A Story About Purpose
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” And Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Wise words from two great philosophers.
Taking this wisdom to heart, in September the Scales family is moving to Valencia, Spain for a year of adventure, exploration and learning. Dialogik Creative Leadership is moving too, and we will continue to serve our clients from the Mediterranean coast.
The story of this move is a story about purpose. At Dialogik, we work with clients who trust us to discuss their dreams, their challenges, and their opportunities. We explore what matters most to help them find clarity and direction. In this work, I “help leaders create workplaces full of value, joy and purpose.” That is my unique purpose at work.
In a more personal context, my purpose is also “To create a life of adventure and meaning for myself and my family.” For me, these words are a driving force: a signal of what is most important to me and of what I want to bring into this world.
The idea of living this purpose can fill me with anxiety and doubt. Can I really do this? Are the risks worth it? What risks am I not seeing? This move to Spain is reinforcing what I know: any purpose-driven decision comes filled with anxiety. It's an unavoidable piece of the package and a sign you’re exploring something new.
This will be an adventure for the whole family. We are caught in the swift current of change: the endless tasks to get done before we leave, envisioning new adventures, and bittersweet goodbyes.
This is an exciting chapter for Dialogik Creative Leadership too. We will continue to work with Executive Coaching clients and design/deliver Development Programs for leaders and teams. We will build our client base in Europe as we continue to grow our business in North America.
What is the Purpose Of Purpose?
This adventure is teaching me first-hand about the joys and the challenges of living a purposeful life. It is helping me answer the question a client in a workshop recently asked: what is the purpose of purpose?
I believe that a clear, compelling, and meaningful purpose serves as both a sail and a rudder for our lives. It gives us a reason to get up and face the day; it motivates us to move through challenges; it inspires us to take risks and face fears that we might normally shy away from, and it directs our way. When our purpose truly connects with us, we take the risks needed to create new realities.
How To Make Purpose Matter
For purpose to matter, to really matter, it must feel as natural as holding your child’s hand or hugging a loved one. In the same way, it must be genuine, from the heart, and unique to you. No platitudes, no fancy words, and no hint of a “should” in it. Just something that represents what you really care about.
The right purpose lights a fire in your soul. “To create a life of adventure and meaning for myself and my family” is deeply important to me. It connects with me, and it lights a fire in my soul.
This is the key: your purpose must truly connect with you to be of value. It can’t just sound good at a client meeting or look smart framed on an office wall. You know you have it right when those who know you best look at it and say, Yes, that’s you!
Finding purpose is not easy work. We all create assumptions over time about what our lives should look like. What it means to live a good life. What work is appropriate, and what work isn’t. What role money and career should play. We are hard-wired to migrate to what others have told us to do. Some of these assumptions have value and can serve us well.
However, to find our true purpose, we must be prepared to question these assumptions and discover what really matters to us. This can take time and hard work. The first 12 years of my working life I worked in careers that others had defined as “success” and I did so because I thought I should.
When I realized that I had the opportunity to explore something else, I worked on my own purpose, and my world shifted. I found the career I am still in 20 years later. I started working with a different clarity and energy. And it has made all the difference.
So How Did It Happen That We Are Moving To Spain?
This process started several years ago. I was feeling a little lost and wasn’t sure where I wanted to take my business, and I was beginning to get restless. I spent 3 days away from home at an isolated cabin with my laptop and empty flipcharts. My goal was to figure out what to do with the next phase of life. I had a business that I loved, a growing family, and a loving partnership with someone willing to put up with my insecurities and questions about our future.
While at the cabin, I reflected on the best experiences of my life. Adventure, travel, and living abroad played a significant role in many of these stories.
I created a mindmap and called it “2020-2030 Scales Family Plan: A Decade of Adventure”. As I developed this mindmap, a giant epiphany hit me: I have a limited window to be with my children, as children, before they grow up and start living their own lives. This was a moment that mattered!
This insight shocked me and sharpened my focus: there is one decade remaining – just one! – where I have control over my kids. Hopefully, they will choose to be in my life for decades to come, but this decade is the only one where I can significantly guide how they spend their time. So – and this was a huge motivator – I simply noted the ages my kids were at the time, and how old they would be in 10 years. It was a “reinforcing euphoria”. It gave me incredible clarity and pushed me to action.
Here is the mindmap I created that afternoon in 2019. Note the legend I added in the bottom right corner: my kids’ ages in 2020, and how old they would be in 2030. More than any other part of the mindmap, this is what pushed me to act.
Understanding This Mindmap
There are different “nodes” to capture the biggest opportunities, questions, and concerns on my mind. Where would we go? When would we go? How would we fund this? Everything that excited me or scared me went onto the mindmap. It was a place for ideation, exploration, and problem-solving.
This reflection was fundamental to our decision to move to Spain. It gave a framework and a path forward to bring my purpose into life. We hope our children will read this article one day and understand why we took them to Spain, and perhaps be motivated to discover their own purpose.
Finding Your Purpose
Finding purpose is a messy, imperfect process. It's never complete and it is not easy. We all have family responsibilities, financial challenges, and meaningful commitments that we must honor and that can pull us away from purpose. This work is difficult but infinitely rewarding. It is not about what the purpose is, rather it matters that it connects with you and who you are.
When I was 17 years old, my Grandpa gave me The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. This passage from the book has inspired me countless times:
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.
Keep experimenting!
Geoff