The Power Of Purpose - Part 2

This leadership experience was a defining moment in my life. From a position of strength but at the limits of what gave us our success, we felt the call to be more, or we would slip into decline. I too felt I had reached the limits of my growth as a person and leader within a paradigm that fragmented people.

Later I realized that an ancient world view—that of the organization and person as living entities—had resurrected within us as we reached the limits of the machine model of organizations. This was a time of high energy creativity with business results that were phenomenal. I had a glimpse of what is possible in our lives, leadership, and organizations.

The CEO said I had changed the company forever and had created a vision and strategy for the entire organization. I thought I would be rewarded for my creativity and leadership. Instead I experienced organizational assassination—the marginalization and scapegoating that befalls many who lead others to a nobler future. I related to the poem by Virginia Moore:

The soul that has believed
And is deceived
Thinks nothing for a while,
All thoughts are vile…

The soul that had believed
And was deceived
Ends by believing more
Than ever before.

I hired consultants from far away to come in to evaluate our change effort with fresh eyes. When they finished, I asked, "How long do I have to stay?" They said, "One year." As a leader I felt responsible for the change effort and for the people I had led through massive change. I did not want to abandon them.

I would stay until others were ready to lead. I felt guilty for leaving people who followed me. I also knew I could not stay if I could not create and contribute. To feel alive again, I had to save myself from a work place that tried to divide me from myself.

The tremendous losses I anticipated—of my art, of my work, of my dreams, of my income, of my relationships—sent me deep within myself. For a long time before I left the organization I explored my spiritual life as I grieved the losses before me: I read, I studied, I thought, I dreamed, I imagined, I reflected, and I talked to two great friends and consultants. Our conversations made my dreams possible. My photography and photo trips provided solitude and a connection with nature. Gradually I articulated a purpose for my life:

"I live my life as a series of mental, spiritual, and emotional adventures, and I share my insights and experiences with others."

I would strive to be a model for others in how I handled the challenges of my life. I would share my wounds and mistakes more than my perfection and successes.

I wanted my goals for who I wanted to be to seem impossible to achieve. Were my objectives grandiose or do we expect too little of ourselves I wondered? I believe we need to ask more of ourselves. I sensed humanity was on the brink of a massive transformation. I wanted to be a small part of this change.

I wanted to be my own learning laboratory and begin to learn how to live, work, and lead in times of unprecedented exponential change that would alter who we are as people.

I explored my deepest values anew: truth, courage, intimacy, learning, and compassion and vowed to reweave my values throughout the fabric of my life tied together by the encompassing value of authenticity. My values would give me strength to act as they had enabled me to live a life of integrity at the newspaper.

I created a new vision for my life that included travel and photography in Africa and a return to academia to pursue a Ph.D. I would learn to write, and see what life as a consultant was like. A final test confronted me before I left the organizational world: I was offered a dream job, pursued for many years, in my fantasy city. I said no. My dream had changed. I wanted to go into the unknown-- not repeat the past.

My life would be my art--an anxiety provoking prospect. I would jump into the unknown, follow my heart, and try my best. Abandon would outweigh practical matters. I didn't particularly know what I was doing or where I was going. I hoped to evolve my life and learn to live anew as I adopted a new, organic world view.

As I internalized the new world view, I would adapt the details of my life to it (see Pamphlet 42). The constants would be my purpose and values. When energized, what exquisite fear and excitement I felt. When tired, what awful anxiety I felt. To not venture: spiritual death.

I resigned and stepped into the unknown in January of 1994. Since then I've lived the life of adventures I see as my purpose in life.

Externally my journey has taken me many places unexpected: divorce, physical moves, career changes, a return to academia at midlife, a year to pause in the spiritual energy of the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, and a new marriage to my spiritual partner. I've certainly felt alive.

Internally, my Journey was new and also vaguely familiar—the inner dynamics not unlike the earlier journey in my life described in Pamphlet 70 although the context and emotions were new and different. I was comforted by the knowledge that I had lived through much more difficult experiences earlier in life.

As with all journeys in life—especially spiritual ones--there is a dark side: I faced perils, challenges, and obstacles I did not expect or plan for. So will you. I changed careers, feared failure, and experienced the humiliations of the novice. I divorced after 35 years of marriage and lived alone for the first time in my life. I watched my investments shrink in the stock market of 2001. I feared growing old—alone and broke. My mother died. My best friend died. Grown children did not understand.

I questioned my God, my faith, and my judgment as I learned to live with the uncertainty of life, the anxiety of freedom, and the loneliness of authenticity. This abyss and death of self prepared the fertile ground of my spiritual growth and inner shifts rightly called spiritual awakenings. The outer forms of my life changed as an inner alchemy created a new identity from the flames of an old life transmuted. Nothing came easy. A deeper confidence, always there, grew.

Without a strong sense of purpose, it would have been easy to return to the familiarity of the newspaper industry as so many colleagues had done after brief ventures out to pursue their callings. A strong sense of purpose helps us stay strong in our intent as we face anxiety, our own limits, and the unknown.

I will not die alone and broke. I learn to live in new ways consistent with a new world view. I continue to put my house in order. I will never finish. My new life is not perfect--it is full: I am healthy, I love and am loved, and I do work that I am passionate about. I am willing to suffer as is necessary to gain a greater depth and richness in life. My faith is stronger albeit imperfect.

I embrace the mystery of life and observe the mad and reactive (inauthentic) scurrying around so common today (I am not immune to it myself) and those seeking to avoid the realities of life. I am better at seeing the changing seasons as they approach and better at cooperating with the rhythms of change. I grow more skilled at staying energized and creative more of the time. I feel alive.

Emerson wrote that people want to be settled; only so far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. I hope to remain unsettled in order to live fully. Around and around life goes held together by a deep sense of purpose. And I have new adventures to experience.

Purpose is our deepest reason for existence. Our purpose is our most profound expression of our most basic intent as spiritual beings. Purpose reflects our deepest essence and provides a consistency of intent in the unfolding of our lives.

Purpose is more than a call to right livelihood. It is about the spiritual journey of the hero, and the return of the hero to serve humanity—self affirmation AND commitments beyond the self. When we live our purpose we make our unique contribution to humanity for all of eternity and our lives have meaning. I don't know if purpose is genetic, learned, God-given, or a mix of all three. I just know it is real. To live from our purpose is a choice we make or refuse.

Many seem to want to avoid a life of purpose (Gallup says 74% of American workers are disengaged clockwatchers). Many seem to want to stay with the desperation of meaninglessness even as they say they want a life of meaning in exchange for the illusion of security. Courage is rare; fear is great for many in our society. Others fear being themselves and retreat to a fundamentalism that demands conformity and control, which they confuse for purpose.

Many people rush and keep busy to avoid others, themselves, and intimacy. They rush to distract themselves and to avoid the big questions of life. People rush to avoid seeing themselves honestly, what they do to their world and others, and what they might become if they escaped the bonds of mediocrity. They rush to avoid choices. They stay under the control of others and live inauthentic lives.

I want to warn you. The talk of purpose is trendy today. A genuine need in people for meaning and completeness is at risk of becoming a quick-fix fad in our shallow and impatient world. A courageous journey of reclaiming our humanity is no quick-fix and, therefore, not a popular course of change.

Nobility has nothing to do with ease. Our lack of meaning tells us we are not living naturally. If we want to replace vacuous lives with creative lives, we need to do something differently—from the big choices of life to the details of daily living. Facing our deepest selves—the light of our deepest decency and potential and the dark of facing painful truths—is hard. We will suffer loss along the way—it is not a spiritual journey without anguish along with joy.

We may have to walk away from empty marriages to find intimacy and destructive relationships to form community. We may need to abandon the insanity of our organizations to find right livelihood. We may be marginalized by those who benefit from the insanity of the times and have to stand alone courageously. We will feel lonely and anxious at times (anxiety is how it feels to grow). We must integrate aspects of our selves that we prefer to deny. We must face the suffering we experience and that surrounds us in our world if we want to be fully human.

Abraham Maslow wrote that to save our world we must create the "good person." he defined the good person as:

The self-evolving person,

The fully human person,

The self-actualizing person….

I truly believe that in the chaos of today's world, we must focus first on being authentic and whole--and then on being good leaders, followers, and team members. Leaders who want to change organizations must first be the change they want to bring about; people transform first—organizations follow later.

This work gives us life.

In "The Death of Ivan IIllych" a man on his deathbed reflects on his life, how he had done everything right, obeyed the rules, became a judge, married, had children, and was looked on as a success. Yet, in his last hours, he wondered why he felt a failure.

Philosopher and author Peter Koestenbaum said courage begins with the decision to face the ultimate truth about existence: we live free to define ourselves at every moment. We become what we choose to be from the depth of our souls. I am mature when I am the author of my own life. It is not enough to simply obey all the rules.

What makes you feel alive?

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