Join Dr Alan Watkins and Katie Ledger as they discuss living with passion. When the world is changing so fast how do we not get lost in the chaos? How do we maintain a sense of meaning and continue to live with authenticity and integrity? This episode will explore how we discover our personal purpose, our bliss - and how we can live large and with passion even when we may be at home.
Katie: Hello and welcome to go big or stay home, living your life with a passion and not playing small. Thanks for joining us this afternoon. this afternoons session is all about purpose, both. Personal and organizational and basically any kind of purpose. So, Alan, good afternoon. So, we're talking about purpose, this week and I remember us talking a couple of weeks ago now, when you were talking about the two most important days of one's life. And I just wanted to get you to, to elaborate on that and why you think that's, that is the case.
Alan: Yeah. And obviously the day you were born. And I think, I honestly think the second most important day of your life is the day you discover why you were born, which is the day you uncover your purpose and it, and it isn't uncovering. Right. you know, over the last 20 years of talking to leaders all over the world, I've yet to meet somebody who we weren't able to facilitate out of them a sense of purpose.
Most of them, interestingly, have no idea what their purpose was. for most people it's quite a tricky thing to figure out. So, you know, you might
Katie: Why, why is it so important then?
Alan: The purpose of a purpose? Cause it changes your life. Fundamentally it changes you start to live your life on purpose rather than just, just go through the motions, living a stereotype or stumbling through, it's kind of like discovering what the core operating principle is of your entire life. and we all have one. I mean, we're all here for a reason. We're here to do something and to be something, but most people ironically just don't know what that is, largely because they don't know how to get to the answer. You know, and for most people it only ever really arises at three o'clock in the morning when you've got a skin full of alcohol. You know, and you start to wonder about the existential questions. But again, without proper guidance, most people can't figure that stuff out cause it's quite complex. but it is a joy when, as you know, we, when we coach people, we'll have a conversation with them about, well, what is the point of view? Which is a good start point. You know, many CEOs
Katie: That’s quite provocative. It's quite provocative though. Isn't it? You go to somebody and say, what is the point of view, Alan Watkins? You know,
Alan: What is the point of view, what is the point of any of us? What is the point of any of it? So, it's a really, really important question. and when you, there's three kind of trite answers that come out. None of them are true that come out very quickly. When, so when you point the thing and say, well, what is the point of view? They go, well, what do you mean? Why are you doing this? Well, my businessperson, I made it to make money. No, no, no, no. That's a byproduct of doing what you do well, that's not why you're doing it, surely.
I mean, I've yet to meet and I've done about 500 of these conversations. I've yet met a single person whose purpose was I make money. That's just a byproduct of doing something well, you make money. Right? It's not why you do it. and so, if you disallow that as an answer, that’s not the purpose to make money, that's just a side effect. Oh, well what's, if it's not making money then, ah, to be a husband and father or wife and mother, whatever you are, Yeah, no that's the purpose of men and women. That's not the point of Oh. And then in desperation, they'll throw uh, procreation.
Oh no, no, no. That's the purpose of species. That's not the purpose of you. So, if you've disallowed money, you disallow the family card and you disallow procreation. Most people have no idea. They just ended up in a job or a role or level of seniority. They don't really know why they're doing any of it, which is quite ironic in a way, you know, you spend so much time at work and doing this thing. You don't know why you're doing it.
Katie: I do want to ask people, you know, if you, this is obviously quite an emotive topic for many people, so I know we've got a number of people on the call, please do drop in, your thoughts on this, I mean, something coming up for me at the moment, you know, is when you say you kind of disallow those, those things as being for purpose, could that be a purpose for some people say, well, actually, you know, I live for my children?
Alan: Well, that might be, that may be a true statement, but that's not unique to you personally. And my view is, you know, every human being does have a purpose. That's unique to them personally.
And in fact, and having had this conversation with executives, because when you're a leader, it's really important that you know why you're doing what you're doing. Right. and so, I've done 500 of these conversations, roughly. There's not been a single repeat and we can boil it down to usually two or three words as you know, and the first words I, so you only need two more words.
Occasionally it's four words, but it's most commonly two or three words. So, it's I something or I, something, something.
Right down at the core of who you really are. There's an operating principle. This is what my life is really about. And most people don't know, but once you discover that second, most important day, your life, you discover why you're even here.
It really changes. If I, if you allow me, I'll just tell you a brief story about the first time I ever did. So just to illustrate, you know, the fact how much it changes your life. So, I was coaching a guy many years ago, who was a very senior guy in a mining company. And he came into the coaching session.
He said, look, I've had enough. I'm going to resign. I said, Oh really? You're gonna resign, you know, a six-figure salary to do what exactly. And he said, make furniture. Oh, Oh, okay. So, you're got to give up all this money to make a cupboard. Yeah. I said that we need to talk about your purpose. anyway, we had a bit of a chat about it and, it turned out that his particular purpose, which took us a while to uncover was "I deal". I mean, as it turned out, he was a lawyer. you know, and he was, very involved in mergers and acquisitions. And what had happened is he'd gone to the CEO and suggested a certain deal. And the CEO had blocked him, and Mark was all back the deal. That was his purpose. I'm about the deal. That's who I am "I deal".
You know, that's me, I'm a dealer. And in blocking him, basically the CEO stopped being himself. And that's why he got extremely restless. And to the point of resigning, a six-figure salary, let's go make a cupboard. Right. But once he realized it was really all about the deal for him, we then had a conversation about, look, you need to get back to the CEO telling you is wrong.
Cause the deal you suggested probably was the right deal. Cause you're the deal guy. And you can see a good deal. Cause that's who you are. You absolutely know a good deal. When you say it, I suggest you email him and say that he's wrong, but you can't do that. He's the CEO. And I said, no, no, you have to, you have to sing your song to the world.
Right. That's who you are. It's what you're about. You've got to say. So, anyway, long story short, he sent it to CEO was off in America with the main shareholder in the finance director, sent him an email and the email came back by response "call me now". Oh my God. I knew I shouldn't have listened to you.
I said, no, no. Just ring him, see what he says. Anyway, he picks the phone up, rings the CEO and the CEO says. "You know what Mark, we've been thinking about the, CFO and I, and we've been chatting about the deal you suggested, and I think we were wrong to block it. So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to give you 10,000 pounds to do an initial evaluation, what you suggested.
And if that looks positive, we're going to give you 50,000 pounds to do a full-scale evaluation. And if that looks positive, we're going to give you a couple of million to start buying assets, to build this new iron ore division. And we want you to be in charge." So, everything he wanted just dropped in his lap because he sang his song. Katie.
And I even got funny cause I started talking to him about his personal life and he goes, Oh my God. When I go shopping with my wife, I'm trying to do a deal on the black skirt. I can't pay ticket price. I've got to do a deal. And he started to look at actually all aspects of his life. So, when he was having a great day at work, it was because he was close to the dealing and he was doing some kind of deal.
And when he was hating his life is cause he was far away from being able to do any kind of deal on anything. So even to this day, and I'm still friends with him now, you know, so I'll often ring him up and say, look, there's this piece of work. I think you need to do. And I'll deliberately inflate the price so he can beat me down and do a deal with me.
And we sort of banter backwards. Cause he just that's who he is. He loves dealing and he does the deal. And it makes the difference between a good day and a bad day. Cause he knows what he's really about he's about the deal. And he's absolutely outstanding of deal making. That's who he is .
Katie: Does purpose change throughout your life Alan?
Alan: Yes. if you change, if you mature as a human being, so if you live in sub-Sahara, Africa, your purpose might simply be I survive because you've got no food and water. But imagine you do survive, and you start to not just survive and get by hand to mouth day to day, you start to look around and start to survive a bit. Or you start to flourish a bit. Maybe you get a permanent home and you get access to permanent water supply, permanent food and whatever, then your purpose may evolve, but it goes beyond just the survival day to day to something maybe a little bit more grown up a little bit more sophisticated. So, if you evolve as a human being, you know, your purpose of evolves. So, I think I'm on my 11th regeneration as Dr. King would say, but my purpose. So, it evolves over time. If you evolve, you know, the purpose you've got maybe there for 10 years, 12 years, whatever, or some people your entire life, but it will evolve over time.
Katie: So, I suppose the crux of the matter, Marcus is asking, what are the steps one has to take to start to uncover your purpose?
Alan: Great question. so there, there are a number of ways of getting to it and it's, if I can give you a metaphor, if you imagine DaVinci's statue of David, right? brilliant, big feet, small head. you know, DaVinci was basically chipping away everything that wasn't David. i.e. David was in that block of granite before he started. And all he did was remove all the bits that weren't David. Right, and then facilitating somebody to discover what their purpose is, is a bit like that. We'll often do it, takes, you know, an hour or two, but it's really skillful.
So, you shouldn't stumble in and try and do this unless you really know what you're doing. Because you've only got two or three words to play with, so you absolutely need to find the right words. So, you need to be skillful at this. This is really skillful. So, don't stop prodding around with a spoon, you know, it's forensic, but it's in there.
And, one of the ways of getting to it, one of the methods is, to do what we call, you know, what would the seven key decisions of your life? Right. So, if you wind it back and it starts with, what was the first decision you made as an adult? What was your first big choice for some people, you know, aged 14, I decided to do this or do that, or I took a paper round and this happened, and that happened that dah, dah, dah, or I went to university or I got a job or so you're making a deliberate, directional choice.
Right? So, what we get people to do is write down. Where were you, what was the decision and with your mind at that time, not retrofitting your mind today when you were 17 and you made that decision, what do you think you were getting into? And we get to write it down. Is that okay, now we've got a fewdetails, this that.
Right? Wind it forward to the next one. You know, maybe you left university, or you changed roles and you went to this other thing. If you're worried, you might not decision? So, it's these moments that you reach a crossroads in your life and you could go left or right. And you went right. Why? And then you get to the next crossroads. You could go left to, right. You went left. Why? And actually, what's making that choice for you is your purpose. It's just, you're not conscious of it because you're just going through the moment. Right. So, if you helicopter above and look at these five to seven moments in your life, there’s a common thread that connects them and that's your purpose?
So that's what we do. It's one of the ways of getting through there are a few other methodologies that I have explained as well, you know, chipping away, there's various routes into the statue of David to the core purpose, but one of the big ones is to start to look at those critical decision making moments. And rather interestingly, very, very rarely. It's one of those great decision-making moments I got married. It's hardly ever part of the narrative. Not that it isn't an important moment in your life and an important day in your life, but in terms of your unique, personal purpose as a human being, it's hardly, it's hardly ever, I don't want to say never, but it's hardly ever one of the critical decisions of your life.
I mean, we all get married. It's an important decision, but in terms of your purpose and the directional change of your life, getting married, it's something that happens to you along the way, or if you were lucky, fortunately it happens to you on the way. So, it's the five to seven moments. If you start to see what's the common thread there, that's what you're looking for.
A question from Katie: Alex, can you have several purposes, some more important than others?
Alan: Well, several in the sense of, you know, they, they may evolve over time. Like the, you know, I moved from, I survive to whatever, if you were in sub Saharan Africa, but it's usually a transcend and include. So, if you look at the 11, I got they're like nested Russian dolls.
Each subsequent evolution of purpose contains the previous one, but it's expanded the new one’s sort of slightly more expanded and contains the previous one. So, it's not like seven are running simultaneously. It's nested, so you know where you are today, there may be earlier versions of your purpose, which certainly still have a certain resonance, but they're not driving you as the core driver anymore. They're just part of that bigger purpose as it exists today.
Katie: just quick note, it's Michelangelo. David apparently just, just so that's where we're completely clear on that. There was a question, on purpose washing as well.
You know, we hear a lot about purpose. and, and, you know, can sort of people get to the point where, you know, I don't really understand purpose or there's purpose, this and purpose that, and its purpose to sell a pair of Nike's and there's a bit of kind of cynicism about it.
Alan: Yeah. And, and that a lot of companies, cause there has been purpose washing a little bit like there was CSR in the, in the, in the nineties, you know, corporate social responsibility and every company realized they needed to CSR policy. And most of it was just marketing, spin. Right. And the same is happening, you know, purpose washing today. So, you know, every company, you know, wants to change the world and they realized particularly to attract millennial talent is they need a purpose.
They've all watched Simon Sinek's "why" Ted talk, or we've got to find out why. And it's true. They do. In fact, I was talking earlier today to a tech company, helping them to really define what that corporate purpose was. But a lot of, again, a lot of its purpose washing. You know, so if you look for example, at Chevron, you know, a big oil and gas, you know, they've come up with a purpose, which is enabling human progress by developing the energy that empowers lives and powers the world forward.
Really, you know, you actually just stripping natural resources out of the world and really enabling human progress? Is that really what your about? So, it often need it. People feel it, it feels like a bit of marketing spin to me, you know. Nike, since you mentioned Nike, their mission is what drives us to do everything possible to expand human potential.
Really? I thought you made shoes.
And lycras Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, a lot of people have got this purpose and, you know, you wonder about the authenticity of it. And I think sometimes it is this purpose washing. We've got one because we need one or there was one, we've worked with where, the CEO in his infinite wisdom and unfortunate was him not her and his infinite wisdom decided to re redo the purpose. And they came up with this making what matters better together. What I mean, that's generic, fluff that doesn't say anything. We don't even know. You're a retailer from that. And so, you'll see, when we go around the world, we talk to organizations most, organization, you know have realized they need some sort of statement on their why most of them don't really know why they exist. A lot of them know what they're doing, but very few know why they're doing what they're doing.
Can I ask is washing like about-ism?
I mean, yeah. You know, we know about the phenomenon of purpose. We know we need an organizational purpose. We've got to come up with some statement, you know, but frankly, making what matters better together is nonsense.
It doesn't say anything. It doesn't say what kind of company you are. It's a bit of mum and apple pie, you know Gera fluff that doesn't help. so, you often get just that sort of generic nonsense or you'll get this sort of hubristic statement of we're changing the world. Now, I think you make shoes and lycra, you know, so you need something that's to do with that.
But interestingly, when you get the right answer for a company, it really helps them understand why they get out of bed because it's a motive. It shouldn't be a motive. It should be precise to your industry. And it should say something about what you're doing. And it's galvanizing for most of the workforce. Most of the workforce don't care about the size and scale and profitability, Edit your ambition, what you're aiming for, but most of the workforce do care about why you're doing what you're doing and in the world where most human beings have lost any sense of meaning purpose matters, not only their personal level, but at an organizational level.
In fact, Gallup did a poll recently and said, you know, shock news, what people want from their life, more than anything is not health, wealth, and happiness. It's changed what they want above all else is meaningful work. And that's why purpose has become a big thing. And lots of companies, you know, consultants are operating, you know, purpose stuff.
But if you look at what's going on, you know, as you know, we've come in, you know, often after companies have struggled with it and got generic fluff and spent millions of pounds getting any, it doesn't help them. is it's really quite forensic work? You have to know what you're doing to be able to get the right answer for a company.
Katie: There's a question about what other ways apart from key decisions can you use,
Alan: so, you can look at the, another methodology to chip away, at Michelangelo's statue of David. Thank you for the correction.
Katie: It wasn't me. It was, it was some somebody else.
Somebody cleverer than both of us Katie.
Yes, exactly. Which isn't too difficult in my case.
Alan: So, another way is to go, like a different version of that timeline is to rewind the timeline and do what we call the magic and the tragic.
So what were the highs of your life and the lows of your life and the high points or high points usually because something was going on at that high moment, that peak experience, that is a clue to what your real purpose is. And in contrast one of the most terrible moments of your life, you're often living in a constrained way.
but it's totally against your purpose, which is why it's so painful to you. So for example, if your purpose is " I liberate", right, not mine, but if it was, and you were working in a job where you felt very, very constrained, you'd be absolutely hating it. Cause you're all about the liberation, right? And the freedom and all of that.
So, you would, that would be a real dark moment of your life. If you were in that, those constraints and you were really all about liberation. So, the tragic and the magic is another way of getting at, a third way would be to go to what we call the greatest compliment and the greatest insult. Right.
Which is, if my purpose, it isn't by the way, but if my purpose was, "I understand". Which it isn't, but if it was, and somebody said to me, Oh, Alan, that was so understanding. Oh, do you think so? "Oh, I really love the fact that you said that to me" Oh, that really touches me and etc. Because it's true. If that's my purpose, it would really resonate as a compliment.
Right. Or if they said to me, Oh, that's ridiculous. You just don't understand. I get really hurt by that because I'm all about understanding. So, the things that people say to you that really hurt can often be a clue. And the compliments that people might give you that really fluff up the feathers can also be a truth, there are various ways of getting to it,
so, in the same way as when you mature and evolve, you know, and. the values line of development. As you know, there are eight value systems, you know, anywhere in the world, there are only 8. and we evolve as human beings up these value systems, and therefore not only the actual content of your purpose, but the way that you would narrate your purpose changes as your value system change. Your value system is just a collection of concepts that motivates you.
And they cluster together with these value systems, as you know. so, value systems are really useful to understand and can be incredibly helpful to figuring out what content of your purpose is and how you narrate your purpose.
So, value systems are unbelievably important to, not only to get a sense of whether you've got your purpose, right. but also, just understanding yourself, understanding your team, your colleagues and also some of the tensions that arise at work, because I know the tensions you see at work are often misdiagnosed as personality clashes, which they rarely are. They usually values clashes are it sort of cultural walls? So if you really understand that these eight value systems and how they show up in your life and the life of the people around you, it gives you a profound insight and an ability to navigate much more successfully. cause it helps you understand where people are coming from? And it really can help build trust and trusting relationships, which is critical in team development as you know.
Katie: And it starts to help you to understand where you are. I mean, it's not necessarily a tool for purpose per se, but it's, I think people quite like the fact that they can find out more about themselves in a very nuanced way.
There's that? There's a quote. And I know you're a big fan of Joseph Campbell. so, I was doing a bit of digging around, earlier. I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they're looking for the experience of being alive.
Alan: Yeah. So, when you discover what your purpose is, the colors get brighter.
You live a more vivid life. you're living your life on purpose as opposed to living your life by accident. Cause you don't know what you're doing and why you're doing it. and so that's why, you know, second, most important day of your life. There's the reason when you discover why you're doing what you're doing.
Why you're here. so, it really brings it into sharp focus, and it enables you to know what a good day is for you and what a bad day is for you. so, I remember some years ago I was coaching a CEO, who used to, run the whole of the logistics side of this global logistics company out of Asia. And his purpose was "I deliver".
I said, well, you're in the perfect job. This is the perfect job you want. Its delivery company . And you're all about delivery. And he did a phenomenal job in that. And then, they got taken over by one of the other big players and he left and he now runs a sort of educational charity and he's still delivering, but he's delivering educational outcomes as opposed to parcels, but it's still, "I deliver" for him and he's about that delivery.
and so, it just, he knows that if he's not delivering something for somebody, he's not living his purpose. So, when he can't deliver an outcome, He feels very uncomfortable. So just knowing that about himself, enables him to know, and it gives them that sort of guiding light. you know, when we, when Carol McCall was running EasyJet, cause you know, we help them craft the making travel easy and affordable.
So, we did that work with them and it really helped them as an organization. Still use it today. This is like eight years later. and it was a sort of guiding star, like when they're having conversations at the leadership team level, is this making it easier? Cause if it isn't, that's not our purpose, that's not why we're here.
Why are we doing it? Is it making it more affordable? Because if it isn't, why are we doing it? so it really helps you clarify on a day to day basis, whether you're living your life on purpose.
Katie: Can I ask people a question in the chat or in the Q&A, you know, if you know your purpose or you have an inkling of it, and you're just willing to share it, I don't necessarily need to call out your name, but I just think it'd be quite useful given. A number of people we got on the call, like, you'd be willing to, to share that. just one other question, you know, one of the quotes, I suppose "we must let go of the life. We have planned to accept the one that's waiting for us" a bit more kind of a ethereal there isn't it, but that's.
Alan: Yeah. And, and again, you know, one of my four boys is called Joseph after Joseph Campbell, right? So, I'm a big fan. And the life that's waiting for us is the life we were meant to live. You know, what's more recently called our best life. but it's difficult to live the life you were meant to live. If you don't know what purpose is. And that's another thing it goes on in leadership circles. I think many companies have what I call authenticity Tourette’s There's much talked about, Oh, authenticity, authenticity. it's like, it's a blurted out like a bit of Tourette’s. but if you don't know what your purpose is, what are you being authentic to? It's impossible to be authentic if you don't know who you really are. And most people, as I said, until you really start to probe in and ask them challenging questions, these people don't really know.
Right, or they think they may have an inkling, but nobody's ever really properly kicked the tires. So, they may have chiseled away and got half of the initial shape of the statue of David, but it's not well enough defined and it's not precise sort of edgy. And you know, so it's impossible to be authentic if you don't really know why you're here and who you really are.
So, what are you being authentic to? So, it's kind of ironic. I think that. You know, leadership circles and many businesses, just the authenticity in some companies even have it on the wall when they don't really know what their organizational purpose is. We want to be authentic well you don't even know what your organizational purpose is. how can you be authentic?
Katie: Yeah. There's a comment from Alex and thank you for people that are, that are posting your, purposes. you know, Ben hung, David's his journey to Olympic gold in the men's rowing eight Sydney. "will it make the boat go faster?"
Alan: Yeah, that's a good principle, but it's not a purpose.
So again, that's the complexity of this is that some things that look like a purpose possibly aren't, you know, there are certain principles by which we might live our life, you know, you get the reward, you deserve commensurate with the effort you make. You know, that's a principle, it's not a purpose, right?
A purpose is really that core operating. That's unique to you personally, you know, what is the statue of David that sits within you? and again, I spoke to people and I think, well, I haven't got one you have, and we've uncovered it. And. That moment of discovery. And what's really interesting it's because we only allowed two or three words, " I something, or , I something, something", when they get really close to it, there's some sort of weird thing that goes on where people will often say every single synonym other than the real word.
Right. and it's like they really struggle to just it say out loud, the real truth of you, Katie. Right. And so to discover what's the real truth of any of us is really a very profound moment. I mean, I've had grown men and women
Been moved tears. Yeah.
It's a very moving moment. It's like coming home to a real fundamental truth about your life.
And it does change you when you realize what it's about, what your life's really about, what you're really here to do, you know, what your live your best life to do, what exactly, to be who exactly. It matters.
Katie: A question about if, for example, my purpose is to transmit, understanding how do I take it from there? Would it be that I can recognize this when I'm feeling good about myself?
Alan: Well, possibly, I mean, let's assume for a moment that it's correct. It may not be, but let's just assume that it is. "I transmit understanding." then it's a question of understanding about what exactly. So, there's, there's a process once you've identified the purpose, is this done to work with your purpose?
Because one of the questions often comes up is when you get people to discover that purpose, do they quit their job? And the answer to that question is hardly ever in fact, quite the opposite. They often do their job with much more vigor. Most people in my experience are doing a job that's relatively compatible with who they really are, their purpose.
So, they're not a million miles away, but it reinvigorates, they know why they're doing this job and, and how to get the most value out of this job. Right. So, the delivery guy, you know, right. I'm definitely in the right company. And he got even more motivated because he realized it was so important to him.
so, you know, in terms of "I transmit understanding" it's okay. Well, what sort of understanding and understanding to whom exactly. so, you can start doing what we call working with your purpose and you can sort of put the, "I transmit understanding" of that little bubble. Okay. So what are all the things that need to happen in order for you to number one, transmit more effectively and, you know, in that transmission create understanding in others, which might be one of the outcomes you're looking for. So, you can
Katie: So, you could put it through the I We IT lens as well.
Alan: You can do that. You can say, will I Transmit understanding? Is it understanding about stuff? Is it understanding about self? Is it understanding about other, is it understanding about relationship? What sort of, what domain of human activity is that understanding relating to? You know, so, and that's assuming that I transmit understanding is correct. So, you can start to spider diagram out and start to kind of work with the purpose. And how would that change over time? When is it not true is a good question? And that will be a clue
Katie: A question from Liam. How useful is psychometrics for finding purpose?
Alan: Not very useful in my experience. and that's because psychometrics weren't designed to help you uncover your purpose. I mean, Psychotactics, if you take, you know, personality profile, they're designed describe some aspect of the big five dimensions of personality. that's not your reason you're on the planet.
It's your personality, right? or type-ologies are discussed, right? I've designed. Describe your they're not designed. To help you figure out what your purpose is. Your purpose is completely independent of your type or your strengths or your so most psychometrics are what we call descriptive. They were never designed to help with purpose or purpose work.
I mean, it's like saying, you know, you know, Alan, you like wearing a check shirt. No, you're right. I've got one on today that describes me, you know, in a psychometric way, but that's nothing to do with my purpose. You know, the fact that I like a check shirt doesn't influence my purpose. So, most psychometrics aren't actually that helpful, in, you know, in uncovering the content.
the assessments that are a bit more useful are developmental assessments. We were talking about value systems earlier along. So, depending on what level of sophistication you tend to have different kind of clusters of purpose statements at this level of sophistication. Hence the point, like if we're all living in sub Saharan Africa, many people maybe have variations of "I survive".
Yeah, I'd get through. I get by, you know, that kind of thing. and then if we all start surviving, we move up another developmental level. You know, the purpose will change. So not only in the content, but also in the way that we tell the story about purpose, that will change. So developmental psychometrics will be useful, but most of the market is still in descriptive psychometrics. And in my experience, they're not that useful at all.
Is there's a Katie: difference between knowing your purpose and honoring your purpose?
Alan: Yes. So very good question. Right. So, so living, according to your purpose is like honoring your purpose.
Right? So, I might know my purpose, but I don't live according to it. Probably I'm unhappy, right? Because when you do live according to your purpose, it creates unbelievable energy. So, one of the things that we see when we monitor leaders energy over 24 hours or 48 hours or 72 hours, is that if you're living your life on purpose, you can keep going.
So imagine this right is you're asked to do a project and at the beginning of the project, you're bright eyed and bushy tailed, and you really know why you're doing this and etc. then six months and you've forgotten why you did it in the first place. You've sort of lost sight of the reason why you're doing this, and you've got to have energy.
So, if you are connected your purpose or the purpose of this project all the way through every single day at six months, you're just as energetic at it. About six months later. Cause you're just attached to the purpose six months later, as you were at the beginning of the project. So, it sustains your energy.
It enables you to endure all sorts of things. But if you don't really know why you're doing anything or why you exist on, it's very easy to run out of energy. So honoring your purpose is really what it's about, knowing why is a good start, you know, so the uncovering of the articulation, but then living according to your purpose or honoring your purpose, that's really where the game is.
Katie: Okay. I want to think we're gonna have to wrap up any, anything else, any last thoughts on purpose?
Alan: I'd really encourage us that two most important days of your life day you're born day. You discover why is getting people to just start to think, you know, using some of those methodologies, or, you know, bill George's true North. That's quite interesting. as, as you know, a few techniques to sort of start uncovering and chipping away, and you might get a sense of it, but ultimately you need to really make sure you've got the right answer. and you really know if you have got the right answer, if you're not sure whether you've got it right or not, you probably haven't. Because once you know, you know, and it just feels profound for you, right? If you're not quite sure you probably need to talk to somebody who's very skilled at doing these types of processes. To help you get to the right answer because when you get to the right answer, it is literally a game changer. So just encourage people to have fun, do a bit of explanations to what happens.
Katie: Right. And in two weeks’ time, we've got all our last one in this series. Do you need youthful experience to go further, faster? Any thoughts on that, Alan?
Alan: Well, yeah, I mean, as, as we all get a bit older, Katie, and that's something that plays on the mind, doesn't it?
Are you talking to me, Alan?
I said, all of us, you know, we're all getting older, right.
You know, when's our, peak performance, you know, when we're 20, 30, 40, you know? so we're going to unpack that, you know, about, the balance between youth and experience, which is better and under what circumstances. So, it's pretty interesting, particularly since millennials are the largest percentage of the working population these days
Katie: yes. And we will be joined by our very own Tom cotton for that one.
So, he's
Yes
considerably younger than both of us. So that's, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. Thanks for joining us. Really appreciate that. Do check out the link. If you can, in the chat and share that and hope you can join us again in two weeks’ time. See you then. Bye bye.