My Purpose Journey – A Pathway to More Courage and Confidence

It’s been a little over six months since I took a trip across the pond to London in hopes of gaining clarity and focus on my purpose. With today being International Day of Purpose, it seemed only fitting for me to share a piece of my story and how I’ve found more courage and confidence while living in and leading from my purpose.  

What is purpose and why is it important?

Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us, unplayed.

– Oliver Wendell Holmes

Your purpose is your unique gift to the world. It’s not what you do, but how and why you do it. It’s what makes you distinctive and can’t be taken away from you. It shows up at times when you least expect it and can also be your guiding light on new adventures – both personally and professionally. Living in and leading from your purpose doesn’t always translate to rainbows and butterflies. However, knowing your purpose is vital to living boldly and being more connected to yourself and others.  

Putting it all out there – My Journey

For some, the journey to finding purpose begins sooner in life than we think or recall. I can remember being in elementary school and asked to draw what I wanted to be when I grew up. At that time, my dad was a police officer and I was obviously young and impressionable, so with little hesitation I grabbed the Crayola crayons and started drawing a stick figure of a red-haired police woman. Looking back on that day and where I am now, close to 35 years later, while I don’t have a uniform or carry a gun, I’m still in some ways living to protect and serve.

I started to think more intentionally about my purpose last Fall when I began working with Nick Craig, author of Leading From Purpose, in prep for his keynote at our annual BankOnPurpose conference. Nick is also the President of the Core Leadership Institute and the one who helped Brene Brown clarify her purpose. Gasp. While we were on the phone one day, he extended an invite for me to attend his upcoming Purpose to Impact workshop. It was an opportunity and experience I couldn’t pass up. Thankfully, I had the support and encouragement of my company, PrecisionLender, to hop on the plane and go do the dang thing.

Ahead of arriving to the two-day workshop, there was homework which included reading, writing and self-reflection. I went on a mini emotional roller coaster ride before even getting to have my first British tea. I knew we had a lot of ground to cover over the two days and I was fearful that I would be consumed with intimidation or even worse, get back to North Carolina empty-handed and without my purpose. Instead, I arrived to a room of about 30 strangers and while we had never met, I felt free to let go of the armor and be vulnerable to the process and the journey we were about to embark on together.  

The workshop started with a discussion on the characteristics of authentic leadership. Keeping in mind we were a very diverse group of people (former brain surgeon, former banker, marketers, sales professionals, etc.) who had all experienced life in very different ways. In the end, we came up with a long list of attributes of what it means to be an authentic leader. And at the center sat, purpose. From there, we paired up with someone at our table and asked each other the following questions:

• What’s the part of you most people see?
• What’s the part of you most people don’t see that impacts who you are?
• What life experience made you that way?

Let’s just say things got real… real quick. Not your typical ice breaker.  

Our next exercise was sharing our Crucible Stories. The most challenging times in our life that left us with emotional battle scars and likely clinging to “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.’”

As we divided into smaller groups, we each shared one personal and professional Crucible Story. Our role as the storyteller was to be open and honest, but to hold back on sharing how our stories ended. This was by design. As a listener, your role was to listen with every muscle to what others had to say. 

For my personal Crucible Story, I shared about the darkest and loneliest time of my life. I graduated from college in May 2005 and moved back home to be closer with my family. My dad had been sick for a while with a liver disease and was on the list for a liver transplant. But in June 2006, he was diagnosed with cancer – soft tissue Sarcoma in his hip. During this time, I had started seeing someone that was an old high school crush and discovered he had a substance abuse problem. On August 8, 2006 (yes, only two months after my dad’s cancer diagnosis), I watched my dad take his last breath underneath a NC State blanket that he had given me for Christmas one year. I went on to stay in the unhealthy and abusive relationship with my boyfriend until June 17, 2007 – my first Father’s Day without my dad. Over those 10 months, and the most fragile I’ve ever felt, I had pushed away family and friends because I was trying to make the relationship work. In actuality, I was desperately trying to save and heal my boyfriend because in the end I wasn’t able to save and heal my dad.  

It was in that moment of sharing that story and my professional Crucible Story that I started to uncover a pattern that would later connect me to my purpose. I had coined the phrase “give more than you take.”

Thankfully, the next stop on the journey was a little bit of a lighter one as we worked to uncover our ‘Sweet Spot’ – the place where our leadership strengths, intrinsic and extrinsic motivators overlap. This is the place you want to spend more of your time and energy.

As Day 1 wrapped up, we were just starting to dip our toe into what it would look like to truly access our purpose. And when we came back for Day 2 (after some much needed sleep), we dove right into examining our past, present and future and operating from our purpose at times when we might not have known it. We spent a good portion of the day reflecting and answering questions like…

• When you were very young, what did you love doing?
• When you were a teenager, what brought joy and satisfaction?
• What unique talents did your mentors see in you?
• If you had no limitations, how would you spend your time?
• What have you spent time apologizing for that you love doing?
• What was the most enjoyable and satisfying moment in the last year?

Putting it into words – My Struggle

After working individually and in our small groups, it was time to take an initial try at putting our purpose into words. I struggled. It was around 2:00pm and I had sat with my group and heard all of them go around and share their purpose statement. With each one, I got more and more excited for the next person to go. Then it got to me. I had something, but it felt ‘meh’, so I knew I wasn’t where I needed to be with it. We went into a break and I was able to spend some one-on-one time with Nick. He asked me a series of thought-provoking questions. One of which I had kind of shrugged off when I thought about it the first time. He asked me who my superhero was, and I started to talk about my mom. She doesn’t have a cape and can’t fly through the sky, but she has some amazing superpowers. We dug deeper and went down several other winding paths and it was like the flood gates to my purpose were opened. 

Putting it all together – My Purpose

Your purpose statement should be something that drives you to action. You should feel connected to it in a way that you want to shout it from the mountain tops. It warms your heart. Makes you smile. And can even scare you a little bit at times. 

So, here it goes. My purpose statement is…