What are you willing to give up?
I was walking Lulu last week when a TED Talk Daily episode caught my attention. Martin Danoesastro asked, “What are you willing to give up to change the way we work?”
What a great question. What are you willing to give up?
Martin’s work focuses on corporate culture, but it applies equally well to living your purpose. And I’m finding the same line of thought in SpeakUp. Matthew Dicks says storytelling is all about choice. What you take out to make your story better.
You’re telling the story of your life through your purpose.
You may be thinking, Matt, I’m not changing the culture at a big company, and I don’t want to tell stories on stage. Why should this matter to me?
I believe it matters because how you live your life determines your immediate impact and your legacy. There may be things getting in the way of living the story you want to tell.
I know it’s true for me. In fact, just this morning I was talking football with my partner, Cheri. No, not fan talk and who is going to win. I was noticing that I care less about football now. This is a significant change – I started playing at 7 years old and didn’t stop until after my freshman year of college. Football was life at one point for me.
When Cheri ask me more about this, I told her it was partly about the player concussions and a part about wanting to do other things with my time. When I watch football out at a bar, I eat and drink – it costs a bunch of money, I’m better off without bar food, and after some drinks, I want to nap.
Now, I’m more selective about the games I watch and how I spend my time. I’d rather spend my time writing and living my purpose, rather than watching someone else live theirs.
What do you need to stop doing so that you have more time to live your purpose?
Give up the good for the great.
I got a text from my friend Chance Taureau yesterday, check out his purpose work with Petrol for the Soul. He reminded me of our time together in our ManKind Project men’s circle. We did amazing work, bonded deeply, and had fun too.
As we worked to grow up as men, we’d challenge ourselves, and each other, to change our behaviors. At first, we focused on actions that were obviously getting in our way of doing what we said was most important.
After a couple of years, we’d run about of bad habits to tackle. This may be where you’re at today. Sure habits can be an ongoing fight, but mainly under control.
That’s when we came up with the realization that we needed to give up the good for the great. Meaning that you have to say no to “good things” so that you can say hell yes to activities that feed your purpose.
I’m happy to report that we both reached our goal of becoming full leaders for the New Warrior Training Adventure and leader trainers in the ManKind Project.
Hit Reply: What do you need to give up so that you can say hell yes to your purpose? What do you need to cut, so your story is better?
Live a Bold & Authentic Life
Matt
