THE PROPER STANDARD METHOD
The standard you set defines the life you live.
A human performance methodology built on one premise: wholeness is inherent. Interference can affect how freely you access what is already available within you. This is how we work with it.
THE FOUNDATIONS
Proper Standard is a proprietary human performance methodology informed by established research and theory across human behaviour, neuroscience and systems.
Its whole-human approach draws from the biopsychosocial model and systems thinking, alongside evidence concerning behaviour, neuroplasticity, environment and the relationship between physiological, psychological and social factors in human performance.
These established bodies of knowledge provide the evidence-informed foundation. Proper Standard brings them together through our own frameworks — BE ME and ORA — to create a practical methodology for self-auditing, agency and deliberate participation.
THE METHOD
Proper Standard develops one transferable human skill: self-auditing — the ability to observe what is shaping your behaviour, decisions and participation while there is still an opportunity to choose what happens next.
Our proprietary methodology combines two frameworks. BE ME shows you where to look. ORA gives you a way to participate.
BE ME
Body. Environment. Mind. Energy. The field of observation — the whole human, not the presenting issue in isolation. Hover each quadrant.
ORA
Observe. Release. Act. The process for working with what BE ME reveals — turning self-awareness into action.
01
Observe
What is present.
→
02
Release
What does not need to determine what happens next.
→
03
Act
Deliberately.
Proper Standard develops that capacity — earlier, more consistently and under greater pressure.
Agency is the capacity to choose.
Awareness alone does not change an outcome. Agency is what makes deliberate participation possible.
THE PROPER STANDARD SYSTEM
Wholeness is not achieved. It is inherent — and interference can affect how fully we access and express it. Self-auditing, agency, standard and action are how we return to it, again and again.
Life continues. New experience arises, new interference appears, and we self-audit again — returning, each time, to what was always inherent.
Time to action
How quickly can someone recognise what is shaping them, exercise agency and act from their standard?
Greater freedom in how you act.
Agency is the mechanism that makes choice possible. It is not the destination. The Method is concerned with how someone lives — with action taken from their standard. Life continues. New experience and interference arise. The process repeats.
F
Felt
What changes internally. Greater freedom, greater clarity, more space between trigger and action, a stronger sense of conscious participation.
O
Awareness on its own does not change an outcome. What matters is how quickly it becomes conscious participation. One measure we are particularly interested in: time to action.
Observable
What changes in behaviour. Decision-making, follow-through, communication, response under pressure, consistency between stated standards and actual behaviour.
O
Outcome
What changes as a result. Specific to the engagement and the person; a consequential decision, a team's execution, an organisation's culture, or another relevant measure.
Proper Standard develops that capacity — earlier, more consistently and under greater pressure.
Working with organisations.
01
Defined engagements
Built around a specific performance, leadership or environmental challenge.
We work across leaders, teams and systems to identify what is shaping current outcomes and develop greater agency inside the environment.
02
Longer-term advisory
The methodology becomes part of how leaders and teams observe, decide and participate.
03
Bespoke applications
Proper Standard IP adapted to a specific environment, population or performance need.
THE FOUNDERS
Proper Standard was created by Elle Begely and Tamara Hansen, co-founders and long-term business partners whose work spans human performance, strategy, brand, operations, physical environments and organisational systems. Their perspectives are different by design.
EB
Elle Begely
Her work centres on the human factors shaping decisions, performance and participation — identifying the deeper patterns, beliefs, conditioning and interference operating beneath the presenting issue.
Together, Elle and Tamara examine both the human being and the system they are participating within — addressing not only what a person is doing, but what may be producing it.
Tamara Hansen
Her work centres on environments and the behaviour they produce — a foundation in physical environments and design, expanded across physical, digital and social systems.
TH
THE LEXICON
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The capacity to consciously choose how you participate.
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The quality of participation you consciously choose to live from.
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The physical, digital, social and systemic surroundings influencing behaviour and performance.
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How you show up inside a moment, relationship, decision, environment or system.
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Anything within or around the whole human — Body, Environment, Mind and Energy — that disrupts their capacity to act from their standard.
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The ability to observe what is shaping you while there is still an opportunity to choose.
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Action that contains conscious choice.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Awareness must lead somewhere
Seeing a pattern is valuable. Changing how you participate is where the outcome begins to move.
Motivation has a role
Motivation can initiate action. Agency and standard determine what happens when motivation changes.
Environment matters
Every person is participating inside physical, social, digital and systemic environments that continuously influence what becomes easier, harder, normal or expected.
Human beings are not fixed
Patterns can be observed. Conditioning can be questioned. Behaviour can change. Agency can strengthen.
Freedom is experienced through participation
It does not require perfect circumstances. It becomes available whenever a person can recognise what is shaping them and consciously choose what happens next.
A founder is making a consequential decision while fear, identity, pressure and incomplete information are shaping the way they see the problem.
The work is not simply to make the decision. It is to identify what is influencing the person making it.
An executive repeatedly reacts to challenge in a way that undermines the standard they want to hold as a leader.
The work develops earlier recognition of what is shaping their participation and a greater capacity to act deliberately from their standard under pressure.
A team keeps producing the same unwanted outcome despite understanding the problem intellectually.
The work examines both the individual behaviour and the environment reinforcing it.
An organisation wants to change performance, culture or participation.
Proper Standard identifies the human and environmental factors producing the current outcome and develops a practical method for changing them.
An athlete or high-performance environment needs a repeatable way to identify what is shaping participation before a consequential moment.
BE ME and ORA provide a framework for observing the whole human, identifying meaningful change and creating an appropriate response before action occurs.
In practice.
Proper Standard can be applied wherever human participation materially affects an outcome. Choose the context closest to yours.