Start With Who: Musings on Identity & Purpose

All right, we ended up everywhere we're supposed to be. Welcome everyone to Creative on Purpose Live. This is a, a special episode. I am just, uh, here to riff and rant, maybe riff-rant a little bit about a topic I've been writing a lot about, sharing on my Substack, uh, sharing in my social media posting And that is around the ideas of identity and purpose. And since I didn't have a guest lined up as usual for the usual Creative on Purpose broadcast, I'm just, I'm just going to riff a little bit. We've got Scott and Jeff in the waiting room. They're going to be listening in. And if they have any questions or comments or arguments to start after I finish my piece, we'll invite them in to do that. But one of the things that's been really surprising to me is about 2, 2 and a half years ago or so, I was working with a coach and I was really interested in exploring these topics of identity and purpose. And this coach said to me, Scott, nobody wants to talk about identity and purpose. Identity and purpose don't sell. And so I thought, well, that's really interesting. And so because I looked up to this person and they seemed to be successful at what they did, and I thought that I would be able to, you know, I would take take their advice, and I moved into something else. Uh, and, and that led to other things. Some of you know that I just came up with my book, uh, The Coaching Business Prescription, where I, I shared the process that I used to take my business from one that just earned a couple, couple grand a month while I was working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, and, and turned it into a 5-figure-a-month business and actually only working 2 hours a day. Um, but all the while, even though I was having some success with that program, I was still thinking about these ideas around identity and purpose. And so I've just been talking about these things, writing about these things, and surprisingly, more and more people are signing up for the newsletter, commenting on, on the posts, and signing up for coaching just to, to look at how do I figure out What I really want in life by getting a little bit clearer about who I really am. And so what I thought I would do today is start with what I call the Via Negativa approach to purpose and identity. And so Via Negativa, obviously a Latin phrase, comes to us from the 5th century. In the early days of Christianity, there was a lot of hyperbole when people talked about God. God is truth. God is love. God is absolute. God is powerful. God is everywhere. And so there was this movement in the 5th century, uh, led by a really obscure Syrian monk, uh, who's— who went by the name Pseudo-Dionysius. And what he did was he said, let's— let's— since we're defining God as basically everything, uh, and it— and therefore it almost means nothing, let's— let's get closer to what we mean when we talk about God by talking about what God is not. And so he went through this process of pruning away all the hyperbole and getting to kind of the essence of, um, of what God was. And so this via negativa approach is this process of pruning. So I'd like to approach identity and purpose, which are things that we might speak about and feel like we've got some, something, you know, that we know something about what these things actually are. But when we're pressed and asked, like, what do you mean when you say identity? What do you mean when you say purpose? What is your purpose? How do you find your purpose? Where does purpose lie? We oftentimes have a really hard time arriving at some sort of articulate definition of what these things are. So If I apply this via negativa approach to thinking about purpose, for instance, you know, well, we often hear people talking about purposes here. Purpose is this destination. It's this place out there. You need to go find your purpose. It's out there in the world. You need to go track it down and find it and embrace it and figure out what to do with it. And that's— so that's one approach. Another approach is, uh, and this is kind of the Simon Sinek, uh, approach, but it goes back and, and, uh, obviously much further. This idea that purpose is this, is this, uh, thing within you. You have to excavate it. You have to excavate your purpose, identify your purpose from, uh, from within, embrace your purpose, and then bring your purpose out into the world and, uh, do the work, whatever it is that you're meant to do. In a via negativa approach, what we might say is that maybe purpose is neither out there to be a destination to be discovered, or this internal attribute that we have to excavate and unveil. What if instead we thought of purpose as not being out there or in here, but this thing that emerges? Where would where would it emerge from? Well, one of the things that you can think about is it emerges from identity. So if identity is who you really are, well, what, what's the via negativa approach to identity? What, what is identity not? Well, we often talk about identity around what we do. I'm a coach. I'm a grandfather. I'm a husband. I'm a father. Uh, These are the— are these identities, or are these just things that we do? What if identity was not what you do, or not the expectations that other people have for you? But what if instead you thought about identity as who you are, your essence? And purpose is your is, is your— is how you express that being. And so it's not about doing, it's about identity. It's not about doing, it's about being. Purpose is not about what you do or what you're meant to do, but the way that you show up in the here and now, in the moment. And so what happens when we take this approach is that we've taken identity away from the past, which we can't do anything about these narratives we have around maybe regrets or lost opportunities or missed opportunities in the past where we could have been and done something more and better than we're doing. And we're taking away the anxiety attached to expectation about the future. Like, I'll, I'll find, I'll, I'll eventually find who I really am and what I'm really meant to do sometime in the future. But what happens if in the here and now You simply decide that you are going to show up as fully as you are able. You're going to try to strip away the limits, the via negativa approach to your identity, take away the, the self-limiting beliefs, the self, uh, the, the self-imposed limitations, uh, and show up and start to bring these things that we, you know, other things that we talk about that sound fairly esoteric, like I'm going to become— I'm going to become more conscious. You know, they say that 95% of our lives, uh, what we say and what we do is exactly what we did yesterday. 95% of our behaviors and our attitudes and our beliefs are just habitual, um, repetitions of what we— what we thought and what we believed and what we did yesterday. But if we lean into that 5% of, uh, you know, of our being that is conscious, that brings our awareness and our attention, uh, and, and applies intention to how we show up and how we are present in the here and now with the work that's right in front of us, in the relationships that we're in, in this moment, then what happens? Well, now our identity and our purpose can emerge from actually practicing identity and purpose. If we show up and with, uh, as fully as we can as to who we real— who we are, and with intention for what we want to create or bring to fruition in this moment, then We will find that identity and purpose emerge. They become, we, they, they become available. They, we become aware and we can embrace and purposefulness begets purpose. Intentionality begets greater intention. Uh, awareness begets greater awareness. And what, when we bring our attention to the here and now, then we have the ability to remain open to all of the choices and to blast through or peel away all the self-limiting beliefs, thoughts, and, and self-imposed obstacles that we put to our own progress, to our own fulfilling or tapping into the hidden wholeness of our being. So lots of kind of very, um, high-level, uh, thinking. But this is, you know, when I, when I share all these things, I'm sharing that this not is like revelations that somehow have been bestowed upon me from some sort of, um, you know, divine being or some sort of, uh, elevated awareness. These are all ideas that I have been thinking about ever since I was in the 7th grade when I was exposed to Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Stoic philosophy, says that all that's required to become a— to experience prosperity and peace of mind is to cultivate your virtue, to practice, cultivate the practice of cultivating character, of embracing your values and your guiding principles and living in accord with nature. And the Tao Te Ching, another book from another tradition, talks about how, uh, presence, awareness, consciousness, uh, fulfillment— all these things come from living in accordance with nature. Uh, and the Bhagavad Gita talks about the same thing, that your, your, your vocation, the what you are meant to do, your purpose in life, is to bring forth your gifts and, um, have— bring forth your gifts in the moment. So Stephen Cope talks about this in, in his book The Great Work of Your Life, how vocation is the bringing of your gifts into the moment that you're living in right now. And when you, when you do that, then you are heeding the, uh, the call of life. Life Life is not happening to you. Life is calling to you because it wants to speak through you. It wants you to tap into who you really are, what you're really good at, where you really belong, so that you can enhance your life through the exchanges that you have with other people. So again, not, uh, not just, um, this kind of, uh, uh woo-woo thinking that, that I'm manifesting out of thin air. These come from perennial— the perennial wisdom of ancient, uh, philosophical and spiritual traditions. So with that, um, I'm going to go ahead and— we got— I took up about half the time that I have, um, just talking about some ideas around identity and purpose and how we might more clearly arrive at that. I think talking about what it's not, and that might give us greater clarity of what it might be or what it might be for us in the here and now. And we've got, uh, Jeff, who's a member of the Catalyst Club community, and Scott, who is a member of the Creative on Purpose community in the Success Finder. And, um, just open to either of you sharing any reflections, questions, or alternative ideas.

Well, um, I enjoyed what you have to say. I was hoping for a Lewis Black kind of rant, but I guess that's not going to happen. Um, but you know, you're talking about within, even within the nature of the Buddhist tradition, be here now, be here now. And in the ancient Hebrew tradition, it's Hanani, I am here.

I love that. Yes, I've been listening. I know less about Buddhist spiritual tradition and philosophy than I do about the Hindu and the traditions that come out of the Bhagavad Gita. And I always defer to you to educate me in the, the, the distinctions that come up, come through the Jewish faith. But that idea is prevalent, I think, you know, that be here now, um, I am here. That's, that is a central, uh, idea to all of the traditions that kind of arose in this— the Axial Age is sometimes the name given to this kind of spiritual awakening that happened across the globe. That, you know, this extended period of time when we had Hellenistic philosophies like Stoicism and Epicureanism and skepticism and, uh, the, the Taoist traditions from Asia, the Buddhist tradition from, um, from India. And, uh, you know, they, they all talk about the value, uh, and the importance of, of, um, being aware and present in the here and now. And that, I'd love to hear what, you know, what the virtues, what you find the virtues of that are, Jeff, and if there's any, any ways that you think about how to bring that into your life. But just to share one, one reflection that I talked about recently in an article on Substack. Is when we think about the things that actually inhibit our ability to embrace our hidden wholeness and to tap into our, the fullness of our being and the, you know, the limitlessness of our gifts, I think it always comes down to fear. And we can define fear many, many different ways. You know, you and I are in communities where often we're talking about things like imposter syndrome, Steven Pressfield's Resistance. But for me, what has helped is to think about fear as happening, um, that there's, there's basically 3 different types of fear. There's fear related to the past that might show up as regret or shame, um, and, and those, you know, the fear that's tied to the past stories that we tell ourselves that are tied to things that happened in the past that we can't do anything about. We can't do anything about. So, uh, you know, you've got to decide, is our shame and regret invitations that you want to accept from, from the past? Uh, anxiety would be the expectations and the clinging to or the grasping for goals in the future that we largely have no control over. We, we can, we can control how we, you know, what we decide to, to go after and, and how we approach that. But largely, other people, situations, circumstances, natural events, societal and political events may inhibit our ability to get what we want. Um, so anxiety is kind of a fool's errand as well. But then there's the fear that happens in the here and now, which is angst, which is I, I don't know, I don't know who I really am. I don't know what I really want. I don't know what to do next. And if we look at those three, the three faces of fear, the one, the only place that we have the ability to actually see, step into, stand and share our power to influence the results that we might want to get, or to become the person we want to become, or to fulfill the purpose that we want to fulfill, is if we, if, if we take control over the way we see ourselves in our situation, and then what we choose to do, and then do next. And that's how we can move from angst and start stepping into possibility. I don't know if you have any additional reflections.

My philosophy is, is, uh, a little bit simpler. All this, uh, stuff— I'm with the 12-step guy. One day at a time. That's, that's all you can concern yourself with is right now. The past is nothing you can do about it. In the future, there's a little bit you can do about it, but, you know, it no sense worrying about it.

I love that, Scott. Well, it's that speaks to the what we were talking about a little bit earlier around awareness and attention, that, um, if, if we're paying attention to all the things that could happen or all the things that we actually, you know, that we want that are out there in the future that require the planets to align in a certain way, or situations and circumstances, or other people to behave, or line up in a certain way, we're, we're inviting ourselves, um, to, to, to, to suffer because it's not likely that everything will work out just the way we want. But if we bring our awareness to, to what's, what's right now and pay attention to what we, uh, what our choices are for what we do next, that's, I think, kind of at the heart of that 12-step idea of, um, just, you know, what's, what's the next— what can I do right now? What's the smallest step I can take right now to promote, um, my, uh, to bring my consciousness awareness and, uh, bring a little intention and integrity to, to what I'm going to do in this moment?

And if you dwell on all those things, it's going to overwhelm you, and, you know, I'm thinking that you're going to end up looking like a catatonic schizophrenic if you're constantly on those. So they'll take you and lock you away in a room somewhere until you come out of that, uh, that mode.

Well, it— that's— I love that characterization because, you know, we In, in the United States, at least, it appears that the people that do achieve the trappings of success are the ones that are rewarded with attention and with fame and with fortune and all these things. And so we have this, you know, we celebrate the people that attach themselves to big audacious goals and grind their way to achieving them. But then, you know, how often do we hear the story of the person, you know, the, the person that achieved all the fame and fortune they ever imagined for themselves, but it's not, not enough, and, and it doesn't make them really happy. Um, and, you know, therefore, um, you know, was, was it really, was it really worth it? Uh, and, you know, so they become, uh, you know, I think a lot of us are sometimes acting like catatonic zombies, just blindly chasing the things that we've been kind of schooled to and occupied. Yeah, exactly. Well, that brings up—

Well, I'd like to add something to that.

Go ahead.

Two things you were talking about fear. One is with fear of the past, If you can look at your regrets and turn them into reflections and learn from them, that, that helps your life. The other thing is, in the life you're leading now, you have to give up the story you think you should be doing and live the story you actually are living. And some people find that very difficult. No, no, I want to be doing this. Well, you're not doing that. You're doing this. So why don't you live the story you're actually living and see how that's going for you?

Yeah, well, that's a— I appreciate you teeing that up because one of the things that I was thinking about today, so Jeff and Scott are aware that, you know, one of the things that, that right now I am living a life that has been designed around and engineered around taking care of my grandson Jasper. And, uh, you know, this is why I, um, I went, I created that process that I share in the Coaching Business Prescription so that I could, um, move from, you know, working all day every day, um, you know, to make just a little bit of money and having no extra time to working very, working just a little bit each day, but doing just the, getting the necessary things right enough to make a living that allowed me to spend the majority of my day with my, with my grandson. And so the reason why I think the reason why I bring this up and the relevance to this idea around identity and purpose is those of us in this room and a lot of the folks that are tuning in, we start to be concerned with identity and purpose as we are losing touch with some of the identity and purpose that, that, that was created for us around being, you know, being a spouse, being a parent, being an employee, or, you know, being a person that makes a living in a specific occupation role. And towards the end of our lives, or, you know, at a certain point of our lives, the, you know, parenting is, would actually not be the proper thing for us to be doing anymore. Our kids are out of the house living their lives. Our careers are winding down. We have to come to terms with wherever we are at. And so we, we do have this, uh, you know, many of us, um, treat identity and purpose at a certain stage of life as almost an existential, um, uh, catastrophe that we have to, uh, figure out, navigate, and, um, and, uh, and reinvent ourselves around. But when I think about, you know, what I love so much about spending time with Jasper is when you think about what does it take to actually be, um, you know, just a, a, a happy human, uh, Jasper's got it all figured out. Jasper isn't having any existential, uh, uh, um, meltdowns in his brain around, you know, what should I Who am I and what am I supposed to do with my life? He is, you know, he shows up with a smile on his face, clamors, you know, for his grandparents, is laughing and smiling and clapping just because he's here, just because his grandparents are holding him, just because he knows pancakes are coming very, very soon, uh, just because he knows that Grandpa is going to turn into a pillow and we're going to take a nap very, very soon. And when he wakes up, he smiles and claps and does it all again. And so some, you know, this idea, I'll just to bring it all full circle, this via negativa, it's not what's, what's required, what do we need to learn to build identity, to forge meaning in our lives, to find fulfillment, to to, you know, create and lean into a sense of purpose in our lives. It's actually what are the things that we need to unlearn? What are the things that we need to take away? All this cruft, all this baggage that comes from, you know, what happens as we're parented and then schooled and then occupied at work and you know, all the things that come through all of this kind of institutionalized, uh, systematized way of, um, being the way that we're supposed to be as defined, um, you know, by society. What happens if we got rid of all that? And, um, again, Jasper doesn't need to be reminded to become aware and pay attention to the here and now. He's in the here and now. He is aware Jasper gets more joy out of looking at his hands open and close than I get out of almost anything I do in any given day. And it is enough. And he accomplishes amazing things every day around finding new words, finding, you know, new actions and reactions and walking and talking and all these things. Um, so the— and again, an argument for maybe we possess everything that we need. Maybe all we need to do is reconnect with this hidden wholeness. Maybe what we need to do is throw away all of the, the unnecessary things that we've, um, that, that, that have been attached to us or that we've attached ourselves to and, uh, bring that— to Scott Perry's point— bring that awareness, bring that, um, attention to the here and now. And as, um, and like Jeff was saying, be here and now and just be. So with that, I'm gonna have to wrap this up. I hope— I appreciate Scott and Jeff, you guys hopping in and, um, and adding to the conversation. I hope that that was, uh, interesting at the very least for those of you that are attending. Probably will continue to do this and hopefully get a little bit more, uh, just again trying to, to clarify and talk, figure out how to talk about ideas that I don't think we talk about enough. And, uh, I'll look forward to seeing you all next time. Thanks very much.

All right, Scott, have a great day.

Bye-bye now.