One of my best friends from college, Scot, used to talk about how he wished he had a soundtrack for his life that would play as he meandered through. Before digital music, that was a bit of an impossibility, but now, you could almost cobble together some version of that if you liked…
We are working with a company on the back end of cleaning up an incredible mess. Unknown to them, two key employees seem to have “quiet quit” many months before they actually left. Like a college student going through the motions for an entire semester, fooling everyone but themselves, the report card at the end of the term was a sobering reality to those who didn’t know…
I met with a leader of a large company before their annual offsite. We were scripting the event, and I wanted to help him create an introductory statement of where he felt they were and how he thought they were doing. He struggled mightily to say much good…
Sometimes when we work with a senior leader with a struggling area of their business, they are forced to make a leadership change. They level all their efforts on getting a proper replacement. But rather than hastily making the new hire, we often ask them to embody the role of the exiting leader for a season as a first step…
So how is all of this a problem? Because I believe that walking that journey toward clarity and transformation will change an individual or organization's future, it feels kinda weighty to carry around. Sort of a privileged burden. That is what calling and purpose feels like… a great treasure that you have both the honor and responsibility to offer to the world.
I am not telling you anything you don’t already know (in your heart of hearts at least). God created us for a purpose and He is about the business of us finding the life He intends for us. He wants us to go out on the great swelling tide of his purpose and tilt our bow toward unchartered waters.
There really isn’t any life worth living outside of the one we were created to play.
We are all a by-product of the lives we have lived up to this point. I left a very dysfunctional home and decided to take a path 180 degrees from everything I had ever known up to the point of my salvation in college. It wasn’t until I was married that I realized that the muscle memory of my life experiences would inexplicably and without intention, show up in my every day life.
One of the beautiful opportunities of our walk with God is that all of those experiences, even the worst ones, can be redeemed. As redeemed, they are monetized into a currency that allows us to live more powerfully and have greater impact on others.
During a recent vacation to Colorado, I fulfilled a lifelong dream… crossed one of those things off my shrinking bucket list. On the day that Young Life’s Trailwest Ranch was waiting to receive hundreds of visitors from dozens of families, they invited me to speak to their army of volunteers and staff. I spent some time in a coffee shop in Buena Vista trying to capture my thoughts and ideas. Typically, my heart lands on reminding people that they have something profound and amazing about them that uniquely reflects the Creator in a way that no one else can.
It is around 5 AM on a Saturday morning. When I first checked the clock it had a 4 handle. Experience tells me that trying to find my way back into some state of slumber is futile. My head is spinning. There was a season when my mind didn’t rest as a result of the usual things:
Those aren’t the things that tend to waken me anymore. It is more about thoughts, ideas, concepts, hopes, and my deepest desires.
The reality is that none of us arrive at this place without intention or a journey. When you excavate your own life as well as the prior generations, they carry powerful clues. In our SummitTrek LifePlan process we help everyone see how God has been intending and speaking through your story, experiences, hopes and dreams. The evidence is all there waiting to be unearthed and acknowledged.
A more clear, fulfilling, and powerful life awaits on the other side. If you desire clarity and an understanding of the best way forward for your organization or your family, it must begin with first finding the same for your own life.
We’ve all heard the concept of the stage dad or mom. That parent standing just off-stage, off the court, or even outside the classroom. Their child’s success is somehow attributed to their success in life. If the little “me” can somehow make it onto that team, make it into that college, or fit into that crowd, it somehow redeems the fact that I didn’t find the same success. I think it can translate into repressed hopes, dreams, and desires of the heart as well.
The organizations you lead and the roles you play there, should support and fulfill the purpose for your life, not the other way around. More often than not, we see leaders completely unaware of their calling or purpose other than what their vocational role might dictate.
It is our contention that you are not only created for a particular purpose, but that your Creator desperately wants you to know what it is. The clues are written on your heart, have been evident throughout your life, and are fully embodied in the things that bring you greatest joy, deepest pain, and get you out of bed in the morning.
