“If you know the why, you can bear any how.” – Nietzsche
Setting aside the question of whether one chooses to live with or without purpose, let’s consider purpose is wired-in at the very moment of conception.
To many, this may seem like an extreme principle, even bordering on the absurd.
Yet, like the enduring metaphor of Michelangelo’s ‘David’ — where the sculpture was seen as already existing within the marble, and Michelangelo merely removed the excess stone — this idea has been
resisted through the ages.
A leader once remarked, “I need to let go of so many things.”
I advised, “Don’t worry about those things. Focus on what’s important, and the rest will fall away.”
From purpose, all our real needs and perceived wants emerge, along with the corresponding“
helping functions that reveal them.
We receive cues, scaffolding,
support, and lift from our inborn purpose, often subconsciously.
Generati as Generative Leadership
It’s this interplay between our conscious attention,
alignment, capability, and the
helping available to us that paints our
intention as life experience. Here, understanding, adaptation, and assimilation of happiness and success converge — though not everyone has the same inherent need for happiness and success.
Purpose is wired-in @conception.
Just as Michelangelo’s ‘David’ was already within the marble, our purpose is already within us. We live in alignment with that purpose, often unconsciously and it is always available for discovery, disclosure, and acceptance.
“Purpose is working in us
Leaderwork is the ongoing process of bringing that purpose to conscious awareness, making it unconsciously competent over time.
“Purpose is what truly matters
You don’t create a purpose; you uncover it by shedding everything that isn’t purposeful, letting it fall away like the marble that concealed ‘David.’
Through self-inquiry, you reveal self-knowledge, which in turn leads to purposeful, actionable behavior.
Our Strategy-Focused Developmental Coaching System (SFDCS) has been refined over the years to distill purpose from:
IDENTITY
If you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or need some additional help, please visit https://www.leadu.com/comment/ to submit them. Someone will get back to you within 48 hours.
We hope you pick up valuable insights, ideas, and
tools during this process, which you can use for your own development as
well as your work and leadership with others.
You, Me, and We @LeadU
Mike R. Jay is a developmentalist utilizing consulting, coaching, mentoring, and trusted advice emergent from dynamic inquiry as a means to cue, scaffold, support, lift, and protect; offering inspiration to aspiring leaders who are interested in humaning where being, doing, having, becoming, contributing, protecting, and letting go help people have generative lives.