Finding that 'Deeper' Purpose

A while back, a friend of mine recounted a dream he had last night where I sat him down and challenged him on finding his ‘deeper purpose’. I was fascinated by his ‘nocturnal’ encounter with these words. In his dream he was unsure about what it was which meant he was not able to respond to my continual quest for clarity from him. I told him he needs to discover his deeper ‘inner vibe!’ and be connected with why he was doing what he was doing. Eventually I sent him up a hill with a journal and pen to journal what he thought this ‘deeper purpose’ could be. After a period of reflection he came up with some answers.

The person who I am referring to, in my opinion, is pretty connected to why he does what he does. In fact, I would say he has an array of questions and statements which he reminds himself off constantly. Words like purpose, vision and values form a part of his weekly speak. Yet the question in the dream challenged him. As we spent time discussing the dream I realised it challenged me too! The reason was that one word: deeper.

What is that deeper purpose for you? What is that ‘why’ that runs through your veins, is ingrained in your DNA and that connects you powerfully with how you live your life? What is it that you feel so powerfully about which runs as deep as the oceans within your soul?

The timing of this discussion was impeccable. My challenge lately is to continuously remind myself of the ‘why’ rather than to become too focused on the ‘what’ and the ‘how.’ When this ‘why’ is not clear I look back over a week and wonder how much of what I have done has been effective. The disciplines which are important to me such as times of quiet and solitude go out the window. When I focus on my ‘why’ I can clearly see which of my actions have substance and color. Those actions feel rewarding and energising rather than empty and fruitless.

The point is we both realised we would like to be able to articulate that ‘deeper purpose’ off the cuff. If we have to journal on the hillside to find it out it probably means we are not going to be able to call on it in the moment. That’s where it counts!

How many of your actions have purpose behind them?


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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

Work, Life and Balance

The last few days I have been workshopping at a clients wellness day. I have been very interested to hear the challenges that people face in the area of ‘work life balance’.

My take on the term is that we need to get rid of the word balance. It seems the separation of work and life as two separate entities is what is getting us into trouble.

When work is seen as one thing and life as another it would make sense that when there is too much work and not enough life that the desire to escape work becomes very real. We end up living for 1.5 days of the week - Saturday and half of Sunday and simply getting through the necessary grind that is work Monday to Friday.

But what if we simply looked at just LIFE and decided that LIFE includes work and a bunch of other stuff?

The most important question then becomes - how do I live optimally?

A few commented that the answer to a happy work life is in fact working for yourself where your time is yours i.e. when you get to work less and have more space to surf, take time out etc. Again, when the work side is minimal and the life side is maximum. This is why books such as ‘4 hour work week’ have been a such a great success. The quest is to reduce work and increase life. Most saw the ultimate ideal as work ending and life being the only thing to enjoy.

Work is getting in the way...

At Appletree we call this preparing to live. We need to challenge this perspective and move toward living life now.

Sometimes the changes are subtle. For example one of the differences I saw was in the approach to work by those who exercise and those who don’t. Those who exercise seemed to have a notably different perspective on their work. One woman commented to me that ‘her nerves were frazzled’ before she committed to running every day. Her work has not changed but her experience of work has through her engaging intentionally with the other important areas of life!

Another chooses to get out with her friends during the week. Another chooses to grab a coffee during the day. Small things which remind us that work is part of life rather than feeling like work is consuming life!

In other words if we change the way we live our experience of work will change too.

We need to ask ourselves what we can do to live more optimally even whilst our reality includes a full time job or a difficult work season. What else needs to be included in your life and how can you be more intentional about living well given...

Life includes work and a bunch of other stuff.

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

Name

“You want to go 
Where everybody knows your name, 
And they're always glad you came; 
You want to be where you can see, 
Our troubles are all the same; 
You want to be where everybody knows your name.”

Do you recognise these lyrics? Are you singing the theme song in your head?

They come from the classic theme song for the popular 90’s sitcom Cheers.

I heard the song the other day and I haven’t stopped thinking about those lyrics, I think they are extremely powerful and contain a powerful leadership gem.

There is power in someone’s name, and even more power in knowing someone’s name. One of my primary influencers and friends, Rory Dyer, has the incredible ability to remember the names of people he meets. He has influence over thousands of people, meets new people all the time but I have witnessed time and again how he remembers not only people’s names, but also their story. I have also heard over and over how this has made an impact on those people whose names he has remembered. They feel valued and appreciated, and for many it has been the reason they are part of his church.

People wanna go where their names are known. A name represents a person’s identity, their heritage and their uniqueness – it is no wonder people wanna go where these attributes of themselves are embraced, appreciated, valued and even celebrated.

The creators of Cheers really chose a perfect song for their show – it summed up what the bar was all about. A place where people could come, where they would be free to be themselves and would be welcomed by the people there.

Imagine if we created the same environment for those we lead. Imagine if those we lead always felt that we were glad they came, that they weren’t alone in the challenges that they were facing. Imagine they felt they were appreciated, valued, an integral part of the team. Imagine they didn’t have to go to a bar to feel this way.

I believe the most effective leaders are those who see the value in those they lead. Instead of manipulating people, they treat them as assets and strive to build and develop them.

They lead with clarity, distinctiveness and direction, all the while making others feel safe and valued.

If we can strive to lead like this, I believe we will create an environment like that of Cheers… Where everyone knows your name.
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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

Powerfully Unique

I was doing a workshop last week, and met a lady who through the exercise we were doing discovered that she had a very strong gift of helping others reach their potential.

What a great gift to have! Many leaders strive to be effective in this area, and would be thrilled to learn they have this skill.

Interestingly, she did not feel this way! She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms and shook her head. She did not believe it. In her mind there is no way she could have this skill. When I challenged her on this she told me she knew someone who was extremely gifted in this area, and she was nothing like them!

How often do we do this as leaders? God has placed unique gifting and talents inside of us to make a difference in peoples' lives, but so often we doubt and discard them because we compare with others.

This reminded me of the story of David. The Bible tells us that David was a man after God's own heart.

He was a shepherd boy.

But, he was also a giant killer!

We know the story. David hears about Goliath and wants to kill him for coming against the army of the Living God. We read in 1 Samuel 17 v 33-40:

33 Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."

34 But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine."
Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you."

38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
"I cannot go in these," he said to Saul, "because I am not used to them." So he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

David knew who God was and who God had made him to be... Powerfully unique! There was the temptation for David to conform to how other warriors had fought powerful enemies, to try copy their tactics and use their weapons. But he responded differently, he was true to himself and used what God had put in his hand.

What has God put in your hands as a leader that is powerfully unique? Are you trusting in who God has made you to be, or are you comparing to others?

Are you disqualifying yourself because of a comparison you are making with another persons giftings?

The word tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are powerfully unique. Imagine if we had to believe in and celebrate that uniqueness and lead others out of who God has made us to be?

May you gain great excitement and courage as you look at what you have in your hands and know that you can accomplish great things.

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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

Picture Life As An Appletree

One of my favorite questions is ‘Are you living for one and a half days of the week?’

So are you?!

At the tender age of 18 I wrote a metaphor for life called ‘life as an appletree!’ It has pretty much turned into a way of life for me (www.appletreelive.com), and I guess has challenged me to make sure that the answer to that question is never ‘yes...unfortunately I am.’

The trunk is life. We move up the trunk through school, careers, family, assets and retirement, until we reach the top. We know there’s more than just the ‘ordinary’, and yet we cling to our comfort zone… our thick, safe, trunks.

Then there are apples. Apples represent the realities that we wish to create for ourselves; opportunities we know are for us. However, given that they lie at the ends of thin branches, we choose not to step out into a world of risk and fear to pick them. We stay on the trunk.

No-one wants to get to the end of their lives to find themselves sitting on top of their apple tree, looking down at piles of rotten apples lying on the ground, never picked.

Over the past 10 years I have realised that society seems obsessed with the trunk yet wants to step on to the branch. We are so focussed on ‘whats next’ - when are you getting married? when are you having kids? when are you having another? So it continues! The result is we are so focussed on the trunk that we miss apples. OR maybe we want to miss them... because they scare us. As much as humanity wants to be ‘happier’ they seemingly find it very difficult to break out of habitual patterns they find themselves in from too much time on the trunk.

Picking apples is scary business ... stepping out into new realities, trying new things, doing something that scares us, broadening our minds. Those that live for more than and a half days of the week seem to have something in common - they have taken risks, they are pushing through fear and they are challenging their comfort zones. It seems to be a rush!

How many times do we hear the eulogy message?? Someone wishes they had done more, lived more?

So heres the deal. Today I challenge you to step out onto that thing branch, to pick apples and to begin a journey that will change your reality. I challenge you to find an apple, no matter how small RIGHT NOW. I challenge you to look at what comfort zones you have found yourself in and look at ways to break out of them.

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

Listen for the Whisper

God desires to lead and guide us, he wants to speak to us. As leaders it is essential that we hear him so we can effectively lead others.

But so often we struggle to hear.

Maybe it is because we are hoping that we will hear God’s booming voice loud and clear, telling us what to do.

However it never seems to be like that with God. But the promise is that God is speaking, so maybe we need to try things differently. Maybe God’s voice is drowned out by all the noise around us.

This scripture tells a similar story:
1 Kings 19:11-13: "The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

We have winds of work and stress, earthquakes of hurry, fires that burn with the desire for instant answers and solutions. But God so often comes as a gentle whisper, and these things drown out His voice. We can so easily miss it if we don’t take a step back, remove the noise and listen for the whisper...

Have you ever taken time out in silence and solitude?

In his book Leading On Empty, Wayne Cordeiro says that there are only four ways to live your life:

1. Reaction – passively dominated by urgencies and pushy people.
2. Conformity – succumbing to the fear of man and just being and doing what everyone else wants, which is not necessarily following God’s will for you personally.
3. Independence – nonconforming rebellion in the name of freedom, marked by doing only what you want and ignoring godly authority over you.
4. Intentionality – reverse-engineering your life and living it prayerfully and purposefully, journaling your thoughts throughout the day, and using silence and solitude to hear from God and organize your life.

How are you living your life now? Where would you like to be?

Why not try things differently from now on. Instead of wanting God to shout above the noise, why not try spend some time, turn off the noise and listen for the whisper...
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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

Pruning Tactics

Chapter 2 of the book Necessary Endings by Dr Henry Cloud is entitled ‘Pruning: Growth Depends on getting rid of the unwanted or the superfluous.’ I found this chapter both insightful and challenging.

Dr Cloud refers to the art of growing rose bushes. The Gardener who is skilled in growing healthy rose bushes intentionally and purposefully cuts off branches and buds that fall into the following 3 categories:

Healthy buds or branches that are not the best ones;
Sick branches that are not going to get well, and;
Dead branches that are taking up space needed for the healthy ones to thrive.

Dr Cloud refers to this metaphor as a means to encourage us to look at these 3 categories of necessary endings in our own professional lives. What really struck me from the metaphor was the idea that category 1 that a rose bush has only enough resources available to it to bring a certain number of buds to bloom - not all of them!

It simply cannot bring all of them to full bloom.

In order for the bush to thrive, some of the buds have to go.

Dr Cloud says ‘the caretaker constantly examines the bush to see which buds are worthy of the plants limited fuel and support and cuts the others away... He ends their role in the life of the bush and puts an end to the bush’s having to divert resources to them... in doing so, the gardener frees those needed resources so the plant can redirect them to the buds with the greatest potential to become mature roses.’ (page 16)

We have resources which are both precious and limited. Are we treating them this way?

Where are we directing our resources?

If we had to examine them through the knowledge that our resources can only bring a limited number of ‘buds’ to bloom which areas would we put them into.

Which areas would we take our resources away from?

Dr Cloud goes onto say that without the necessary endings of these buds we simply don’t get the best roses. If we are aiming at the ‘best roses’ or the fullest potential of what we are putting our hand to, we need to examine everything else that we are putting our hand to as well.

Personally I found a few areas that probably need to be cut away so I can direct my resources into the best ‘buds’.

You?

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com