How are you embracing your human connections?

In the first half of 2022, I have had the opportunity to facilitate 25 workshops with 200 employees, individually coach 32 leaders, and deliver keynotes to over 450 professionals.

To say it’s been a busy six months is an understatement, but luckily for me, I LOVE my job!

This is no huge surprise: I have designed my work based on my passions, and building on my experience, principles, strengths, and the impact I want to have. These building blocks are summarized in my purpose:

“to create opportunities that inspire people to go-forward as the ultimate version of themselves.”

I came up with my purpose using this simple model, and formula: Purpose = Passion + Impact + Application.

PurposeFused Purpose Discovery Model

So, how do you know if you love your job? Quite possibly, you just know. Intrinsically what you are doing feels rewarding and brings out the best in you. If you’re not sure, or you think you could love it more, you could consider the following 5 questions broadly, with no regard for what you currently do for work:

1. What do I enjoy?
2. What do I excel at?
3. What do I care about?
4. What do I believe in?
5. What difference do I want to make?

Let’s dig a little deeper into the first four questions, representing your PASSIONS.

Add a second layer to each of the first questions: why? Why do I enjoy / excel / care about / believe in those things. When I look behind my current role, what are the elements that sit behind it that match – or don’t – these passions?

Next, add a third layer: revisit your life experiences all the way back to childhood. Compare your answers to when you were having the most fun, performing at your best, caring wholeheartedly about something, or believing deeply in possibility. Add any elements that were missing from your initial responses to the first four questions.

Finally, build on layer 4: ask friends and family (people who know you the best) – how they would answer these questions for you. If you can’t ask them, put yourself in their shoes and answer the question for them, hearing their voice in your head. Then check for alignment between their answers and yours.

I know these questions might sound prohibitively basic on one hand, or esoteric on the other. And they are both, in some ways. They’re fundamental questions that we rarely give ourselves – or each other – the time or encouragement to address.

For me, the first time I asked myself these questions I was seven years into a banking career while competing for the USA Rugby Men’s National Team (my country of residence) against England (my country of birth). It was what we at PurposeFused call a “Magic Moment”. I played my best, leaving everything on the field. But even more magically, off the field before and after that game, I had the chance to reflect on these questions.

The answers that emerged led to the realization that I needed a career change. That was the spark that led me to establish a non-profit organization and passion project called Play Rugby USA, which became a full-time commitment less than three years later. Play Rugby USA was a combination of the three of my greatest passions at the time: kids, rugby and entrepreneurship.

I had broken ground into the first layer that I described above. Without knowing to dig any deeper, I threw myself into a new adventure with the belief that if I pursued my passions, something good would come of it. Luckily, I was right. That said, in retrospect, I don’t recommend you take such a surface level approach to major decisions about your work or life.

I revisited these questions two years ago during the peak of Covid. My commercial role with USA Rugby was materially redefined by the pandemic. This time, I knew to dig two levels deeper. I had followed my passions and created a wave of positive impact, but I wanted to learn more about these passions. I understood that I needed to ask myself why I felt so strongly about these topics and where in my earlier life they came from.

From this deeper reflection, adding layers two and three, I concluded that human connection and human potential are the truest description of my passions. And that by creating programs through to coach individuals and facilitate groups to become the best they could be, I would live out these passions. Validating this hypothesis with long-time friends and colleagues (layer four), as well as the commercial value in the work I wanted to do, I established PurposeFused.

But what about question #5: What difference do I want to make? This represents your IMPACT.

This question is equally important as the first four. It’s about impact: the meaningful difference we want to make in the world. How do we want to be remembered? What do we want our legacy to be? For this, we recommend using a Me, We, World framework, made popular by our amazing partner Nell Derick Debevoise in her new book Going First: Your Invitation to Find the Courage to Lead Purposefully and Inspire Action.

Taking a 10-year perspective, answer the following questions. You might start with a broad-ranging brainstorm, which is a great first step. Once you’ve sat with all your possible answers, prioritize and consolidate them into a sentence in each dimension:

• Me: What difference do I want to make for myself? How would I feel in 10 years if I achieved that change? What would I be most proud of?
• We: What difference do I want to make with those closest to me (friends, family, colleagues)? What do I want them to say about how I have positively impacted them?
• World: What difference do I want to make in the world beyond my ‘We’, for example in my community, a cause or movement, or an issue of national / global concern.

These answers hint at your desired legacy, which is something you can work toward every day. It’s not something we need to put off to retirement, rather part of how we live every day of our lives.

Once you have answers to these questions, and three clear impact statements, you’ll have a good idea of how well these align to your current work (and life), and therefore, 2/3 of the solution.

The third and final part is to answer the question: So What? What do I want to do about it? This is about APPLICATION.
It’s 1/3 of our model, but 50% of the work we do with our clients in Live and Lead with Purpose.

Look at a typical day, how well aligned is it to your passions and impact? What would an ideal day look like? If you wanted to move closer to an ideal day, what changes would you want to make? You can’t create more hours in the day, so it comes down to how you prioritize your time and energy. For every “Do More” to get more aligned with your purpose, you need to find a “Dump” or a “Delegate”.

The important take-away is that doing more of what you love doesn’t always need a career change, or other big risk, to do more of what you love. Small changes every day make a huge difference over a year. You just have to be committed to them and persistent.

The barometer is to check in with yourself every day by asking: To what extent have I contributed as my authentic best self today and made a difference? If you’re scoring yourself an 8 or more out of 10 on most days, there’s a good chance you love your job!

If you aren’t hitting those 8s, or just aren’t sure how to apply this all, but are committed to doing more of what you love, please get in touch. We love to help people just like you figure exactly that out!