Passion & Purpose - Upcoming Release
I’m pretty excited about the upcoming release of Passion & Purpose. I have told friends that it is a book that I would not have been able to write 20 years ago, not even 10 years ago. As I turn 70 this year, the whole construct of ‘wisdom’ resonates more deeply with me than ever before in my life.
One of the advantages of being 70 is that you can reflect back over your life and pull up the insights across all the positives and negatives. When I sit with younger friends and clients now, I often remind them that every bout of adversity and challenge they push through will translate into richer perspective later in life. It’s about taking the long view. It was Dr. Aristotle, 24 centuries ago, who coached Kings to go out in search of adversity to help build stronger character. His word for character was ethos. It’s hard to grow ethos without pushing through pain. And it is also important to appreciate and reflect on the positive experiences that have helped to shape who you are as a person.
In the book, I refer to passion as the intrinsic fuel that drives your energy, and purpose as the reason you get out of bed every morning. When the two merge, you are in your optimal zone. Your passion is often tied to a particular aptitude, i.e., some people are natural born artists, singers, athletes, architects, mathematicians, writers, leaders. They are simply hard-wired to excel at what their body and brain do best. When it comes to purpose, it runs a bit deeper and evolves across one’s lifetime, often fueled by lessons learned while pushing through adversity. A person who was homeless 20 years ago has founded a homeless shelter for the most vulnerable people out there. A person who was bullied most of their childhood now runs an afternoon program for kids to focus on positive self-esteem.
I write about my own personal experience of living a compartmentalized life until I was 42, when I could no longer look myself in the mirror as a closeted gay officer in the U.S. military when it was illegal to be gay. It took until the fifth decade of my life to appreciate that ‘perfection’ is not a healthy aspiration. One of my aspirations for the book is to encourage people to embrace vulnerability as a virtue, rather than as a vice. If you need to be perfect, your energy pushes people away. If you are comfortable being wonderfully imperfect, your energy pulls people in. Trust me, I know this very well from personal experience.
At the end of the book, I encourage people to decide whether they want to be a front or backseat driver in their own life. Are you driving your own life, or are you a passenger? Those are two different mental models that shape your day-to-day experience. As a passenger in your own life, it is easy to blame, deflect, find excuses, and rationalize why things aren’t going the way you want them to. As a driver, hop into the front seat of your life, grab the wheel and put your foot on the accelerator! You decide where the next turn is. It is ultimately about enhancing greater fulfillment.
Passion & Purpose will be available on this website as of 30 April 2025.
