Archives For purpose

Beyond the Numbers

February 27, 2013 — 1 Comment

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I honestly think it is better to be a failure
at something you love than to be a
success at something you hate.
George Burns

Success. Every business, organization, and person has a definition of success. Though there might be some shared elements, most definitions are unique. What one person sees as success represents failure to another. What one organization celebrates, another ignores. Success is a common, yet elusive, concept.

Many people view success in terms of income. Yet, many wealthy people are extremely unhappy. The same is true for businesses and organizations. Success isn’t found only in the numbers; success is far more complex than that.

Bill Cosby said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” This is true for individuals and organizations. When we try to please everyone, we lose our identity and become slaves to those we intend to serve. When this happens in an organization, the leaders will do whatever it takes to keep people happy. You and I do it when we vacate our passions in order to gain acceptance.

Numbers don’t paint an accurate picture. Numbers are easily manipulated to paint a false picture that provides satisfaction to individuals or organizational leaders. We can get caught up in the pursuit of the world’s definition of success. In doing so, we abandon our unique design. We arrive at a goal only to discover that it holds no real value.

Success is measured in terms of integrity, passion, honesty, and humility. We are successful when we choose truth, contribution, and concern for others. If you’re really the person or organization you claim to be, you won’t have to hype yourself. If you’re relying on hype to maintain the perception of success, you don’t understand what real success is.

Don’t be a success at something you hate because that success is fragile. Live to make a difference right here, right now.

I’ve been teaching Live Your Why for several weeks and the final session is this week. More than fifty people now understand how they are wired, their passions, and how to determine their opportunities. This group is poised to live with purpose and passion. Average in America is a bad goal. We weren’t created to be average; we were created to invest our lives in things that really matter. You can begin your journey now.

Don’t waste any more time. Stop counting and start living. Think about it.

What is your definition of success and how will you know when you’ve achieved it?

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Live to Inspire, Not Retire

February 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

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You get old faster when you think about retirement.
― Toba Beta

It might surprise you to know that retirement isn’t the life goal in many cultures around the world. Living to stop doing something we stopped enjoying years ago isn’t a universal dream. As the working world continues to change, people of all ages are spreading their entrepreneurial wings and unlocking the secrets to a life they never imagined possible. More and more people are discovering the joy of living to inspire, not retire.

What are the characteristics of that kind of life? A person living to inspire, not retire…

  • Has an optimistic vision for his or her future.
  • Looks for opportunities to learn and do new things.
  • Encourages others by recognizing their efforts.
  • Chooses to focus more on the days ahead than the ones behind.
  • Brings laughter and energy to almost every part of life.
  • Leave others saying, “I can’t wait to talk to him/her again,” and not, “Warn me when you see him/her coming.”

In Genesis 6:3, God said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” There is a limit to our lifespan, but there is no limit to the life we can live while in that span. Rather than living to quit, why not set up a life you aren’t trying to escape? Why not discover your God-given purpose and set out on the journey to make Him famous by living a life that matters today and in years to come?

The distance from comfortable to complacent is short. If you seek comfort, you’ll become complacent. When you become complacent, you start complaining. When you start complaining, you become one of those people no one likes to see coming. Think about it!

Are you living to quit or living to inspire others? What are people catching from being around you?

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Start discovering your purpose

February 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

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Do you wish you could attend a Live Your Why Seminar and be led through the process by Terry Hadaway? If you have a computer and about six hours, you can start the process with Terry right now.

Who needs Live Your Why? Right now, there are people of all ages participating in the Live Your Why Seminar being held in Birmingham, AL. The class includes high school students and retirees. There are people from all walks of life and the response has been consistent. One retired man said, “This makes me wish I could go back and start all over again.”

As a professor, Terry Hadaway utilized elearning to enhance the effectiveness of his teaching. With the opening of the My Thinking Box Online Learning site, Dr. Hadaway is making available high-quality elearning that you can enjoy anytime, anywhere. When you enroll in Live Your Why Online, you’ll get:

  • Immediate access to an electronic copy of Live Your Why.
  • The same workbook pages used in the live seminar.
  • A video/audio presentation of each lesson.
  • Access to the discussion room where you can talk about your experience with others who are discovering their whys.
  • Frequent opportunities to interact with Terry Hadaway via synchronous class conversations, discussions, or email.
  • As an added bonus, everyone enrolled in the Live Your Why Online Seminar will receive free admission to an upcoming Live Your Why Teleseminar.

Why go through the online experience? Isn’t reading the book enough? The book provides the basic information; the seminar adds additional information and provides practical steps to help you navigate the process. The elearning platform is the same platform used by many of the largest universities in the world. It is safe, secure, and proven to be effective.

If you’d like to know more about the Live Your Why Online Seminar click the banner above. If you know of someone who can benefit from discovering their purpose in life, pass this information along. If you’d like to have Terry Hadaway speak at your church, organization, or in your community, click on the contact me link at the top of the page.

Whether you choose to attend the live seminar or participate in the online seminar, the opportunity is yours. If you keep doing what you’re doing, the future will look strangely familiar. If you discover your purpose and start living it, your potential is unlimited. You get to choose. Think about it.

Who do you know who could benefit from discovering and living his or her purpose? Use the contact form to tell me about that person and both of you might win FREE admission to the Live Your Why Online Seminar.

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Passion matters

February 6, 2013 — Leave a comment

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The dictionary defines passion as any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling. It is one of the predictors of success and one aspect of a successful endeavor. When it comes to your why, passion is synonymous with heart (the H in WHY).

Unfortunately, many people can’t really identify their passion. Yet, the authors of The Passion Test suggest that passions are “the loves of your life. They are the things that are most deeply important to you. These are the things that, when you’re doing them or talking about them, light you up.” So, everyone is passionate about something.

Unlike personality, passions change over time. What you are passionate about today might not make the list five years from now. Today’s passions are significant because they lead you to your opportunities (the Y in WHY). Opportunities almost always are connected to passion. You probably won’t pursue an opportunity you aren’t passionate about.

That’s why passion matters. It points you to your opportunities. It helps you identify specific situations in which you can live your why. Passion turns future dreams in to present realities.

So, how can you know your passion. In my book, Live Your Why, I encourage people to respond to the following questions:

  • If money weren’t an issue, how would you spend your time?
  • What do others say you do well?
  • What do you think you do well? What do you enjoy doing?
  • When you are at a bookstore, what magazines and books grab your attention?
  • What “big dreams” have you been carrying around most of your life?
  • For what do you want to be known?

Once you understand how to determine your passions, you’ll be better prepared to pursue future passions. But, beware of the enemies of passion–fear, insecurity, and comfort. These emotions have the capacity to derail your pursuit of your purpose in life. You have one or more passions that point to your purpose. Think about it!

What are you passionate about? What opportunities do you have to express that passion?

 

 

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The right tool for the right job

January 25, 2013 — 1 Comment

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Most people who know me are surprised to discover that I spent six years in the Navy working on nuclear machinery. I learned a lot during those years, but the one lesson that comes back to me over and over is one that was drilled into our heads… Use the right tool for the right job! The point was that using the wrong tool could damage the equipment and the tool. When you use the wrong tool, it’s a lose-lose situation.

The same is true in our lives. When we misapply our lives to things that don’t match up, our long term prognosis is bleak. This explains why people change jobs every 27 months. They are trying to put themselves to work in situations that don’t fit their personality and passions. In other words, they are living outside their whys.

What is the best use for your life? Are you here to live up to the expectations of others? Are you here to limit yourself by the cultural standards of mediocrity? What would happen if you embraced your intended purpose and started pursuing your why? Those are important questions that everyone asks but few seek to answer. Most people believe they have untapped potential but they are afraid to get out of the box they are in.

You have a message to share. You have a job to do. You are a gift to the world. Embrace it. Believe it. Live it.

If what everyone else is doing is such a good idea, why do they look so miserable? Think about it!

What is your plan for discovering and living your why?

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Rattle a cage, if you dare

January 16, 2013 — 4 Comments

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The easiest way to ensure conformity among employees is to single out the outliers and shame them for their temerity, for their disobedience, for being uppity. … They [those in power] use shame to keep conversations and behaviors in the closet and to ensure that those without anointed and clear power keep quiet. | Seth Godin | The Icarus Deception

Hierarchies don’t like cage-rattlers. Those in power want factory workers, not artists. They prefer conformity to conversation. They demand allegiance but do little to deserve it. Hierarchies are top-down organizations where thinkers and cage-rattlers aren’t welcome.

If you are brave enough to stand up and challenge the status quo, you’ll be celebrated as a genius–for a moment. However, when the hierarchy realizes that your ideas necessitate change for which they can get no credit, they will end the conversation. They cower behind catch phrases and organizational ambiguity. You’ll be discarded. And that’s a good thing!

The only way people remain in the good graces of the hierarchy is through conformity. Conformity always seeks the lowest common denominator. When great ideas are squelched, future ideas are tempered. Dreamers become wishers who become zombies. The flame of ingenuity dies. Organizations are full of former thinkers and world-changers. They chose, however, to trade their God-given purposes for the promise of a paycheck and pension. The hierarchy pays them to keep quiet.

Average people fear cage-rattlers because those who dare speak up have the potential to raise the bar. Those in authority like to keep the bar low so they maintain their positions of power. Cage-rattlers expose their ideas for what they often are–repackaged or borrowed concepts that never worked the first time around.

So, it’s your choice. You can rattle some cages and live up to your potential or you can conform. You can’t, however, do both. Think about it.

What are you doing to rattle cages?

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Keep Moving or Turn Back?

January 10, 2013 — 2 Comments

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Most organizations and people like predictability. They prefer a well-traveled road over a trail into the unknown. This explains the demise of Blockbuster, Kmart, and other organizations. When given the opportunity to innovate, they chose retreat.

The same thing happens in our lives. We travel the same road each day because the mediocrity of the predictable is more desired than the uncertainty of uniqueness.

The dead-end sign presents you with a decision. Will you keep moving or turn back? That’s your choice. If you choose to turn back, you can be certain of the results because you’ve already experienced them.

If you keep moving, you will travel at your own risk. Few people will go with you. Few people will understand you. Few people will be standing along the side of the road to cheer you on. Because the road is a “minimum maintenance road,” there will be  potholes. The lines fade. The road will be bumpy. That’s the environment in which real innovators thrive.

You get to choose to travel at your own risk or go back the way you came. Leaders of your company, your school, and your church have the same choice to make. If today looks very familiar, you know what happened when the opportunity to innovate came calling.

Real innovators keep moving forward when the masses turn back. If everyone else is doing it, it’s probably comfortable, convenient, and easy. It’s what average people and organizations do. If you travel at your own risk, you won’t have many traveling companions. However, you’ll go where others are afraid to go and experience things you would never otherwise experience.

Eagles don’t live in the city. They seek places where they can soar. What about you? Think about it.

When was the last time you hit a personal dead-end? Did you turn back or keep moving? What was the result?

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The Law of Perpetual Discomfort

December 17, 2012 — 1 Comment

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Do you remember when gas was only two dollars per gallon? Today, three dollars per gallon would be a bargain. This is because of The Law of Perpetual Discomfort. Let me explain what I mean.

In 1958, a house cost $18,200, a gallon of gas was 30 cents, and the minimum wage was $1.00 per hour. In 1968, a house was $26,600, gasoline was 34 cents, and the minimum wage was $1.60. In 1978, a house was $62,500, gasoline was 65 cents, and the minimum wage was $2.65. In 1988, a house was $138,300, gasoline was 96 cents, and the minimum wage was $3.35. In 1998, a house was $181,900, gasoline was $1.12 per gallon, and the minimum wage was $5.15.

What’s the point? There hasn’t been a 10-year period in which consumers haven’t been pushed to new levels of discomfort. I call this The Law of Perpetual Discomfort. It describes the social conditions in which we have been living for more than 50 years.

Living by The Law of Perpetual Discomfort allows us to run from one activity to the next with little regard for the cumulative effects of seemingly insignificant activities. We push ourselves to the point of discomfort and call that our new “normal.”

This way of life robs us of the opportunity to enrich our minds, stretch our imaginations, and restore our energy. We become exhausted, stressed, and bitter. We tell our stories as if we are victims of an uncontrollable force.

We are victims of little more than our own choices. You and I have a limited amount of time we can invest each day. For everything we feel compelled to say “yes” to, there is the opportunity to say “no.”

The Law of Perpetual Discomfort is probably a new way to describe the way many of us live each day of our lives. It doesn’t have to be that way. Think about it.

What are some things you need to remove from your schedule or list of responsibilities? Why is it so hard to say no?

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Do you really want a wonderful life?

December 11, 2012 — 1 Comment

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Most of us are familiar with the plot of It’s a Wonderful Life. Few Christmas movies capture the everyday struggles of ordinary people like this movie does. George Bailey was an honest, hard-working man who tried to do the right thing only to end up feeling as if his life had no value at all.

People today are discovering the same thing. They work hard, do a great job, are commended for their efforts, but end up wondering if their lives mattered. It’s at that point when they face a life-altering decision. Will they keep doing what they’ve always done or will they pursue a wonderful life?

A wonderful life isn’t void of difficulty and heartache. It is, however, a life that ripples throughout eternity. When we focus on our purposes, we can overlook our circumstances. When we focus on our circumstances, we lose sight of our purposes.

Next year can be the start of a wonderful life. Set aside some time to identify some tangible goals. Make sure the goals are clearly stated, are reachable, and have realistic action steps. Throughout the year review the goals and make any necessary course corrections. Be intentional about living your why and see what happens in the next twelve months. If what you’ve been doing hasn’t worked, is doing it another year really wise? Think about it!

What are your goals for next year?

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Finding Purpose in Uncertain Times

October 17, 2012 — Leave a comment

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We live in uncertain times. We are uncertain about our finances, careers, and security. We have concerns about our children’s education, safety, and future. The media reminds us daily that things aren’t much better in other parts of the world.

Politicians and advertisers all want us to trust them. Yet, few of them have really delivered on their promises thus far. It’s easy to lose hope and become complacent. We quickly can become content to just let the clock run out on life. We live for immediate gratification because we doubt the future will be any brighter. Can you relate?

If that were the end of the story, there would be no reason to know your purpose in life—your why. We would all have to admit we doubt God has a plan or doubt that He really cares about what’s going on in our lives. But, when we read His Word, we quickly realize that’s not true. God created us with specific purposes in mind. In spite of the chaos around us, we can have meaningful lives now and security for eternity. As we discover our WHYs, we will unlock the secret to the lives God intended for each of us.

If God had a plan for Pharaoh, He certainly has a plan for those of us who know Him and are committed to living for Him. Through Moses, God said to Pharaoh, “For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth” (Exodus 9:15-16, emphasis added).

We can pursue our own plans and hope God gives us a thumbs-up. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t endorse that strategy. Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” In other words, if you think your plan is going to work, knock yourself out. Eventually, you will discover that God’s plan always prevails.

Pharaoh had to learn that lesson the hard way. We should learn from his mistakes. Think about it!

Are you pursuing God’s plan for your life or hoping He’s OK with your plan?

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