Purpose in Action:
Sometimes I stumble upon things that just make me stop and think to myself “My Goodness, this is exactly what I’m talking about. I wish I could be more like this!”
There is no mention of the word “purpose” in this entire clip, but that is exactly what I see when I watch this. In this chapter I talk about 3 types of purpose. There’s a case for all 3 types to be mentioned in here, but what is see most vividly is Pete Carroll’s quiet clarity of his Authentic Purpose.
Watch this clip. You’ll agree with me that this is worth your time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-wIAL0Dfsw
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Wow - great video, Adam. One of my biggest questions following the video was, how is that sense of purpose cultivated? How is it maintained, and channeled toward a worthwhile endeavor? Unfortunately, I doubt many of us are endowed with Pete Carroll's sense of optimism, so - as emerging leaders in a leadership development program - how can that sense of purpose be fostered and grown?
ReplyDeleteAwesome question, Nick. Here's my stab at an answer. You may remember I'm a huge fan of the Strengthsfinder 2.0 assessment from Gallup. It identifies your top 5 strengths (from a list of 34). And it's a helpful tool for excavating your authentic purpose. When I shared the Pete Carroll video with a friend she said "I bet his top strength is Positivity." She was right on. His purpose may very well be to look for the bright side in any situation. How many coaches would be fired from 2 NFL teams and still strive go coach--or to ask for a job at USC with so much public opposition? You can see that purpose of positivity show up all over the video--from the way he corrects unacceptable behavior from his athlets to walking in to gang terratory unescorted after midnight.
ReplyDeleteYou got it right, most of us are not endowed with the strength of Positivity in our top 5. I'm not. My #1 is strategy. It's in everything I do. One of the students, Jack, in my youth leadership program has strategy as his #1 as well. I asked them all to write a personal mission statement (purpose and mission are the same thing to me) and here's Jack's--15 years old: "I will help people get what they deserve by helping them come up with a successful strategy. If someone truly tries to help themselves, they should succeed in doing so."
In the purpose chapter I talk about 3 types of purpose. Original purpose (survival and thriving) should be every leader's uber-purpose. Situational purpose--which we can talk about another time. Authentic purpose is unique to each individual. Pete's has something to do with positivity, I'm sure. Finding our authentic purpose is a highly individualistic task. Nobody will make us do it (unless you're in my youth leadership program :D). But ultimately it's a task we must take on through introspection. There's a book I really like called "Let Your Life Speak." You don't have to read the book (but it would be worthwhile). You just have to look at the title. The footprint of your authentic purpose is there already from the path your life has taken. What are the things that really matter to you? Forget the things that you tried because someone else wanted you to. Your authentic purpose has already been cultivated in the laboratory of life. It's already a sappling that you have to find amid the forest--easily overshadowed by things like other people's purposes or by what society says is cool. But your purpose is there and I offer a few clues on how to find it. It's not hiding from you. It just may not have found it's place in the sun...yet.
Not only does authentic purpose require introspection to find. It also requires a certain amount of courage to nurture. Sometimes we have to re-negotiate aspects of our life that are incongruent with our purpose. Meaning, before we knew our purpose we made decisions and charted directions. But then we find our purpose that, had we known it earlier, we never would have taken that path.
This is why authenticy preceeds purpose in the PL model. And it's why sponsorship follows purpose. And it's also why resilience follows sponsorship. Authenticity is about self awareness, self acceptance, self development and self assertion. This feeds into authentic purpose--understanding your own personal "why." Sponsorship is, in part, about bringing your own purpose to fuller expression. In doing so, you may experience resistance (which is why a leader needs resilience).
I bet you couldn't guess that you touched on a topic that's important to me. :D
Talking about this stuff is something that gives me energy--so that must mean it's connected to my purpose. Which is another clue about how to identify your purpose--what gives you energy that may look like work to other people.
I can't remember if I discussed this in the current version of the purpose chapter (it was in previous versions), but I had an opportunity to explore my authentic purpose in a workshop about 10 years ago. We worked in teams to help each other articulate each other's authentic purpose. Here's what my group came up with to describe my purpose: To create inspired access to uncommon wisdom through design integrity and a spirit of playful, awestruck wonder.
It sounds lofty, but when I'm at my best (which is not often enough) it is dead on. In the better parts of the PL curriculum, I hope you can see that purpose reflected. My constant rewriting is to make it more reflected.
Which leads to another clue. Authentic purpose is a sifting process. Maybe it hits some people like a flash of lightning. For me, it's a matter of iteration--searching, drafting, refining.
Thank you for your question. I try to explain to people that I'm helpless to talk about this model until I'm aided by questions like yours.