Session 4 – Grow on Purpose

Action Step

1. Am I living accidentally or am I living intentionally?

Post your response to this question in the GU Leader Community by clicking here. Share one of your new Actions and ask for feedback.

Session Transcript

Welcome to this session of Guidestone University.

In the last couple of sessions, we’ve been looking at three things that I learned while I was navigating some significant challenges in my life and in my career.

We’ve looked at the first session, Leaders Need Help, and the second session, You Have More to Give, and in this session, we want to look at the third thing that I learned was, Grow on Purpose. And the question that we all need to ask ourselves right now is, “Am I living accidentally or am I living intentionally? Am I living accidentally or am I living with purpose?”

I’ll be honest, the story I told about the young man that Sarah and I decided to help, it wasn’t easy to pull that young man and all of his gear, and all of his baggage into our raft. I mean, I showed you before this is what our raft looked like. It was a little deflated, it was worn out, it was beat up and it wasn’t easy. My life and my work were nuts at the time, and to be honest, it got worse before it got better.

I learned that if I’m going to help other people, I’m going to have to be very intentional with how I live. If my life is going to matter, and my work is going to matter, and I’m going to be able to help people in a way that allows me to leave a lasting legacy, it’s going to require daily intensity, an intentionality, proactive passion, perseverance to always be growing. It required me to live intentionally, to live with purpose, to grow on purpose.

Over the past several years, I’ve received hundreds of emails, maybe thousands by now, with questions and comments about personal growth and about professional growth. Individuals, leaders, team members, all looking for solutions to increasingly complex problems in their life and in their work and in our chaotic world. And nearly every time, these conversations lead back to one solution – the same solution. We cannot live accidentally, we must live with intentionality. We must keep growing.

When your words are misunderstood, and you receive negative feedback and criticism – grow on purpose. When you feel discouraged and you just want to quit, when you think you can’t handle any more – grow on purpose. When you’re not sure if your life matters or your work matters, or if you have any influence at all in your world or in those around you, even if your team or your organization are not growing and not moving forward, you grow on purpose.

There is one and only one solution to breaking through to the next level in your life and in your work. If you’re not growing you are wasting your life. This one piece of advice that all of us know, we all need to hear, but we don’t necessarily want to hear it at times, especially when we are going through something challenging. If I could say one thing to my generation, and the generation before me and the generation coming after me, it would be this: Grow on purpose.

Here’s what I want you to think about today with this session, one action step. I want you to answer the question, “Am I living accidentally or am I living intentionally?”

I want you to post your response in the Guidestone University Leader Community.

Here’s why, if you can write it down, then you can make progress in that area. Here’s the converse side of that, if you can’t write it down, you can’t make progress because you can’t commit to it.

So, write it down, share it in the Guidestone University Leader Community.

We’ll see you on the next session of Guidestone University.[/text_block]