Win Harper | Life and Leadership Coach

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”  Oscar Wilde.

What a delightful quote.  If you are living your Life Purpose and honoring your values you are being yourself.  Being authentic means that you are saying and doing what you believe.  Remember a time in your life when everything was flowing; “What were you doing?” “What were you feeling?”  “What impact were you having on those around you?”

Today we started working on Mike’s Life Purpose.  Your life purpose is unique to you and it is the natural impact that you have in the world.  Normally that means your contribution.  I have an article on my website that discusses the process I went through in discovering my life purpose:  “I am the round table at which the community gathers to nourish itself”.

I started by asking Mike what he wanted to be as a child.  Me, I wanted to be a cowboy, in particular Hopalong Cassidy.  He had a code of ethics and behavior, and he helped people.  While I didn’t grow up and become a cowboy, I am now helping people through my coaching.  The impact I wanted from being a cowboy is part of my life purpose, to help others.

Mike wanted to be a football player and coach.  When I asked him what impact he wanted have as a coach, he said that he had gotten a lot out of football and wanted to help other people have a similar experience.  With a few more questions it became apparent that Mike was talking about team building and relationships.  From previous sessions I knew that Mike liked teamwork and the synergy of working with them.

Next I asked Mike, “Tell me about a time when you were very happy?”  When we are happy, we a living our Life Purpose.  He told me a story about his time in Colorado when he was substitute teaching.  He talked about the impact he had on others then: He instilled confidence in the other teachers and his students.  He was a role model to them by being consistent with who he was, and maintaining personal and professional discipline. 

I then asked “What is your life purpose?”  He replied, “To create a feeling of stability and consistency of strength.”  This was the first iteration of the impact portion of Mike’s Life Purpose.

Next I wanted him to develop a metaphor for his statement in order to engage the left brain. 

The goal is to have a complete this basic format for the Life Purpose statement:
I am the (metaphor) so that people (impact statement).

Again, here is mine: “I am the round table (metaphor) at which the community gathers to nourish itself (impact statement)”.  Notice that I changed the format a little.  Also, it does not have to be original, it only has to be TRUE for you.

My next question for Mike was, “Metaphorically what would you need to be to have the impact you want to have?”  Here are his responses:

Oak tree
Foundation
Mountain

Mike’s homework is to come up with his Life Purpose statement.  Here are some draft ideas:

I am the oak tree that stands tall so that others can recognize their own strength and confidence.
I am the foundation upon which people build their strength and confidence.
I am the mountain people climb to develop their confidence and measure their strength.

Mike played High School basketball for a team that won the county championship.  A few years out of high school a teammate said to him, “Mike, we would not have done as well without you on the team.”  Mike did not play much his senior year, but he challenged the starters in practice.  He played as hard as he could in order to help prepare the first team for games.  He also was seen as a team leader, and players would come to him when they needed someone to talk to.  One of Mike’s strengths is to challenge others to do more than they think they can do.

I asked Mike to consider this in his Life Purpose statement.

Working with his career coach, Mike wrote some powerful Marketing material.  He said that when he reread it, he was amazed at what he had written.  He admitted that he found it difficult to write about himself, or promote himself very well, because that would be “bragging!” I asked him for another perspective.  After a brief moment, he realized that in order to help people, his life purpose, then he really wanted to connect with others, and that could be accomplished through life stories.  His life experiences and stories create value for other people.

Just before we finished Mike was telling me about a recent situation in which he felt like a schmuck.  Actually, his saboteur said to him, “I am a schmuck.”  We will continue to work with and discuss the saboteur, but in this moment I asked Mike to put the phrase “I am having the thought that” before “I am a schmuck.”  Mike said this detached him from the words and lessened the effect of the phrase.  Here are some other examples for you:  I am having the thought that I am stupid.  I am having the thought that I can never do anything right.  I am having the thought that I (fill in your most common saboteur phrase.)  How does that feel to you?

Remember, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”