Chad Silverstein presents a short, motivational talk about living an OPUS — a purpose-driven life and pursuing a big dream. He argues leaders must be able to articulate why they do their work so others can follow, describes how modeling and sharing one’s purpose inspired his team, critiques following a default societal path without passion, and issues a call-to-action to reflect and write down one’s purpose.
Chapters
So built to lead this book here. It's an iteration of the playbook of the 12 Essentials of Personal excellence. So we don't get too much into opus, but there's a lot of purpose and we want people to author an opus. There's nothing more exciting than watching someone pursue a big dream for their work or life. And you have to know where you're headed. You have to know what you're doing and why you're doing it, and more importantly, where you're going with it. You know, I think we just get brainwashed from being a little kid from our parents and from just society in general, which is what we're supposed to do. You know, get good grades, go to college, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids. Like there is this kind of path for the American dream. And, you know, whatever it is that you believe about that path is fine as long as when you look at your path, you're aiming at something that you love. You don't want to be a highly paid laborer, you know, you want your labor of love. That's what OPUS is. It's all about. It's about being able to live a purpose driven life. And if you can't articulate your purpose, why you're here, then you can't expect anyone on your team or people that you're trying to lead to know where you're taking them. And you don't want them to assume, and worse, you don't want them to think that you have no aim. You know, if you're a leader worth following, it's because they believe in you and we believe in leaders that are believable. So, you know, you have to ask yourself if you're believable. You have to ask yourself if you've been playing with a purpose or an opus and you've written it down. Have you shared it with anyone, gotten any feedback? I mean, I can't tell you how many times in my team practices the courage now that I look back and seeing how hard it was. But we just took it for granted that people would just stand up and share their opus, their vision, and let people just crush them with like challenging questions. It's amazing. I mean, I. I look back, it's just so inspiring thinking about it, so many people doing it. And, you know, I think, thank God. You know, I think when I really reflect on it, it's because I did it first. I showed them what I was doing and why I was doing it and I was believable. You know, I was trying to change the perception of collections, and they bought into it. And then they started challenging themselves, figuring out what they wanted to do in the business, outside the business. And then I think, you know, again, you only need a few of those people doing it for it to light up the entire team. And that's what happened for. For my team. And it was. It was really. It was magical. It's like, you can't make that stuff up at a collection agency. But we had it and started with the power of just a couple people who are lighting it up, pursuing something they love and having purpose. You got to know your way. You got to know your way, and you gotta. You gotta get busy reflecting and putting that pen to paper. And there's just no easy way around it. It's why so few people have it. If it was so easy, everybody would have a purpose and everybody would know why they're here, and everybody would know what they're aiming at, but they don't. So to be an outlier and to be different and distinct, you gotta do the hard work. So you have to ask yourself if you have or if you've just been ignoring it.
