The Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is to live fully with ultimate hope.

Let the debate begin. I know I’m not wise enough to nail this. I don’t think any of us are…but we sure seem to spend a lot of time in pursuit of identifying and understanding the meaning of life—especially around this time of year—the New Year. This is the time when I seem to rest the most, play the most, and wrestle philosophically the most. The turn of a new year for me is a time to consider the personal question of “what do I want to be this year” in pursuit of the meaningful life.

This consideration always comes back to purpose. So in the transition to 2009, I found myself, yet again considering … well, me. And I found some things I liked and some things I didn’t like. These were some of the questions I considered.

1. Where am I not honest with myself?
2. What needs more of a disproportionate amount of my attention?
3. Where did I screw up? Do less of that.
4. Where did I succeed? Do more of that.
5. Where would I like to grow the most this year?

For me, in ‘09 I’ll make a greater commitment to my spiritual growth, new adventures with my family, and business growth. What about you?

Tags: 2009, business, champion, lead, Leadership, life, new, organizational, purpose, reflect, resolution, review, year

Anyone Tired From the Times? Do Something About It.

Emotional energy is low, lifestyle challenges are high. And few people are escaping the negative impacts of our times. Life got harder.

So, how have you adjusted?

Hopefully, you’ve adjusted like Americans have throughout history. You aren’t waiting to be saved, bailed out, or granted immunity. You’ve replaced finger pointing and anger with a personal and strong sense of urgency. These aren’t the times for hope, but rather, action. It’s time to bring your intensity to every single day. According to John Kotter, it’s time to elevate your sense of urgency.

…true urgency is a set of emotions, a gut-level feeling that we need to get up every single day with total determination to do something to deal with those hazards and opportunities and make some progress, no matter how modest, and do so today.

Check out the rest of John Kotter’s post on HBSP.

Tags: business, career, champion, economy, harvard, john, kotter, Leadership, life, lifestyle, organizational, responsibility, urgency, work

Making it Personal Will Demand Sacrifice

A contributor to this blog, Bryan, reminded me today of something I know well, but don’t think about often enough. If I love something so much that it becomes a personal mission of mine, it will demand personal sacrifice.

Bryan left a lucrative career for the mission field. I left easy money for a “wrestle to the mat” in people development. My brother’s wife, Jayme sacrificed life balance (impossible) for her music career.

Seth Godin has an interesting read on how difficult it is to make great money doing something you love. I hope that’s not true. But this is for sure – doing what you love will demand greater sacrifice than playing it safe.

Tags: balance, career, champions, Godin, Leadership, life, mission, organizational, Sacrifice, Seth