Daniel Borschel argues that meaning alone isn't enough: you need an active pursuit that challenges you. Without the hunt, the stretch, the demanding work, people feel empty even when their lives matter. Aliveness comes from competence pushed to its edge.
The human psyche drives for competence and the development of that competence as we will talk about in a moment. So I know amazing people, they don't feel fulfilled because they lost the hunt. That's what we call it in Montana. I don't know other metaphors. Someone help me out. The hunt, the pursuit, right? You're not driving for something anymore. You're doing something, but you're not driving for something that matters to you. Live, love, matter. You got to drive something that matters to you. If it doesn't matter to you, it could be so meaningful and you could be doing something meaningful. But if you're not stretching, if there's no pursuit, we lost the edge. And as soon as we lost the edge, we're back in the comfortable life and we don't know why. Everyone gets this wrong in personal development. They just haven't done the work. They tell you you want meaning. That's how you know a beginner in personal development versus the pros. I know a lot of people who have meaning in their life. They have a great job, they got two great kids, they have an amazing spouse or partner. They're doing something. Some of you guys know, I actually started my first seminars for nonprofit leaders. If you didn't know. My first, like real seminars were teaching nonprofits how to partner with entrepreneurs to raise more money and entrepreneurs how to partner with nonprofits to spread a message or be part of a mission. Those are my first seminars working with nonprofits. Do you know how many nonprofit leaders around this world still call me every single week? They're non profit leaders and they're unhappy. They're saving lives in other countries and they're unhappy. And when we get into it, like, what's going on there, There's a difference between meaning, having meaning or generating meaning and meaningful pursuits. If, let me tell you this, if you lost the pursuit in your life, that's the difference between the comfortable life and the charged life. The pursuit, the pursuit of something greater or harder, the challenge, the push. That part where you have to extend yourself beyond the comfort into the demand. It makes you feel alive. It makes you find flow and challenge and difficulty of contribution. If contribution is too easy for you, the meaning will never make you feel fulfilled. Let me say it again. If your contribution is too easy for you, the meaning that you could have there will never make you feel fulfilled. You always wonder, why am I not fulfilled? Because you're doing something that is too easy for you. The human psyche drives for competence and the development of that competence. As we will talk about in a moment. So I know amazing people, they don't feel fulfilled because they lost the hunt. That's what we call it in Montana. I don't know other metaphors. Someone help me out. The hunt, the pursuit, right? You're not driving for something anymore. You're doing something, but you're not driving for something that matters to you. Live, love, matter. You got to drive something that matters to you. If it doesn't matter to you, it could be so meaningful and you could be doing something meaningful. But if you're not stretching, if there's no pursuit, we lost the edge. And as soon as we lost the edge, we're back in the comfortable life and we don't know why. And then we're bored, and then we're disconnected, and then we're in the cage, and then we resentful, and then we're bitter, and then we think, those bastards don't understand and we're the animal in the back of the cage. Whoa. This is so important. What's the pursuit? What's that contribution you're going to go after? It might be a little outside your comfort zone. It might be a little bit much. And I know people get really hooked about the contribution word. Does that mean I need to change the world? I'm like, no, no. What's the contribution? Listen, there can be creative contribution. Making art is a contribution, right? Giving, serving. Yeah, you could write checks. You can volunteer. But volunteerism isn't the only way of contributing. Contributing sometimes being an unbelievable mom. Contributing sometimes means getting involved locally again. Contributing sometimes being a great leader at work where you stop just doing your work and you see the other people at work and you work together and you're pursuing something. The drive that a lot of companies want to work with. Them are like, oh, you all lost your pursuit. You became an organizational stagnant company. There's no pursuit, there's no edge there anymore. We got to get that performance edge back in the culture. And all of sudden people are like, woo. They're alive again. All human beings, what we really desire, once we get past safety and sustenance, are these four aspirations. We want a greater sense of aliveness. That might mean presence, consciousness, awareness, vibrancy, passion, enthusiasm. We all want more of that. Some people call it adventure. Some people call it just the spice of life or joie de vivre, whatever it is. We want a sense of aliveness. The second aspiration we talked about was deep connections. That means your relationships at the end of our lives. It's the relationships that matter so much to us. And we know from research that the deeper relationships you have, the longer we live. Third, Meaningful pursuits. Some people get this through creating, some people get this through service. But I'm here to tell you the important phrase here is meaningful pursuits. You have to pursue something. We all want to get better, to become more, to be a better leader. A parent servant role model that sense each day that we have something to do that matters. Growth Day. World's number one system for achieving it. We know from research. To improve your life long term, you got to track your habits, you need a mindset journal, you got to have a goal setting system, you need deep dive education, you need coaching. You got to have ongoing conversations with other people about your personal and your professional goals. Our goal for you is to help you make self improvement a way of life by giving you things that give you the guidance, the inspiration, the drive and the motivation to continue becoming more and more successful, healthy and happy in your life. Every day is a great day to grow. We say that every day in growth day. Let's make this day the day you begin that journey.
