A Work In Progress
I had a conversation last night with Susan Caba, the woman writing Success Redefined, and we reviewed what I have learned on this trip. The piece I wrote yesterday on finding peace will most likely work as the intro to the book and much of what I have written on this journey will be used in some way. Toward the end of our conversation we spoke about ending the book with the idea that I’m a work in progress and that what is said in this book are my beliefs as of this date, in the year 2015. Before I left San Diego I met with a new friend, Roger Green, and he challenged me along these exact lines. He told me that my beliefs seemed very clear but that they have changed over the past year and will most definitely change moving forward. He said that being rooted in those beliefs might not be the best of paths for me. I left the US with pretty strong beliefs about how life should be lived, the importance of purpose and meaning, and I’m returning home with a much different perspective. I left the US “knowing” that I had some answers, and I return knowing that I am no better, nor no worse, than anyone else and that my beliefs are just that, my beliefs.
Every day I continue to learn lessons and my perspective changes and adapts after each experience and each conversation. To me this is the definition of personal growth. I had a conversation with a good friend two days ago, Ron Boehm, and we started talking about the concept of “What is Our Genius?” What is it that is uniquely ours, the thing that we would do even if we didn’t get paid to do it, the specific reason that we were put on this planet? This got me thinking about a number of things, especially the concept of purpose. I have spent the past 18 months working on this concept of redefining success and I thought it was all about purpose and our need for purpose in order to find connectedness. I still believe that purpose is an important step on the journey, but now I believe it is just that, a step.
I believe it all starts with understanding ourselves, waking up from the unconscious sleep that society lulls us into. Once we decide to wake up there seems to be a progression that we go through, starting with the awareness that we are not living a fulfilled life so we start looking for answers. We start our work and begin our journey along a certain road and that road has many twists and turns. I believe that there are some mile markers along the journey, at least there have been for me. I have stated that Maslow knew that survival was our instinctive purpose and shared common purpose is what connects people together. I still believe that our purpose is very important, and shared common purpose is one way to connect deeply with others, but if you can get to a level of deep connectedness without purpose does purpose really matter? In addition, I believe our purpose can be instinctive even if it’s not survival. I now believe that the ultimate journey is toward love, acceptance and this sense of connectedness. If this is the destination I’m not sure it matters how we get there.
I have found my path through an awakening over 20 years ago. Once I woke up I started by defining what I wanted in my life, starting with freedom. I realized that the best path for me was to became an entrepreneur to create that financial freedom. Once I had the financial freedom I stumbled upon the concept of purpose. From purpose came a deeper understanding of my life’s work, what I was meant to do, which caused me to shut down my last business after more than 20 years because it wasn’t my life’s work. If I was going to live my beliefs I needed to do my life’s work and not just chase a financial return. Financial return is the result of providing something of value to the community.
From my life’s work now comes this concept of finding my genius. None of this is new, and lots of people have been studying these concepts for decades, but it is new to me and many others. For some people understanding my path might prove to be very helpful. For those people the coaching method developed through Success Redefined will prove valuable and productive. I’m also realizing that it is not the same for everyone, there is no one size fits all on this journey of life. Everyone is on their own path and needs to find their own level of connectedness through whatever path they choose. So, as I started this post, I’m a work in progress, understanding more each day and hopefully I will be able to use these lessons to help others on their own journey. When it comes to deep connectedness there are only so many hours in a day, so how many relationships do we really need? I look forward to finding out how many I need to complete my puzzle and build a community of like-minded and like-hearted professionals upon my return to San Diego.
To a life well lived!
Larry Kesslin 