Disrupting the Rabblement

A friend recently expressed concern that I’m too into personal development, and suggested I should dial it back a little and be more content with the person I already am. She saw my constant drive to improve as fear-based, as if I was constantly telling myself, “I don’t like who I am, I have to change!”

My friend was wrong. I very much like who I am right now. In fact, I consider myself to be pretty damn fantastic*. My drive comes from a place of excitement and curiosity, not fear. I love pushing myself, finding new challenges/experiences and learning from them. I love looking back every twelve months and saying “Wow, I’ve come so far in just one year!”

I’m glad my friend raised that concern though; she reminded me to check my motivation. I think that’s an important exercise for anyone involved in personal development. Every now and then, stop and ask yourself if your motivation comes from a place of fear or excitement.

I came across a good method for testing my motivation in the book Putting on the Heart of Christ by Gerald M. Fagin, who tells of a wise spiritual director who once asked him two “why” questions, and said that the second “why” was more important. Fagin gives the following example:

Why do you want to get a PhD?

“I want to be as educated as possible.”

Why do you want to be as educated as possible? Is a PhD a condition of your worth? Do you need it because you will then be accepted and worthwhile and looked up to? Or is it because you have a love of teaching and research and you wish to minister to others through teaching? In other words, do these and other decisions flow from freedom and love or from fear and compulsion? Fear leads to compulsion and slavery. Love leads to true desires which lead to freedom.

I find this to be an effective approach, though you may need to go deeper than the second “why” to root out your true motivation for something.

Try it yourself:

• Why do you want that job or promotion? Is it because you love the work or because you fear poverty? Or is it that you crave the admiration of your peers? If the job came with minimal pay, would you still be interested? Why don’t you find work doing something that excites you? Why are you postponing fun and adventure until retirement?
• Maybe you don’t want that job or promotion. In that case, why not? Are you afraid of success or failure? Or is it that you’d rather focus your time and efforts on something more meaningful and worthwhile? Perhaps the thought of more responsibility is terrifying to you. Why is that?
• Why do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend? Are you afraid of being alone, or do you genuinely want to share love and intimacy with someone? Do you consider what you can bring to a relationship, or are you only concerned about what you can get from it? Do you think it’s in another person’s best interest to get involved with you? Why are your standards so high or low?
• Why do you go to church? Is it out of habit, or do you get some positive benefit from it? Do you just like the social aspect of being in a big building with lots of people, or do you find real truth and value in the sermons you hear? Do you cling to religious doctrine to avoid thinking for yourself? Do you even try to practice what is preached?

There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. Taking time to consider them is simply an exercise in becoming more conscious of your own motivations and beliefs. I’d recommend writing out your responses to keep your thoughts organized and record any resolutions you come to. They’re hard questions, yes, but ask yourself only the easy ones and you’ll make no progress.

* Note to self: must work on humility.

Approximate reading time: 8 minutes (while eating an apple).

A friend recently asked me for advice on time-management, she having noticed that I seem to get quite a lot done in a typical week without killing myself. In this post I’ll share a few time-management tips and tricks that work for me. Many of these come from trying and testing different methods I’ve come across, most notably in books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The 4-Hour Work Week; others are common sense approaches which most people fail to use consistently.

Before we get into it, I should note that the term “time-management” is a bit of a misnomer. You can’t manage time. It keeps on ticking no matter what you do. It’s a non-renewable resource which can be used either constructively or destructively. All you can hope to do is manage yourself to make the best use of your time. That is, you can decide to spend it productively on the things that are most important to you. You can invest your time wisely instead of letting it go to waste.

On to the tips…

1. Prioritize

Prioritization is of the utmost importance. You need to figure out all your goals and give yourself some targets. If you have no targets, you’ll have nothing to aim at, and so you’ll surely miss.

I like to sit down at least once a quarter and figure out my priorities and goals. I use Steve Pavlina’s method for doing this, as described in his Truth and Awareness podcast. Basically, you write down how you feel about several different areas of your life and score each out of ten according to your level of satisfaction. This gives you a good idea of what your focus should be going forward. (For example, if you score 2/10 for physical health, you know that this is an area where you should be focusing a lot of your time and energy for the next few months.) From this exercise, I usually end up with about five things I want to focus on going forward, and I’ll rank them in order of importance so I’ll know which should take precedence during a conflict.

I can’t emphasize the importance of prioritizing enough. Once you’re clear on what your top goals are, you’ll be able to plan your time better to ensure you achieve them. Think effectiveness rather than efficiency. Busy people are often very efficient, but not always very effective. Doing something efficiently doesn’t make it important. Prioritizing helps you make effective use of your time.

2. Eliminate

Having figured out your priorities, you should now be in a better position to eliminate as much fluff as possible, keeping only the important items on your task list. The Pareto principle states that 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes, meaning that a lot of the things we do have very little impact; the majority of our investments produce poor returns. We need to weed those out.

Since I’ve started prioritizing and setting goals, I’ve found that I’m much more self-assured and able to make good decisions quickly. I just have to ask myself if the action/inaction I’m considering will move me closer to one of my primary goals. If the answer is no, I drop it and move on to something else. If the answer is yes, I plunge ahead with confidence.

For this reason, I never play video games anymore and I spend very little time watching television or following the news. Those activities don’t move me closer to my goals at all, so I mostly consider them a waste of my time.

What are the things that you spend a lot of time on? Could that time be better invested?

3. Say No more often

Perhaps even better than elimination is prevention. We can free up more time for important tasks by saying No to unimportant tasks. I’ve gotten much better at this over the years, and it’s amazing how much free time it has opened up for me. Sure, there’s often some sacrifice (and occasionally some backlash or hurt feelings) involved, but it’s definitely worth it in the long run. An example for me would be helping friends and neighbors with their computers. Because I’m “a computer guy,” I often get asked to troubleshoot various problems, but fixing computers is something I’m not very good at, nor do I get much enjoyment from it. So I started saying No, and now I have more time to spend on other, more meaningful and enjoyable activities.

If you sometimes feel guilty for saying No, realize that your time is your time and nobody else’s. You get to spend it however you like, and it’s okay to be selfish every now and then.

4. Let bad things happen

This is good advice from Tim Ferriss. To achieve your goals, you occasionally need to let bad things happen. For me, that means ignoring help requests for the Coda-Slider gizmo I built. I could reply to all the posts in the forum and to all the e-mails I receive about Coda-Slider, but that would take time away from other things I’d rather be doing.

The skill here is the ability to tell which stuff you can let slide without suffering serious consequences later on.

5. Automate

Automate whatever you can then forget about it. A simple example for me would be my finances. I used to have to write a rent check every month, but then discovered that my bank can send out a check to my landlord automatically. I also have automatic savings transfers and bill payments. It didn’t take much to set all that up online, and the result is a nice chunk of extra time (and peace of mind) each month. Here’s a good post to get you started on automating your finances like I did.

What else can you automate? Can you subscribe to a magazine instead of going to the store to pick up a copy every week? Could you use Amazon’s Subscribe and Save service to have frequently used grocery items delivered to your door? What online tools can you use to speed up your browsing activities?

6. Use lists (to-do and not-to-do)

To-do lists are a no-brainer for productivity, but so many people fail to use them regularly. I use three lists at work to help me keep on track and stay productive:

One big job list. Every job I get goes on there, and I check them off once complete. I review this regularly to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

A daily to-do list. This I prepare every day right before I leave the office, quickly writing out at least a half-dozen tasks that I want to complete the next day. This eliminates procrastination and indecision in the morning because I know right away what project to launch into.

A daily not-to-do list. Like the to-do list, I prepare this quickly every evening. It usually contains items like “don’t check e-mail until 10:30 at the earliest” and “no Facebook except at lunch time.” Essentially it’s a list of mini self-discipline challenges for the day, and it helps me cut out distractions and stay focused.

7. Set Reminders

Ever forget to do some small thing, and suddenly it’s a month later and that small thing has become a huge problem that needs your undivided time and attention? Or you’re just left kicking yourself because you missed out on a great opportunity?

That rarely happens to me, simply because I set reminders. See, I don’t trust my memory very much, and so I’ll set up regular reminders and be safe in the knowledge that I’ll be alerted long in advance of any possible emergency. I use Memo To Me and sometimes Google Calendar for my reminders. Just last week I got an e-mail from my past self reminding me to pay my vehicle registration, and yesterday I was reminded that it was about time I changed my extended-wear contact lenses.

I’ve gotten pretty good at remembering birthday’s, too

8. Set deadlines

Remember Parkinson’s Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. Back in college, we’d be given two weeks to write an essay, and the vast majority of the class would end up rushing to the printer on the final afternoon, having just pulled an all-nighter to get the damn thing finished. Of course the two-week time frame had little to do with that panic. It would have been the same story with a one week or a one month deadline. We humans just have a tendency to put things off as long as they’re not deemed urgent. And then, when they do become urgent, we magically find a way to get them done.

So, if you want to be more productive, give yourself deadlines on tasks and goals. Giving yourself a deadline forces you to prioritize and hustle. Last summer, I’d been slacking for months on getting this and my dot biz website coded and launched. Then, on September 1, I decided that I’d have the two sites completed before the calendar flipped to October. Lo and behold, what I’d been putting off for so long got done. The deadline made all the difference.

It’s important not to set easy deadlines, too. You’re looking to create a sense of urgency, to set yourself a challenge that excites you. That will get you focused. If I’m slacking at work, I’ll sometimes halve my deadlines to ensure I don’t sit around wasting time all day.

A good question to ask yourself: How would I handle this task if it had to be done in 15 minutes?

9. Be proactive

Laziness is a snowball rolling down a hill. If you sit down and watch TV for half an hour, you’re not likely to want to go and do something productive afterwards. But fortunately, productivity works the same way. Getting things done begets getting things done. Hence the saying, “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.”

Now that’s not to say you should always be busy. Obviously there’s a lot to be said about taking time to relax and recharge (see the next point). But don’t cheat your future self. Make the most of idle moments to tidy your desk, do the dishes, send that e-mail, etc. Use those idle moments to invest in your future, even if it’s something as simple as doing your groceries during Thursday lunch so you can sleep in an extra hour on Saturday.

10. Energize

If you have more energy, you can get more done. Now how do we get energy? Mostly we get it from food, rest and exercise.

Food. Fuel for your body. Put good fuel in, get good performance out. Try to eat foods that don’t require too much digestive energy. That is, mostly plants. Cut back on heavily processed foods, and drinks like alcohol, coffee and soda. Try not to eat late at night. Pay attention to how your energy levels rise/fall after consuming different types of food. There’s no one diet out there that’s perfect for everyone, so you’ll need to experiment to find out what works best for you.

Rest. Not just sleep, but also things like meditation, vacations and deep breathing fit in here. Basically, anything that allows your mind to relax and your body to recharge. Allowing yourself ample time to rest and recuperate is crucial if you want to be able to perform consistently at a high level. There’s a fine line to walk here though; be careful not to slip into lazy territory.

Exercise. It’s easier to win the race when you’re in great shape. You only have one body so treat it well, take it out for a run every now and then, play a sport, dance, have fun. You don’t have to become an athlete, but keep your body active. It’s a sound investment. You can also use exercise as a way to socialize, relieve stress and practice goal setting/achievement.

11. Batching

Do you put a small amount of fuel in your car each morning, or fill it up once every few days? Which makes more sense? Which saves more time? Apply that logic to more areas of your life.

Here are a few examples of how I use batching to save time:

E-mail filters. One of my Gmail filters is for Facebook alerts. Anything that comes in from Facebook skips the inbox and sits in a folder waiting for me. That way I don’t get distracted by Facebook messages when I log in to check my e-mail. At lunch I’ll take a minute to go through all those alerts and be done with them. I use Gmail filtering excessively for this type of thing.

Movies and TV. I don’t watch much TV as it is, but when I do, it’s rarely in real-time. I’ll record basketball games and TV shows and watch them later, allowing me to fast-forward through all the ad breaks. That way, an hour-long TV show can be watched in less than 40 minutes. For movies, I save time by using Netflix (no need to go to the store).

Lunch. I’ve been making my own lunches and bringing them to work for a couple of years now, but just recently I started batching them. That is, I make all my lunches for the week in one batch at the weekend. So instead of getting out all the ingredients and utensils five times a week, I now do it just once.

Mail. I don’t check my mailbox everyday. More like twice a week, and I try deal with everything right there and then.

12. Measure, then manage

What gets measured gets managed. Try to boil things down to cold, hard facts. Think you might be spending too much time on trivial tasks? If you recorded your time vigilantly for a week, you’d know for sure.

If you work with computers, RescueTime is a good tool for tracking your productivity (the Solo Lite version is free). Away from the screen, you may have to resort to the old pen and paper approach. Be careful not to go overboard though. Remember that the long-term goal here is to free up more time to do fun stuff, and the payoff shouldn’t be obsessively counting seconds and stressing out for 30 hours a week.

Measuring before managing isn’t just applicable to time either; you can use it to get ahead in many other ways. For example, a few weeks ago I calculated all my financial expenses and figured out how much cash I can afford to play with each week. I now know exactly where I stand with my money, and can make decisions accordingly.

What measurements can you take to help you manage your time/finances/health/whatever more effectively?

13. Ride the wave

Go with the flow when you can. Doing something when you feel like it is much more effective than forcing yourself when you’re really not in the mood. As such, recognize when you’ve got a good flow going and ride it for as long as possible. This often applies to me when I’m writing. Sometimes the words and ideas flow out easily and other times it can be a gigantic struggle to write a single paragraph. When I feel that flow, I’ll do my best to milk it, moving things around on my schedule to accommodate if necessary.

This isn’t to say that you should just admit defeat and give up if you’re not in the zone. As Liz Gilbert talked about in her TED speech, you have to show up for work every day regardless.

14. One thing at a time

Don’t have the TV on while you’re trying to study. Don’t talk on the phone while reading a book. Don’t have one on eye on your inbox while writing an article (I’m always suspicious of people who e-mail me back in a hurry).

Multitasking has been proven to be ineffective. Some people might get more done by simultaneously juggling several tasks, but the quality of their work suffers at the expense of quantity.

Focus hard on one thing at a time. Block off a chunk of time, give that one thing all your attention and see how fast you can rip through it. Once it’s done, check it off your list and move on to the next thing.

A few weeks ago I wrote about three people who inspire me. I received feedback from a reader who didn’t agree with my choices. Finding something he didn’t like about each of the three people I had listed, he seemed convinced it was a waste of time to consider any of the knowledge they had to share.

I didn’t think that was such a good idea. In my view, having an attitude like that hurts only you.

To illustrate my point, let’s take Steve Pavlina, one of those three people who inspire me. Steve believes in and sometimes writes about psychic phenomena and the paranormal. For example, about eighteen months ago he wrote about the spirit of a dead friend helping him win at blackjack. My reaction to that article was probably similar to the reaction of most people: “Man, this guy’s crazy.” However, I wasn’t about to let that one disagreement stop me from reading and appreciating other articles on Steve’s site. Instead, I just filed it away in the “Things I don’t necessarily agree with” part of my brain, and continued on. Good thing, too, because I’ve since received many valuable insights from other articles Steve has written.

It takes effort

Writing people completely off because you disagree with something they say is nothing short of laziness. When you do that, you’re effectively saying, “I couldn’t be bothered getting to know this person completely, so I’ll just make a sweeping judgment about them based on the few things I do know.” Granted, nobody has the time or the capacity to truly know everyone they come into contact with, but we can be conscious of those snap judgments we make about others and how we may deprive ourselves of important lessons because of them.

Nobody’s perfect

It’s important to realize that nobody is perfect. If you’re holding out for an infallible mentor to show you the light, you’re in for a long wait. Consider these brief descriptions of two famous historical figures:

1. The first man was a charismatic leader and a decorated war hero. He preferred a vegetarian diet, never smoked, rarely drank alcohol and was faithful to his wife.
2. The second man died without a penny to his name. He regularly defied laws and was imprisoned many times. He often appeared indifferent towards his family and had an especially strained relationship with his son.

The first man is Adolf Hitler. The second is Mahatma Gandhi. Obviously the above descriptions are extremely selective, but they go to show that even the best of people have their flaws while the worst have their redeeming qualities. I like to believe we can learn valuable lessons from both these men — even, in the case of Hitler, if those lessons are mostly of the “what not to do” variety — and from everybody who falls between them in the spectrum of good and evil.

The Bible

Not so long ago, if you had quoted a bible verse at me, I would have considered you a brainwashed lunatic who could never teach me anything worth knowing. Then I came to this realization that everybody and everything has at least some truth. Gradually I came to see that the bible was no different. Sure, it calls homosexuality an abomination (Leviticus 20:13) and encourages you to burn witches (Exodus 22:18), but it also contains great lessons about love, truth and self-discipline.

As A.J. Jacobs concluded in The Year of Living Biblically, it’s impossible and often immoral to follow every word of the bible, but the book can indeed enhance your life if you focus on the right parts and live by the lessons contained in them. You just have to persevere through many inconsistencies and a bunch of stuff you’ll probably disagree with. You must use that mind you’ve been blessed with to separate the wheat from the chaff and arrive at your own truth.

Against the grain

If you tend to focus on the negative rather than the positive, don’t worry, you’re not alone. As humans, we’re predisposed to give more attention to the bad things in life. It’s a survival instinct. Scientists have proven that something we perceive as bad will have a stronger and more lasting affect on our brains than something we perceive as good (see author David Rock talk about it from the 20-minute mark of this YouTube video). That’s why you can thoroughly enjoy the first ninety minutes of a movie, only to have the whole experience ruined by an implausible ending. Somehow those last few minutes negate the previous ninety and you come away disappointed.

Again, it takes effort to focus on the good rather than the bad, but that effort is worth undertaking, because there’s no growth if you choose the lazy way out. With laziness you limit yourself to seeing problems instead of opportunities.

Learning from everyone

You don’t have to agree with everything someone says or does to learn from them. In fact, I’d argue that you learn the least from the people you agree with the most. Think about it: how much can someone really teach you if you’re already nodding your head in agreement before they finish a sentence?

By far, 2009 was the best year of my life to date. My personal growth accelerated to unprecedented levels, I met lots of new people and tried lots of new things. Here at the end of the year, I feel I know myself a whole lot better than I did twelve months ago.

Here are five valuable lessons I learned in 2009:

Inside Out

Things look a lot different from the inside looking out than they do from the outside looking in. I came to understand this when I tried vegetarianism. It was purely for selfish reasons that I decided to experiment with plant-based diets, but after making the switch, all those other reasons (health, animal rights, environment, etc.) began to make a lot more sense.

A.J. Jacobs discovered the same truth, as recounted in his book The Year of Living Biblically. He dove in at the deep end and tried all sorts of religious customs that he previously thought ridiculous, and found positive meaning in many of them. Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, as they say.

Having learned this lesson, I’m much less prone to prejudge people and their customs, and I often find myself questioning whatever preconceived notions I may have.

Honesty

I learned a lot about honesty, especially in regard to relationships. I used to find it tough being honest at the start, as I was preoccupied trying to impress the other person and avoid tension. But keeping secrets and holding back opinions always came back to bite me in the end. I eventually learned that it’s much better for everyone to lay their cards on the table early and figure out if the relationship can thrive in spite of the differences. Both parties are spared a lot of time and trouble that way.

Volunteering is win-win

I finally started volunteering in 2009, spending time helping out with various organizations around New Orleans at least once a month. Going in, I had the sense that I should volunteer simply because it was my duty: Since life was going great for me, I should sacrifice some of my free time to help the less-fortunate. Sacrifice is the key word there: I assumed I would get little, if anything, from the experience.

How wrong that assumption proved to be. I quickly discovered that helping people in need gave me a great sense of perspective. It became much easier to appreciate my own blessings and to express gratitude. Best of all, I learned that the best people in the world can be found volunteering. Seriously, if you want to meet good, honest, kind-hearted people, you’ll find them helping out at your local food line or homeless shelter.

Growing ain’t easy

Personal development is tough because you’re constantly pushing yourself to the limit to see how far you can go. A lot of self-inspection and courage is required. You have to be willing to fail and suffer embarrassments. If it’s not a struggle, take that as a sign that you could be trying harder.

Also, if you really want to grow, be prepared to go it alone. Lots of people will think you’re crazy, and many who don’t will still keep their distance. No need to be bitter about that though. Most people just want to stick with the status quo and not ruffle any feathers. Understandable, since that path proves much easier in the short term.

Accepting others

I feel I took this to a new level this past year. I used to get upset if someone was rude towards me, but now I just feel sorry for people like that. They’re simply not very good at being nice. In the end, that hurts them much more than it does me.

I also used to get frustrated with people who squandered their potential, but now I better understand and accept that nobody can be forced to grow. Same deal with small-minded people. There’s a lot of truth in these proverbs:

• You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink.
• When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

I find that by focusing on my own growth and development rather than trying to change others, I become more understanding and accepting of other people’s shortcomings, while also expanding my circle of influence.

…

That was 2009. Here’s to more valuable lessons sought and learned in 2010.

I’m currently reading a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. Collins and his research team spent significant time identifying the common factors that distinguish good companies from great companies. One of these factors is what came to be called The Hedgehog Concept, defined as…

A deep understanding of three intersecting circles translated into a simple, crystalline concept.

It’s called The Hedgehog Concept because of an analogy: some people are foxes, others are hedgehogs.

Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all its complexity… never integrating their thinking into one overall concept or unifying vision… Hedgehogs, on the other hand, simplify a complex world into a single organizing idea, a basic principle or concept that unifies and guides everything.

Great companies, Collins tells us, always have a Hedgehog Concept. And they come up with that simple, crystalline concept by understanding three key dimensions. Those dimensions can be visualized as intersecting circles:

To help grasp the three circles, a personal analogy is given in the book:

Suppose you were able to construct a work life that meets the following three tests: First, you are doing work for which you have a genetic or God-given talent, and perhaps you could become one of the best in the world at applying that talent. (“I feel that I was just born to be doing this.”) Second, you are well paid for what you do. (“I get paid to do this? Am I dreaming?”) Third, you are doing work you are passionate about and absolutely love to do, enjoying the actual process for its own sake. (“I look forward to getting up and throwing myself into my daily work, and I really believe in what I’m doing.”) If you could drive toward the intersection of those three circles and translate that intersection into a simple, crystalline concept that guided your life choices, you’d have a Hedgehog Concept for yourself.

It strikes me that “Hedgehog Concept” equates to “Life Purpose” in that analogy. Your life purpose lies at the intersection of those three circles.

My life purpose

My life purpose is simply this:

To be the best person I can be, and help/inspire others to do the same.

(Sidenote: my purpose is pretty broad, and intentionally so. Your goals should be specific, your purpose should be broad. Having a broad purpose allows you the freedom to fulfill it in many different ways. There are lots of things I can experiment with as I try to become a better person, and I can find many different ways to help and inspire people. That’s important for me, as I’d get bored fast if I was stuck doing the same thing all the time.)

My purpose resonates with me constantly. With that as my foundation, I’m excited to get out of bed every morning. It helps keep me focused. I can always refer back to my purpose and see if my thoughts and actions are in line with it. If they’re not, I make the appropriate adjustments.

But does it pass the three circles test?

Yes, I believe it does.

See, I’m deeply passionate about personal development, I believe I can excel at helping and inspiring people to better themselves, and I know I’ll be rewarded financially because I’ll add value to people’s lives. Value sells.

That’s not to say that I’m the individual equivalent of a great company just yet, but I’m confident I’m headed in the right direction

Finding your life purpose

If you’re unsure of your life purpose, focus on finding something that fits within the intersection of those three circles.

I recommend you start by figuring out what you’re passionate about. You’re looking for something you love to do, something you would do for free, just for kicks. If nothing comes to mind, get out there and start trying new things, having new experiences, meeting new people. Eventually you’ll find something that gets your blood flowing.

Once you’ve got that, consider the skills and talents you already have. Are they enough for you to be good at this thing you’re passionate about? Could you develop them to a point where they would be enough? Be brutally honest with yourself here, but don’t sell yourself short either. You’d be surprised what you can excel at when you put your mind to it.

Next you need to figure out how to make money doing this thing that you’re talented at and passionate about. Focus on providing value to other people, and that shouldn’t be a problem. If you can use your talents and passion to help others achieve their goals, the money will come.

Bring those three circles together and focus on the intersection. Try to simplify it all into one core concept, a mantra that you can resort to when you come to a fork in the road. Then you’ll quickly be able to weigh Path A against Path B and proceed along the one that best resonates with that core concept, that mantra, your life purpose.

This is not a weekend retreat

Keep in mind that finding your life purpose isn’t easy. Don’t expect to find it during your lunch break or at a weekend away in the mountains. Jim Collins found that the great companies took an average of four years to develop a Hedgehog Concept. I’m guessing it’s a similar time line for individuals trying to find their life purpose.

The great companies broke through by constantly asking themselves hard questions, confronting brutal facts, dialoguing and debating, trying different things and analyzing results. It was an iterative, patient process, during which they remained faithful that they would eventually emerge with that one simple, beautiful concept.

And once they did, there was no stopping them.