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I had a letter today from a friend. He was feeling a little sorry for himself (it’s allowed – he is human) because he woke up one morning recently and realized why he’d been feeling so depressed for the last month or so; he was living without purpose. Not that he’d never had a purpose, rather he’d had one and (somehow) lost it. It is easy done. My friend had once courted high aspirations; he was going to train in multi-disciplines and become a martial arts maverick, treading the world stage with the greats. He wanted (he told me) to ‘be the best at something.’
Being the funny guy that everyone knows I am I could easily have offered the hilarious advice I give most people who have lost something important, ‘look down the back of the settee.
It is amazing what you can find if you move a few pillows and slide your fingers and wrist into that scary (chairy) abyss. But from the gloomy tone of my friend’s correspondence I figured that even a jokester as original as I might be wasting time with mirth when wisdom (and a quick solution) was being sought to the age old problems how do I find my purpose? and how can I become the best at something?
My friend included in his email a list of all the things that he had tried and not completed (this is part of the self pity, ‘poor me, look at what a failure I am’ - I’ve been here a hundred times my self), he talked about how well his partner was doing with her career, and how he was moving jobs and cities to support her (because he loved her) and also how pleased he was for her success. He also included a list of jobs he quite fancied doing, work that he thought might make ‘a great career,’ and perhaps one of them might even be the thing he could be the best at.
What he didn’t include on his list was what he REALLY wanted to do
I am not talking about what he thinks he should do or what others think he should do, or what is expected of him, I wasn’t interested is what will earn him the most money or even what might proffer the ‘I’ve-made-it’ status that so many people crave.
In the whole scope of things none of this is important. In colloquial speak ‘it’s all bollocks.
What I really wanted to know, and what I asked him (and what I now ask you) is this; WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO? I mean REALLY.
Forget expectation. Forget income. Forget responsibilities. Forget what others want and expect and demand. Forget society, forget the government. Forget what you think and are told is impossible. What do you really want to do? If money and people were not an issue what is it that you would most like to spend your entire waking life doing? What is it that you love so much that time disappears when you do it? What is it that puts a light in your eyes at the mere mention of its name?
That (I told him, I tell you, I tell me) is what he should either be doing or at the very least making plans to do.
No more and no less.
A job with great career prospects/great money has nothing what-so-ever to do with following a dream.
I have friends on six and seven figure incomes who hate with a passion the job that they do.
They tell me that their life job/family/commitments/mortgage (etc) keeps them imprisoned.
I tell them they are wrong. It is their ignorance that keeps them imprisoned.
I tell them that their right to choose differently will set them free.
Consider this; you spend two thirds of your waking life in work. Do you really want to be bartering that much of your incarnation for a life style?
And anyway, who says you can’t earn just as much money and enjoy just as good a life style in a career that you love?
I know millionaire plumbers, rich poets, wealthy car-booters, six and seven figure martial artists.
If you are the best at what you do (and it is easier to be the best when you are passionate about what you do) the money will follow – it always follows passion.
It is at this point that people usually shake their heads and arch an eye brow (as though I really don’t get it) and say something like ‘I’ve got a mortgage to pay. I’ve got people relying on me. It is not that easy.
To which I usually reply, ‘I don’t remember saying that it was easy. Only that it was possible.
Off course it’s hard. If it was easy everybody would be doing it. Ands anyway, if everything came easy what would be the point? I have found that there is no flavour where there is no labour. What you work and strive for has a taste and texture that are only born from effort. I used to work full time as a martial arts instructor. It was my job to train for a living. And I did train. But I can tell you something now, when I did my forty rounds on the bag after a five mile run a cup of tea was not just a cup of tea. It was a cup of tea! The taste, the texture, the smell, the feel – it was almost epiphanous. Similarly when I got my black belt in judo after some of the hardest training in my life, and certainly the hardest grading I’ve ever done, I was a changed man. The lad the walked into the sports centre for the grading on Saturday morning was not the man who emerged on Saturday afternoon.
So hard is where it is at. It is the prerequisite to success, and all those that walk around it, walk under it or over it, those that avoid ‘hard’ like it is a piece of shit on the floor never get invited to the emperors banquet. Rather they sit outside and (many of them) bitch about how the people inside got a lucky break, had it easy, knew some one on the inside (because as we all know ‘it’s who you know!’). They wine because they feel over-looked, under valued, hard done to, elbowed out or – and this is the one that makes me smile the most because – the person on the inside ‘sold out!’ And the only reason they didn’t make it was because they didn’t.
How noble.
And what a heap of horse shit.
This is the excuse proffered by the people who just don’t step up. How do I know? I have used the same excuse many times on my way to where I am now. And it wasn’t until I buried that sickly heap of self pity that I finally got on.
If you are good enough you make it. End of story. If you don’t make it you look back into your self and take responsibility for that failing and either try again or quit bitching.
Back to my friend. He had lost his purpose (for the sake of brevity let’s assume that is it not down the settee, there is limited mileage in even the best jokes). He wanted to find it again; he also wanted to be the best at something, though he was unsure of what that something might be and….he was asking for my advice.
What I have learned from my 46 years on this spinning globe and what I know is this; anyone can be the best at anything if they are prepared to invest themselves in it (see my book ShapeShifter for more detail of the process). To be the very best though, world class, global I would say that four elements need to be in place; 1) first you need to acknowledge where you are right now. You need to do a brutal inventory of your level. This is important because I know many people (especially in the martial arts) who already think that they are world class and are constantly wondering why the world is not acknowledging them. I remember looking at one of my friends, a decent fighter with a whole heap of potential who wasn’t taking that next step, it wasn’t happening for him and I couldn’t work out why. I said to Sharon; ‘this guy has got so much potential, he could be world class, I can’t work out what is holding him back.’ She looked at him and said, ‘he thinks he is world class already.’ She was so right. How was he ever going to try for the next level when he thought that he was already there?
So, give yourself an honest check-up. Don’t inflate your ability and don’t be self depreciating. Where are you really? If you are not sure (and this is a hard one) ask the one person in your life who will tell you honestly. This needs to be someone that you trust, someone who is not afraid to tell you that you are great, but at the same time is not afraid to tell you that you are just not cutting it. A very famous drummer was approached by his teenage son. ‘Dad’ he said, ‘I am going to be a world class drummer.’ His dad looked at him and said ‘then you’d better get busy because at the moment you just ain’t doing the work son.’ The reply was harsh, to the point but the kind of honesty that is a necessity if you want to be great.
Once you have a realistic assessment of where you stand (approximately) on the hierarchal ladder you have make sure the second element is in place, 2) an absolute passion for your subject matter. Finding a passion is often difficult for many people because while they want to do something great, they can’t always work out what. From my experience the ‘what’ in question is probably and usually something that you have always wanted to do - or have always done - since you were a child and would be prepared to do it even if there was no money involved. If your purpose is not clear a search is in order, usually the kind of search that goes in and not out. But if you are really serious about finding purpose don’t worry, it’ll find you when you are ready. 3) Once you have your purpose in place make sure that it is something that you personally believe you can be the best at. If you are not sure that you can, maybe you feel too old, too young, too weak or too poor to make the top tier scan the book shops and internet for proof to the opposite. Experience has told me that anyone can do anything, and you don’t have to look far for sterling examples of people that have achieved the most outrageous success, despite all the elements. 4) Ironically, if you want to aim high, what you do needs to be something that, eventually, you can earn a living from because to be the best at anything you need to work at it full time.
Once you have your four elements in place it is about making that talk walk. And walk. And walk. Many people talk about being the best at this and that. The martial artists talk Lee or O’Neil, the guitarists talk Clapton or Hendrix, the screenwriters talk Abbot or Webb Peoples but when you look closely that is all they do. They talk. And talking a champion does not make.
It is about reading it, writing it, watching it, hearing it, seeing it, feeling it, smelling it, talking it (but not too much talking), it is about taking it to bed with you and waking up with it on the tip of your tongue, eating it with your breakfast, supping it thorough the froth of your beer, it is about surrounding yourself with it and above all else it is about putting in the (thousands of hours of) practice (under escalating instruction) that are needed before the world stage offers your its boards to tread.
Beware. Aiming for pinnacles is uncomfortable. There is hardly any air up there in the higher echelons and it can be suffering.
But that’s good.
You will never be a great anything if you haven’t suffered. Be worthy of the suffering and the struggle, so that when you arrive and people come to you for advise and complain about how hard their life is and how they are struggling you can say, ‘hey, let tell you about struggle! I remember the time when…..’
So, if like my friend you have lost your purpose retrace your steps to a time when you were inspired, pick up the old scent, make a great adventure out of finding your purpose. And if you want to be the best, stop talking and start doing. If this is a time of confusion for you, a time of struggle, get excited because that alone makes this is a great time. Confusion and struggle are THE pre-cursers to major breakthrough.
The universe is in dire need of adventurers and it is waiting for your contribution my friends. Don’t let it down.
Thanks for listening in.
Geoff Thompson
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© Geoff Thompson - 8 September 2006
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Reproduced with kind permission Geoff Thompson
www.geoffthompson.com
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