The Power of Story

by Jim Loehr

  Purpose is the thing in your life you will fight for. It is the ground you will defend at any cost. Purpose is not the same as “incentive,” but rather the motor behind it, the end that drives why you have energy for some things and not for others. So while the executive cited above and ten thousand others I’ve seen may actually articulate their purpose to themselves and to others, articulation is not nearly enough; in fact, it is really not even worthy of a pat on the back, so long as one continues to live one’s life in a way that does very little, if anything, to support that purpose. Indeed, to say you have a purpose and then to do nothing about it is, first, a sham and, last, a tragedy.

  Most people who have been living in this way, when pushed to be thoughtful, will quickly identify what they claim to be their true purpose in life. In the workshops we ask our clients to think about this very question, and then think about it again, because eventually they will need to write it down, so they can look at it and decide if that really feels like their true purpose, something to live and die for.

  To find one’s true purpose sometimes takes work. Fortunately, the skill it requires is one that every person is blessed with.

  For a few people, naming one’s purpose comes with remarkable ease. The individual feels it in the deepest part of his or her soul; the purpose has always been there, even if it got lost for a very long while, remaining unexpressed to oneself and to those who are the objects of one’s purpose. (Deep, enduring purpose is virtually always motivated by a desire for the well-being of others.) The simultaneously elusive, yet blindingly obvious nature of purpose recalls the legendary pronouncement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, when explaining what constituted pornography: While acknowledging the difficulty in defining it, he said, “I know it when I see it.”

  You know purpose when you see it. The purpose of Erik Weihenmayer, who became blind as a teenager, was to demonstrate that all things are possible, for him and anyone—so he became a mountain climber who scaled all seven of the world’s great summits, including Mount Everest. The purpose of Daniel M., a CEO who attended our workshop with his management team, was to not die without connecting with his daughter—so he made a dinner date week after week after week with the teenager he’d virtually ignored since she was born, enduring her justified contempt every Wednesday night for months until finally she turned her chair, slightly, so that her back was no longer to him; until finally she directed some monosyllables his way; until finally she engaged him in a conversation; until finally, after three years of his persistently and consistently pursuing his purpose, she let him be the loving father to her that they both wanted him to be.

  To author a workable, fulfilling new story, you will need to ask yourself many questions and then answer them, none more important than those that concern purpose. Purpose is the sail on the boat, the yeast in the bread. Once you know your purpose—that is, what matters—then everything else can fall into place. Getting your purpose clear is your defining truth. What is the purpose of your life? To make your parents proud? To keep your children out of harm’s way? To be the most successful earner in your circle? To leave the world a better place than when you entered it? To honor God? To live to a hundred? To seek out adventure and risk? Whatever it is, it had better be something for which you will cross a narrow plank 175 feet above the ground, gusts of wind or no gusts, seven days a week, no questions asked.

  Once you find your purpose, you have a chance to live a story that moves you and those around you.

  THE WORDS ON YOUR TOMBSTONE

  Remember when your mother asked you, “Are you telling me a story or is that really true?” The assumption being: A story is what you concoct to keep yourself out of trouble. But your mother’s error was the same one many of us make when we think of stories. We fail to recognize that everything we say is a story—nothing more, nothing less. It would have been more accurate for Mom to have said, “I know you’re telling me a story, but I need to know if your story truly reflects the facts or if you’re intentionally making things up to get out of trouble or to get what you want.” On the other hand, no mother—thank God—talks like that.

  With every story, it is vital that one understand the purpose behind what is being said. The critical first step to getting our stories right is ensuring that the story we are telling at the moment is aligned with our ultimate mission in life, a phrase I use largely interchangeably with “purpose”—as in the purpose, not just a purpose. Your Ultimate Mission is the thing that continually renews your spirit, the thing that gets you to stop and smell the roses. It is the indomitable force that moves you to action when nothing else can, yet it can ground you with a single whisper in your quietest moment; it is at once the bedrock of your soul and (as the phrase goes) the wind beneath your wings. It spells out the most overarching goals you want and need to achieve in your time here, and the manner in which you feel you must do it (that is, you pursue these goals in accordance with your values and beliefs).

  Our ultimate mission must be clearly defined. If you find this difficult to do, ask yourself: “If I was standing at the rear of the chapel listening to people eulogize me at my own funeral, like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn get to do, what would it gladden me to hear? What might someone say up there, or around my burial plot, that would make me think, ‘Hey, I guess I really did lead a worthwhile life’?” By envisioning the end of your life, by coming to terms with the question, How do I want to be remembered? or What is the legacy I most want to leave? you provide yourself with your single most important navigational coordinate: fundamental purpose, which henceforth will drive everything you do. By envisioning the end of your life, you are, in simplest terms, pausing to define what could reasonably be called a purposeful life, as lived by you.

  After you finish reading this paragraph, close your eyes. Visualize a tombstone: yours. It’s got your name engraved in it, the year of your birth and (imagined) year of death. Can you see it? What does it say underneath? Is it simply the word “beloved” and numerous familial relationships? Is that okay? Does it work for you? Does it say more? Does it need to?

  Now I know that tombstones almost never state the deceased’s ultimate purpose. (Every now and then you’ll see one that says something like “He lived to help others,” though it’s hard to know whether that was really their purpose or the purpose the survivors wanted etched for perpetuity.) Still, it doesn’t hurt to imagine your own tombstone, if for no reason other than to think about where you’re headed.

  It’s the ultimate game; the ultimate endgame. You must answer this seemingly simple, maddeningly simple query in a way that fully satisfies you. If you don’t, then you’ll find it pretty nearly impossible to make the necessary course corrections your life almost certainly requires.

  YOUR ULTIMATE MISSION, OUT LOUD

  When I work to get clients to define and refine their Ultimate Mission, I almost always have to get tough with them. I put them through a vigorous interrogation to make sure that when they’ve reached their “answer,” they haven’t done so by fooling or mischaracterizing themselves. Amazingly, almost no one gets his or her ultimate mission on the first attempt. Often, an individual will come up with a purpose that sounds deep and good—My ultimate mission is to give my family the financial security I never had, by becoming a managing director of my firm—but which, upon scrutiny, is flimsy or undercooked, not yet at the most fundamental level of purpose—e.g., My ultimate mission is to be an extraordinary father, husband, and leader in my community, and a role model for generations to come.

  Given its influence over you—its often invisible influence—your ultimate mission merits being written down as early in life as possible, and modified and deepened with every passing year until death.

  Yet most people never write down their purpose. Or say it out loud. Or even think about what it might be in its purest form. Often the first time an individual’s purpose is articulated is at his or her funeral, and then only if he or she is lucky enough to have a e
ulogizer who saw his or her purpose for what it was. During our two-and-a-half-day workshops in Orlando, we encourage—okay, “require” is more like it—clients to actually write their Ultimate Mission, just as they must write their Old Story and New Story, just as they will write their Training Missions and Rituals (more on those later). Committing your Ultimate Mission to writing, year after year, keeps the most important navigational tool we human beings possess always within our reach.

  Because your Ultimate Mission is concerned with the biggest-ticket stuff, not small-scale goals, the language employed when writing it is often grand, perhaps even grandiose. While we of course encourage participants to come up with their own words to express themselves, the word “extraordinary” recurs by far the most often. (At least, that is, with our American clients: To those raised in the United States, the word connotes “special,” “the pinnacle,” even “heroic”; ambitious as it sounds, “extraordinary” seems more attainable than “perfect,” less vague and value laden than “great” or “excellent.” To many of our non-American clients, however, particularly our European participants, the word “extraordinary” borders on arrogance. “Being the best father I can be and a good leader” or “To be a decent mother” is more their style of phrasing.)

  Here are examples of Ultimate Missions from clients. I won’t say which ones I believe may not be quite there yet; I can’t say which solid-sounding ones won’t, in the end, be heeded:

  To be an extraordinary daughter to my parents, extraordinary sister to Bob, and the most positive and peaceful force in my field within the next ten years.

  To be a fully connected man whose devotion to his family is an inspiration to others.

  To be a role model for working moms, and an extraordinary volunteer.

  My mission is to pursue a life of happiness and success at work, aiming toward a future marriage with a future potential family. I, no one else, hold the key to this happiness.

  To live in such a way that I create hope in others.

  To know, to feel, and to be flourishing so that my actions and words might inspire and benefit my family, my students, and all sentient beings.

  My focus is not on the destination but on the trip that takes me there.

  To passionately love and be loved by my wife and three sons. To have strong and caring relationships with my brothers, sisters, and friends. To lead with strength and concern. To leave a positive and lasting legacy for the people I have known and loved.

  I want to bestow strong values.

  To be recognized as a high performer. To have a strong positive impact.

  Make a bigger impact in the next 50 years than I did in the first.

  To raise two daughters to become happy and fulfilled adults. To instill in them values of hard work and caring about people. To have them be friends and stay close with each other all their lives. To continue to challenge myself and grow.

  To serve God by serving other individuals, my family, my co-workers, and under-served people/groups.

  To make a meaningful change that otherwise would not have happened. In doing so, to create the means for a better future for my family.

  My mission is to be all I can be.

  Be there for my girlfriend and family, friends and colleagues, and always have them know I’m the person they can count on.

  My mission in life is to be happy.

  My ultimate mission is to always remain in awe of the universe and everything in it.

  To be remembered as someone who pulled off an Agassi in the second half of his life.*

  To explore and experience the world.

  To prove that I can have it all: a close connection to God, a passionate love with my husband, loving guidance of my children, a rewarding career, intellectual pursuits and a healthy (hot) body.

  What’s your Ultimate Mission? Before you write it down—using whatever words that speak to you and move you; you’re writing this, after all, for yourself, no one else—ask yourself these questions:

  How do you want to be remembered?

  What is the legacy you most want to leave for others?

  How would you most like to hear people eulogize you at your funeral?

  What is worth dying for?

  What makes your life really worth living?

  In what areas of your life must you truly be extraordinary to fulfill your destiny?

  As clients try to get at their Ultimate Mission, one of my responsibilities is to do all I can to ensure that he or she doesn’t (continue to) spend the rest of his or her life chasing a fraudulent purpose.

  OUTING FALSE PURPOSE

  Of all the groups we work with, top-class athletes are one of the two demographics that consistently tower above the rest in their native comprehension of the life-as-story concept, and in their embrace of the notion that true success is realizable when one consciously crafts an ambitious, achievable story and then sticks to it. (Law enforcement is the other.) And yet, as you’ll see, even athletes struggle mightily to hit the story’s bull’s-eye—that is, to nail the precise, deep purpose that drives every one of their life choices.

  Who’d have thought jocks could teach us about story? And yet they can. There are several reasons for this, I think. One, the athlete’s career is relatively short, and its arc, like the arc of a story, can be more easily imagined—far more easily, say, than the arc of an entire life, or a career that lasts forty or fifty years. Two, the competition itself—be it a match, tournament, or season—is easily characterized in story terms, with a beginning, middle, and unmistakable end, and a tone that’s similarly non-negotiable (e.g., victory and/or statistically measurable improvement = happy ending). Three, the athlete’s life from early youth on is so structured, on a daily and seasonal basis, as well as a physical basis—the training, the meets, the maintenance of fitness, the ebbs and flows of intensity, the very geometry of the workplace, the frequent potential for discernible turning points—and thus structure, one of the pillar elements of story, soon enough becomes innate to the athlete. Four, in the prime of an athlete’s competitive years, when his or her daily life is so radically different from that of most of us, he or she requires extra structure to maintain sanity and success, and story is nothing if not structuring.

  I think there’s one more reason, too. When you enter the topmost tier of athletic competition, where everyone has a rocket serve, or drives the ball 320 yards, or has immaculate technique—just like you—the difference between being number one in the world and number 427 is almost always something other than physical. Having a better story than your opponent may be the difference, and you can’t have a great story unless you get your purpose right.

  One of the top tennis players in the world—I’ll call her Barbara—contacted me in the hope of righting her game. Since rising as high as number 5 two years before coming to me, her ranking had fallen considerably and she was now losing in the first and second rounds of tournaments to far less talented players. Even more bothersome to Barbara and those around her, competing and practicing were no longer sources of pleasure to her. She had a natural effervescence and an easy smile the first time she visited me, but tennis, she stated flatly, was no longer fun. It had become a chore. She wanted to fix things.

  “What’s your story?” I asked her when she sat down in my office. “Why do you play?”

  I could see that wasn’t what she expected.

  To her credit, she entertained my question. After a couple of moments, she said, “I guess…,” then paused to think some more. “I want to be a success.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “To be number one in the world,” she said, rather unconvincingly.

  “Okay. So you become number one in the world. When it’s all over, your tombstone reads, ‘She Was Number One In The World.’ You’d be good with that?”

  She looked terribly unsatisfied. She shook her head.

  I asked her again, “Why do you play?”

  She took a breath and th
ought some more. “I’d like to have a nice place to live. I like nice cars. I love cars. Oh, God. It sounds so terrible. I don’t want that on my tombstone, either. You’re just confusing me.”

  We went through this exercise a few more times, and each time she abandoned her answer as quickly as she offered it.

  “Here’s your assignment tonight,” I told her. “I want you to really think about what your ultimate mission is. What you’re all about. What keeps you playing. It has to come from you, no one else. Not your coach, not your mother, not your agent, not your sponsors. Don’t come into the office unless you can tell me that. Okay?”

  She left. She was not smiling.

  The next day, Barbara walked into my office. Actually, that’s not accurate: She bounced into my office. She was bubbly. On fire. She couldn’t stop smiling.

  “I got it, I got it,” she said as soon as she sat down. “I thought about it all night long and then I finally got it. But I’m afraid to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re going to think it’s stupid. Maybe you’ll think it’s not challenging me.”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay,” she said, and took a big breath. “I want to be sunshine. I want to be sunshine to every person I care about and everyone who watches me play.”