to reexamine their values—they change.
They grow.
They become courageous, authentic, intentional.
They begin to lead from character.
That’s what we’re doing here:
We are creating a space for people—at any stage of life—to become who they were always meant to be: good, happy, fulfilled humans.
Because I believe with all my heart that character building can transform realities from within.
Neuroscience, Character, and the Possibility of Change
Character is not fixed. It’s trainable.
Thanks to neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to rewire itself) and neurogenesis (its capacity to generate new neurons), meaningful transformation is possible throughout life—not just in childhood or early adulthood.
With the right inputs—reflection, deliberate practice, honest dialogue, and virtue-based learning—we can:
Shift long-held behavioral patterns.
Expand our ability to relate ethically.
Build virtues from the inside out.
In other words, our character can evolve as we do.
Not by accident, but by design.
This is the inner architecture we’re working with. And it gives me hope—not just for individuals, but for whole communities ready to grow beyond performance into purpose.
Leadership with a Human Face
In Leadership:
You don’t lead for metrics only.
You lead to elevate others as human beings.
You don’t ask, “What can I get out of them?”
You ask, “Who are they becoming under my leadership?”
In Workplaces:
Employees are not “resources” to extract value from.
They are partners in meaning, whose work must serve both society and their own personal growth.
In Life:
Your job is not the end.
Work is not the goal. It is the arena where we build who we are.
We build ourselves up through the challenges, the interactions with others, and the co-creation of goals we could never achieve alone.
Work becomes the forge where character is crafted, tested, and made visible.
Let’s become more than performers. Let’s become humans on purpose.
A Note From Me to You
You may have noticed that I’ve been quiet for a while. I’ve been dealing with a period of serious illness that kept me away, but I’m slowly regaining my strength and I’m so happy to be back.
Thank you for being here, for reading, for walking this path with me.
From now on, I’ll return to publishing weekly here on Substack, continuing to explore the inner architecture of human evolution.
This community matters to me.
You matter to me.
Let’s keep building one idea, one story, one virtue at a time.
On this journey with you,
Alma