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Leaders in Pursuit of Purpose

December 5, 2018 By Dave Ferguson Leave a Comment

Leaders in Pursuit of Purpose
Image Credit: Shutterstock

 

You have accomplished a great deal as a leader. Maybe you started a business and hit your initial income goals. Or perhaps you have climbed the ladder of success in your field to a very high level.

Others look at your life and think you “have it made.”

But you know the dirty little secret.

Something is missing. You don’t know what…but something is missing.

While you put on your success face during the day, your nights are filled with restlessness.

While you go through the motions of your work and daily life, there is a sense of apathy, boredom, or dread.

The work you used to love now feels uninspiring.

You may realize your career success has impacted other areas of your life, and not in a good way. Perhaps your health, relationships, or sense of personal fulfillment have suffered.

You read books like Purpose Driven Life, and while the messages are good and sound, you still have that gnawing sense that something is missing.

That “something missing” is, indeed purpose.

Purpose is the driving factor of human beings. We are either living our purpose or searching for it, and it seems elusive. In a sense, purpose is our highest potential – it is the ultimate reason we exist. Even those who are living their purpose will plateau at times and experience a sense of rudderless-ness.

Here are signs you are struggling with purpose.

  • Boredom
  • Apathy
  • Dread
  • Lack of fulfillment, even though you have everything you need and more
  • Resentment toward those who are living their purpose
  • Fear that you may never find your purpose
  • Issues in other areas of life beyond work: relationships, spiritual, health, or personal finances, for example
  • Restlessness and feelings that something is missing
  • Frustration or anger

What to do when you are at these points.

  • Understand this is a normal part of being human

Humans are designed for purpose. Each of us comes equipped with innate strengths, and we have a unique blend of skills and life experiences as well. We seek to use these tools to fulfill our purpose. But we are human. We don’t have it all figured out yet. And that is okay. The act of seeking, striving, plateauing, and then resuming our pursuit is…life. The key is to expect the ups and downs of fulfilling purpose, and work with it.

  • Rest

It is hard to bring your fullest potential in your work when you are exhausted. As a leader, managing your energy is critical. You must be at your best in order to lead your team to be their best. Stephen Covey’s Habit #7 – Sharpening the Saw – is a critical habit for long-term success. In this day and age, more is expected of leaders than ever before. Competition is fierce. Margins are tight. Challenges are many. Sharpening the saw is not only a good suggestion; it is an essential life practice.

  • Look for a new challenge

Some leaders are blindsided when they reach a level of success – something major to which they have aspired – and then find they are not satisfied with that success. This is because there is still more potential.

The cure?

Rest, then pursue a new and higher challenge. You may not “feel” like pursuing a new challenge, but once you begin, you will once again resume your path to purpose.

  • Face your fears

Fulfilling your purpose and reaching your highest potential can be fear-inducing. What if you miss the mark? What if you pursue the wrong purpose? What if your ladder of success is pinned to the wrong wall? These are fears of failure.

What if you do succeed? This is the fear of success, and it has the same effect as the fear of failure – stagnation.

Give yourself permission to experiment, fail, and even succeed. Everything you learn along the path of life and work is of value to you in your pursuit of purpose. Don’t wait until you know your purpose – start from where you are, and purpose will reveal itself with more clarity as you go.

  • Focus on legacy

We often confuse accomplishments with purpose. Purpose is bigger than accomplishments. It is the core of who you are as a person, and what you leave behind for those who follow.

In this sense, you lay a path to purpose day by day, but you may never fully realize that purpose in your lifetime.

Think of the many authors, architects, artists, and leaders from history. Many died penniless, perhaps with a sense of purposelessness. But their legacy lived on, well beyond their lives. They had done what they were gifted to do, and that was their purpose. They may not have realized it, but their lives served great purpose.

Leaders would do well to seek to serve with the gifts they have been given, and let purpose unfold in its own time.

In the classical Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey thought he had purpose. He was going to travel and see the world. He was going to have an adventurous life.

But the reality of his life took a different turn. He worked in his father’s struggling business, stayed in his hometown, married, had children, and lived in an old drafty house. His life seemed purposeless to him.

But when given the chance to see how life for others would have been if he had never been born, he realized his life had even greater purpose than he imagined.

As you go about your day-to-day life and business, focus not on purpose, but on service. How can you, as a leader, serve others? This creates legacy.

 

“The Bridge Builder,” a poem by Will Allen Dromgoole says it well.

When a man was asked…

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at evening tide?

 

He said….

There followed after me to-day

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!


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Dave FergusonDave Ferguson is “The Leaders’ Coach”, an internationally recognized executive leadership coach, speaker, facilitator, and author. Are you interested in talking to Dave about coaching or having Dave speak to inspire and motivate your team? “ASK COACH DAVE” at 704-907-0171 or at Dave@AskCoachDave.com.

A Lesson in Effective Executive Leadership

August 2, 2017 By Dave Ferguson Leave a Comment

A Lesson in Effective Executive Leadership

The Difference Between Failures and Mistakes

To put it simply: A mistake is an action while a failure is a result of an action. Mistakes are errors that can be corrected, but only if knowledge is truly mined from failure.

One of the biggest mistakes I see clients make is never trying. When clients say to me, “I’m just not sure of the outcome,” I immediately see that fear is taking control of their mindset. They are thinking: I could lose. They need to think: I could win.

These clients don’t need to be talked through their fear, but rather taught how to talk themselves through it. As a culture, we are obsessed with outcome. However, in order to grow as a leader, we should instead focus on process.

MISTAKES AS A BADGE OF HONOR

It is human nature to be embarrassed by our mistakes and want to minimize their exposure. Right after making a mistake is when most of us have felt — myself included — like a “do-over” button would be the greatest modern invention. However, by telling the truth and being transparent, we allow others to truly see who we are. This helps us shed feelings of embarrassment and embrace opportunities to grow.

We should embrace mistakes as part of the leadership process. This is not to say you should ignore outcome completely. If negative outcomes occur again and again and establish a pattern, it could indicate a hitch in your method that you aren’t correcting.

A mistake is a signal both that you’ve attempted something new and that you’ve made an error along the way.  You have channeled your inner Thomas Edison and found yet another way not to make a light bulb. Congratulations! Now, alter your process and try again.

FAILURE AS A LABEL

One of the most harmful actions a person can perform is to label themselves as a failure — even on a subconscious level — because of a mistake. Failure is tricky business because it is often dangerously regarded as an integral marker of a person’s personality in the same way a person could be called any number of attributes, such as flighty, lazy, generous, kind, or optimistic.

If you stop and really think how often — and quickly — we describe ourselves as “good” or “bad” at a given task and assign labels to that failure (or success), it is astonishing. As much as we are a society focused on outcome, we equally focus on measuring said outcomes into quantifiable data.

You are an advanced learner. You register in the 98th percentile. You are labeled “behind” because you need a bit of extra help in a certain area.

Most labels are, in fact, gained through comparing ourselves to others. This comparison can lead to many of us to never developing our skills over time, or being too afraid to try because these labels get in our heads.

This is related to what I call the “Scale of Life.” Every great act you perform as a leader is measured by a grain of sand on one side of the scale. On the other side of the scale are grains of sand representing mistakes. The moment you allow fear to take over action, a cement block is placed on this side of the scale. This cement block represents fear and it will win every time.

You must believe that you are capable of succeeding. Are you giving yourself a chance at greatness?


Dave Ferguson is “The Leaders’ Coach”, an internationally recognized executive leadership coach, speaker, facilitator, and author. Are you interested in having Dave speak to inspire and motivate your team? “ASK COACH DAVE” at 704-907-0171 or at Dave@AskCoachDave.com.

The Painful Causes of Fence Sitting

May 10, 2017 By Dave Ferguson Leave a Comment

The Painful Causes of Fence Sitting

When I was a young, adventurous boy, I often would climb fences as a means of taking shortcuts. On one such occasion, I stopped halfway over, which resulted in me getting stuck on the top of a chain-link fence. I was eventually able to get down, but I ended up with a quarter-sized gash on my leg that required several stitches. It was a painful and costly lesson.

Today, I am known by many as someone who effectively assists leaders in making tough decisions. The fact is, however, they are not always tough decisions. Sometimes, they are just a matter of being stuck on the fence.

If you are a business owner or in a leadership role in business, sitting on the fence can be painful and costly. Delaying a decision – procrastination – can take a problem and make it a crisis.

Yet, while many know this, it still happens. Why is this?

Here are five reasons people sit on the proverbial fence.

1. Fear

When I got to the top of that rather large fence, I made the mistake of stopping and thinking about where I was. At that point, fear kicked in, and I stopped making progress. You know the result – my perceived fear became real pain.

Question to ask yourself: What fear is holding me back?

2. Indecision

When I stopped at the top of the fence, I became indecisive.

Question to ask yourself: What decision do I need to make to get off the fence?

3. Perfectionism

The perfect solution for me, while sitting atop the fence, would have been for someone to help me over and provide aid, but the perfect solution did not present itself.

In business today, if you wait for things to be perfect, you are going to be waiting a very long time. Can you afford the time or money it will take to wait for perfection?

Question to ask yourself: What perfect solution am I waiting for?

4. Anger

Sometimes, we delay decisions out of anger. Procrastination is nothing more than passive resistance, whether it is in resisting others or ourselves.

Question to ask yourself: Am I allowing anger to cloud or paralyze my decisions?

5. Laziness

We tend to choose easy over hard in business and in life. Whatever my friends and I were chasing that fence-climbing day, I can assure you, I didn’t get to it. Efficiency is good, but shortcuts are not always the best way to reach a goal.

As a leader, you must frequently ask yourself if you are spending most of your time completing the easy work, while the hard and more profitable decisions and actions are being put on the back burner.

Question to ask yourself: Am I looking for the easy way out of a hard situation or the best way?

That day years ago, I chose a zone many people choose often. It’s called a comfort zone. It was the easy way to get to where I intended to go – or so I thought. In your comfort zone, you embrace laziness, accept your fears, award indecisiveness, and tell yourself the perfect solution will come if you just wait – all while angrily defending a position that is ultimately causing you pain.

I still have the scar from that visit to my comfort zone. It’s a reminder for me to never sit on the fence again.

Learn from my experience – move past the comfort zone!


Dave Ferguson is “The Leaders’ Coach”, an internationally recognized executive leadership coach, speaker, facilitator, and author. For help in getting off the proverbial fence and on to success, “ASK COACH DAVE” at 704-907-0171 or at Dave@AskCoachDave.com.

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