Emotional fingerprint

The emotional fingerprint is a notion originated by Woody Woodward in relation to the feelings of importance of each individual, comprising seven characteristics that make someone feel important.
History
The initial interest of Woody Woodward in the feelings of importance appeared while researching for his series of books Millionaire Dropouts. Noticing the high level of dropouts among self-made successful people, he reviewed their biographies trying to find out what was their motivation to succeed. He concluded that the personal feeling of importance was crucial in determining which goals would be able a person to strive for, against all odds. He structured the underlying mechanisms of these feelings of importance as the Law of Importance, comprising a series of five principles and the notion of an emotional fingerprint. These notions were further developed and detailed in the documentary film I-ology and in the book Your Emotional Fingerprint.
Overview
The concrete features of the individual feeling of importance are described by Woodward under the notion of "I" (short for "importance"). The functioning of these "I`s" is governed by five principles, clarifying "why people do what they do" and increasing the awareness about the personal development and life choices.
What makes someone feel important is different for each person, depending on their life experiences. This is not the same as the notions of pride, ego or being self-centered, it only identifies who is a certain person. Also what makes one feel important is different than what is important to that person (for example, work may be important to someone, but work may not make that person feel important). These feelings of importance are triggered by mind-shifts, be they of a positive nature (drama) or a negative one (trauma). They may fluctuate in life and may disappear only if they are replaced by other feelings (a person cannot take away an "I" without replacing it with another "I").
The Law of Importance focuses on the main seven "I`s" of a person (identified by completing the sentence "I feel important when..."), naming them their emotional fingerprint. These primary feelings of importance of a person are clarified by remembering the moments when the person felt great, then finding out what triggered those experiences. The specific triggering facts are abbreviated to basic notions (like, for example, "creativity", "health", "contributing", "winning", "love", "security" etc.), giving a clearer idea about what makes someone feel important. These main I`s appear obvious also when analyzing the things that a person tries to defend or pursue in thought, action and communications.
An awareness of the emotional fingerprint (be it the personal one or that of the other people) and of the mind-shifts that triggered it would increase the self-understanding and also the quality of the relationships (by finding and respecting the others' feelings of importance). Further, regarding the direction where it is sought its validation, every "I" developed from mind-shifts can be met in one of two ways, either internally or externally. When a feeling of importance is met internally, it is because of something that person controls. If it is met externally, it is by people or situations outside his/her control.
Meeting the "I’s" internally is the desirable way in Woodward's opinion, since this permits controlling how someone gets the feelings of importance. For example, an "I" of family can be met internally if people know they are providing emotional, spiritual and physical love, thus not being disappointed when the kids or the spouse don’t praise for all the hard work. This becomes necessary especially in an appreciation deficient society, where people need to create their own feeling of importance. Woodward also proposes the notion of the "internal Return On Importance", a win-win situation resulting from the application of the rule "do unto others as they would want you to do unto them".

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