Defining Your Purpose–The Certainty of Uncertainty

My soul can find no staircase to Heaven unless it be through Earth's loveliness. - Michelangelo

I truly believe that everything that we do and everyone that we meet is put in our path for a purpose. There are no accidents; we're all teachers - if we're willing to pay attention to the lessons we learn, trust our positive instincts and not be afraid to take risks or wait for some miracle to come knocking at our door. - Marla Gibbs

The #1206 “fiction” series continues …

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Geri crawled into bed next to Will.  It had been a busy but fruitful, fulfilling day.  She kissed Will and snuggled lovingly into him.  Sleep came fast and easy for her …..

…. and then she awoke with a start.

She was no longer in her bed but sitting in a chair in a darkened, softly lit room empty of anything but the comfortable chair she found herself in.

She looked frantically for Will but he was nowhere to be found and for a moment, panic began to seize her.

A voice from nowhere, everywhere and within her spoke softly and gently to her.  “There is nothing to fear here, Geri”, it said kindly.

The voice paused for a moment before continuing.

“Before you move on in your journey, it is normal that your journey-to-date be reviewed.  Hopefully you will find the review to be useful”, the voice said.

Images appeared around Geri, movies floating in the air about her.  She recognized them all.  It was her Life in all of its early struggle.  One moment she was observing being bullied in school, another time she saw abuse at the hands of someone who sought to relieve his pain by pushing it on her.  She watched her younger self struggle with her career and a Life of personal difficulty.  Years of frustration, unanswered prayers and a sense of being lost in Purpose were replayed and she felt painful, all-too-familiar emotions welling up inside her as she remembered those days.

“How do you know this?”, Geri asked in bewilderment.

“This is not the time for questions”, replied the voice, “Observe.”

Geri watched the movies in silence, tears rolling down her cheeks.  Small, personal victories and moments of happiness were interspersed with long stretches of difficulty.  She relived her feelings of fear, failure and a strong sense of unworthiness that she had experienced then.

And then the movies disappeared.

Geri sat in silence, digesting what she had just watched.

“This was your Life story”, the voice said.

She cleared her throat and spoke.

“That wasn’t my whole story”, she said quietly.

“True”, replied the voice, “We spent a long time preparing you for your real story.  Sometimes, difficult things were sent your way to prepare you for your Purpose.  Other times we sent gifts to you in the form of opportunity but you resisted them, choosing the difficult path when an easier one was available.  Some lessons were necessary.  Some were voluntary on your part.  All of them were important.”

The voice paused.

“Observe”, it said.

Another movie appeared.  It showed a meeting she had had with a long time friend many years ago.  They were talking about her struggles as they had done in the past and he was encouraging her to stop being fixated on what had gone wrong in her Life. He implored her to see her difficulties as preparation for something greater and to allow herself to be guided towards her real calling instead of driving towards what she believed that calling to be.  He was reading to her from his Bible, quoting Ecclesiastes  3:1-11 and how everything mattered in its own time.  The time had come to use her talents and gifts in the way she was meant to and not in the way she thought she was supposed to, he had implored.

“I remember this meeting”, Geri said, “Hank was telling me something I already knew.”

“Perhaps”, replied the voice, “Hank, or Gabriel as we know him, was telling you something important that you had ignored for your entire adult Life.  So while you claim to have known this all along, it was your failure to take any action that kept you trapped in the Life that you hated.  Gabriel’s task when you met him that day was to get you to think differently.  Do you remember what happened after that meeting?”

“Yes”, Geri replied, “Will and I decided to trust our instinct more.  I gave up on my dreams of running a big, fancy, impactful company and we settled on a bed and breakfast that we had had our eye on for some time.  It was kind of a silly dream I guess but I always like it was something that kept calling me and so we gave in to the feeling and followed it.”

“A silly dream?”, asked the voice, “Observe.”

Movies again began to play in the air around her.  One movie showed a successful artist proudly exhibiting his art to an admiring audience in a large art gallery.  Another movie showed a couple lying on a beach, intertwined in each other as they watched the sun go down.  In another, a young man was saying goodbye to his father as he lay dying in a hospital bed.

Other movies played all around her.

“Who are these people?”, Geri asked as she watched them all in awe and bewilderment.

“The young artist stayed at your bed and breakfast when he was struggling to find his way in his vocation.”, replied the voice, “The couple were experiencing the death throes of their marriage when they decided to give it one last try by spending a romantic weekend at that same bed and breakfast.  The other young man and his father had become estranged over the years and had decided that it was important that they reconnect and they did so at your bed and breakfast shortly before his father died.”

The voice paused for a moment.

“All of these people were struggling.  Their lives changed when they met the owners of the bed and breakfast.  As their Life Journey took them through your bed and breakfast, they were transformed.”

The voice paused again before continuing.

“As were you and Will”, it said gently.

“I don’t understand”, said Geri quietly.

“We spent your entire Life preparing you for your real Purpose.  You fought us and resisted us the whole way.  When you finally acquiesced, the Purpose we had for you was allowed to come to fruition.  You wanted to serve people but you kept getting in your own way.  Impactful service was much easier to achieve and closer at hand than you realized.”

Geri sat in silence, tears once again rolling down her cheeks.

“I didn’t know”, she said quietly.

“Nor were you meant to”, replied the voice, “You would have attempted too many shortcuts had you known.  Human beings cheat if they know the answers in advance.”

“What about Will?”, she asked, “Where is he?  Can I see him?”

“He still has a small part of his Calling remaining”, replied the voice, “You will see him soon.”

There was a moment of silence.

“You once had someone important that you lost”, said the voice gently, “Tell me about her.”

Geri choked down the sobs that wanted to well up within her and she looked down at the floor.

“My mother was everything”, she said, “When she died, I felt like I had lost my champion.”

“What would you tell your mother if you could speak to her right now?”, asked the voice, “What do you think your Champion would tell you about all of the people whose lives were changed when they met you and Will at your bed and breakfast?”

Geri shook her head for a moment and then looked up to answer the question.

As she did so, she was stunned to see her mother standing in front of her.  Behind her, others stood, people that she had recognized as having helped her over the years or whom she had helped.

She opened her mouth to speak …..

To be continued.

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© 2016 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Background

This blog post is a long distance dedication to someone I can not identify.

Perhaps the person is you.

You know what it means.

Someone is waiting for you.

What are you waiting for?

Series Origin

This series, a departure from my usual musings, is inspired as a result of conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States, senior officers in the US Military and other interesting folks as well as my own professional background as a Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy advisor and large-scale technology architect.

While this musing is just “fiction” (note the quotes) and a departure from my musings on technology, strategy, politics and society, as a strategy guy, I do everything for a reason and with a measurable outcome in mind. :-)

This “fictional” musing is a continuation of the #1206 series noted here.

A Purpose-Filled Life–Applying Your Strengths

Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses. - Marilyn vos Savant

Figure out what you really love doing and use your strengths on a daily basis. - Tom Rath

I spend a lot of my day helping people and organizations figure out how to do things better, whether it is in the area of strategy definition and application, extremely large-scale IT architecture, team collaboration or whatever other need serves those who interact with me.

When establishing or attempting to understand the foundation for the project, I always ask the people I am interacting with questions such as “What do you do well?  What are your strengths?” and even in the 21st century, I continue to be amazed by the people and organizations who cannot answer the question at all.

For those who can answer the question by parading their Myers-Briggs test, Strengths Finder 2.0 result, Teamability report or any other test, most can’t answer my obvious follow-up questions – “What do they mean to you?  How are you applying them?”

They seem to have taken the test (or tests) and having ascertained that they are an INTJ, a crouching tiger, a blend of red and blue, a squirrel or whatever other result their specific test told them, they move on without applying the important information that was just handed to them.

Information without application is mere entertainment but when one applies information, it becomes knowledge, which when applied produces results, which when learned from produces wisdom.

When people or organizations apply the information provided to them, they discover a number of things, including but not limited to what make a person most / least productive, what makes a person a better or worse contributor / collaborator, what turns them on / off, etc.  Since the net of these attributes, the good and the bad, roll up to produce a strong or poorly performing organization, knowledge of these attributes is essential to creating a healthy, strong organization.

Awareness of this information also provides individuals with a filter by which they can evaluate the cacophony of information, requests and demands flowing in their direction, thus allowing them to choose what they allow to enter their spheres of influence and to decide what is worthy / necessary for them to respond to - for their betterment and for the betterment of those who interact with them personally or professionally.

A Personal Illustration

My Myers-Briggs profile is INTJ (the Mastermind profile).  Specifically, the four letters mean the following:

• Introversion – I prefer to be quiet and reserved in interaction.  Quiet observation allows me to learn more than walking in with a swagger that suggests I know it all already.
• Intuition – I prefer abstraction and big picture thinking (i.e. “where is this project / intention going?”).
• Thinking – I prefer data over emotion / rhetoric to make decisions and to measure results.
• Judgmental – I prefer plans and predictability over “winging it”.

Meanwhile, my Strengths Finder 2.0 strengths are:

• Futuristic – I am focused on long term outcomes – yours, mine, your organization, etc.  I never stop thinking about this.
• Strategic – I prefer focusing on strategic planning around measurable outcomes and goals over tactical execution or setting out without a measurable destination in mind.
• Connectedness – I believe everyone has a role to play if we can ascertain what their strengths are commensurate with what we need and we can find a way to leverage their strengths.  Too often we don’t do this and end up with “problem children” on our project, blaming them for something that they can’t prevent because they are hardwired to do what they are doing.
• Achiever – results are everything.  If we can’t measure them, we don’t know if we have achieved them.
• Learner – the constant acquiring, application and sharing of knowledge is essential to my well-being.

My Teamability report suggest that I am a Founder, binding vision and action together and acting as a “conductor / orchestrator” to produce results that improve the lives of people, organizations and the world at large.

Most people, having acquired their “official list” as noted above nod and smile and then move on with their Life, not applying what they have just discovered.

They also miss the importance of understanding the relationship between their strengths and to see how they support / feed each other.  Observe how my strengths support each other in the following diagram (click on the diagram for a larger version).

In the diagram above, ideas feed my futuristic strength (where my brain casts a vision), the vision flows to my strategic strength (where measurable outcomes, goals and plans are defined), the measurable outcomes are sent to my achiever / connectedness strengths where collaboration with others becomes critical to achieving the desired result and the strength of learner is used to measure progress and adjust where necessary.

Meanwhile, my INTJ attributes tell myself and others how I will apply these strengths and my Teamability role drives my need to inspire others and to orchestrate the desired result.

The impact of my strengths on my behavior and results is easily observed.  For example, one can see that if I am given gory details to accomplish, I will not like doing it and I am unlikely to produce a useful result.  While I am an empathic person, if you give me a role where I need to be empathic all the time, my need for data application (on their side and mine) will eventually overrule my sense of empathy, which may not be desired.  While I am considered a strong communicator, if you make communication my primary role, I may get frustrated if I don’t have a role in casting the future, designing strategic plans, etc.  If you give me a role where I am an order taker, my Teamability role as Founder will cause me to resist.  I can follow direction – just not day in and day out.  If you invite me to an agenda-less meeting, I always say no since a predictable, effective use of my time and contribution cannot be defined.

The list goes on and on but if one understands my strengths, how I react to the request of another in fact becomes quite predictable!

And so, if I am asked to participate in something where I cannot see a way to leverage and apply my strengths and attributes, then I will usually decline the opportunity since I will likely not be happy with the project, those around me will likely be unhappy with me and what I / we produce will likely be less than ideal as a result.

Some people think this makes me aloof.

I think it optimizes my result (and theirs).

Applying the Illustration

A senior executive of an organization reached out to me the other day because he wanted to speak to me about something I had written on my blog.

The request was somewhat vague, where he indicated that he wanted to discuss “general stuff” with me.

Think of how this request gets processed by my strengths (which are hard-wired inside me and are non-malleable and non-negotiable).

• Futuristic – I don’t know what vision he has and he is not asking me to cast one so I can’t apply this strength.
• Strategic – I am not being asked to evaluate or create a plan with measurable outcomes and goals so I can’t apply this strength.
• Achiever – I am not being asked to produce a result nor evaluate one so I can’t apply this strength.
• Connectedness – There is no sense of collaboration present as I am not being invited to collaborate or leverage my network to collaborate so I can’t apply this strength.
• Learner – I may learn a few things in the interaction but I am not being asked to apply or share that learning, thus the knowledge nuggets are more for entertainment purposes than anything and don’t really serve the need of this strength.

Then consider how my Myers-Briggs attributes evaluate the request:

• Introversion – I prefer to be quiet and reserved in interaction.  He has attempted to condescendingly “talk down to me” in the past and while I never back down from a fight if required, his past performance suggests that his future intention will be much the same, something I have no interest in.
• Intuition – I prefer abstraction and big picture thinking (“where is this going?”) but he doesn’t want to tell me in advance, so likely my thoughts on “the big picture” aren’t desired.
• Thinking – I prefer data over emotion / rhetoric to make decisions and to measure results while his intention is to “talk down to me” or influence / intimidate me with nothing other than emotion so my desire to apply data usefully will not be satisfied.
• Judgmental – I prefer plans and predictability over “winging it” but he prefers a meeting with no agenda (which could produce anything but most likely nothing of value).

Meanwhile, my Teamability role of Founder calls me to orchestrate results that positively impact people around me, something I will not be provided the opportunity to accomplish here.

Now a yes-person, a person who has no understanding of their strengths and attributes makeup or a person who doesn’t value their own time would likely have said yes, either feeling intimated to attend, feeling a need to feed their ego with “I’m in demand / I’m important” or hoping to produce “a result” (any result) but instead they produce a meeting with little results of any value but potentially a lot of frustration (or worse) amongst the participants in the room.

I on the other hand, understanding how the request feeds into my strengths (or not) decline the request since I see myself as offering no value in regards to the things that “turn me on” or serve others.

Some people get indignant when their requests (or demands) are turned down.

I prefer to honor who I am, what I bring to the table and what value I bring.  If I don’t bring value, I don’t show up.  If you don’t bring value, I don’t invite you.

Again, some people think that this attitude is aloof or “stuck-up”.

I disagree – I think I am honoring and respecting one of the most important gifts that exists – your time and mine.

Where it really bends people’s brains is when I obtain their strengths profile in advance of a meeting (which I often do).  I use to maximize collaboration and results but more devious people use it to manipulate participants who don’t know how to honor their own strengths.  Knowing your strengths, defending how they are used and knowing how to apply them can protect you from such miscreants.

The Bottom Line

Most people I interact with cannot identify their strengths and even if they have done so, have no idea how to apply them, how to use them as a filter for information coming their way or how to use them as a lens by which others can see how to interact with them effectively and appropriately.

When we learn to honor, apply and communicate our strengths, we find that our results improve, our interactions improve and our future (as well as the future of those around us) improves both personally and professionally.

Are you aware of your strengths?

Do you understand how they work together?

Do you know how to apply them?

Do you apply them?

Do you honor and respect them (especially their hard-wired nature)?

Do you communicate them to others to enhance interaction with you?

Are you sure?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS I am not overlooking the importance of values, ethics, morals and faith since knowledge and application of these are essential components of a healthy, purpose-filled Life.  However, because I consider these to be essential, foundational components that underlie everything we think, say and do and because we all define these a little differently, I didn’t get into a detailed analysis of them here.

Also note that many self-improvement programs fly in the face of our natural, hardwired strengths, making a one-size-fits-all approach very difficult to apply successfully.  For example, people who say you should end your day with your inbox empty and your desk cleared may have something that works for them but it doesn’t work for me.  That is why awareness of one’s strengths is essential if one is shopping for such programs to make sure they work together effectively.