Theo Fer­gu­son

To me there is no greater joy than see­ing fel­low hu­man be­ings com­ing alive to the rea­son for their ex­is­tence and set­ting about to ful­fil their hu­man po­ten­tial through the pas­sion­ate pur­suit of their di­vine pur­pose. With this com­ing alive there is re­newed en­er­gy and vi­bran­cy of the hu­man spir­it cou­pled with a strong sense of op­ti­mism about life. There is a deep spir­i­tu­al awak­en­ing to the joy of liv­ing. Such was my joy on Wednes­day of this week at the con­clu­sion of the first tu­ition-free Lead­ing From Above The Line Lead­er­ship Self-Dis­cov­ery Re­treat. This re­treat, un­der­tak­en in the serene green set­ting of the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre nes­tled deep with­in the rain for­est of the Ari­ma Val­ley, last­ed for a pe­ri­od of eight days dur­ing which par­tic­i­pants were ex­posed to the phi­los­o­phy of Lead­ing From Above The Line.

This tran­quil re­treat set­ting helped par­tic­i­pants to free them­selves from the dis­trac­tions of dai­ly liv­ing and al­lowed them to em­bark on a jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery to­wards a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of them­selves, in­clu­sive of the dis­cov­ery of their di­vine gifts of good­ness and pur­pose with which we are all en­dowed.

Dur­ing the course of the re­treat the phi­los­o­phy of Lead­ing From Above The Line helped par­tic­i­pants de­vel­op in­creased con­scious aware­ness of their in­her­ent good­ness-a com­mon trait shared across our hu­man­i­ty. The phi­los­o­phy helped them to bet­ter ap­pre­ci­ate the moral na­ture of their ex­is­tence and the ex­is­tence of all oth­er hu­man be­ings. It helped them to dis­cov­er their in­ner pow­er and their ca­pac­i­ty to strength­en them­selves such that they dis­play greater moral courage in their lives.

Im­por­tant­ly, the re­treat took par­tic­i­pants through a se­ries of ex­er­cis­es to help them to dis­cov­er their life's pur­pose and to recog­nise their pur­pose as one of the five sources of in­ner pow­er that will help them to be­come stronger. At the end of the re­treat, par­tic­i­pants shared with us their joy of hav­ing a re­newed and bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the mean­ing of life. Like Richard Lid­er, au­thor of the Pow­er of Pur­pose, I be­lieve that as hu­man be­ings we all have a spir­i­tu­al rea­son for be­ing and that our lives re­main un­ful­filled un­til we dis­cov­er and act on our pur­pose. To have pur­pose means to be con­scious of our hu­man po­ten­tial and of our de­sire for ex­cel­lence. To have pur­pose is to live life with mean­ing and to have an over­pow­er­ing rea­son to want to live. It helps us to bet­ter make a con­tri­bu­tion to hu­man­i­ty and to live a life of val­ue. Pur­pose is nev­er self­ish since it al­ways in­volves liv­ing in the in­ter­est of oth­ers. We are all called up­on to dis­cov­er our pur­pose if we are to give true mean­ing to our lives.

Your pur­pose is on­ly avail­able to you and to no one else. It is your deep­est se­cret, which you may or may not choose to share with oth­ers. We all have a di­vine re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to dis­cov­er our pur­pose and to help oth­ers and par­tic­u­lar­ly our chil­dren to do the same. Pur­pose is your in­ner call. You don't de­cide or ra­tio­nalise your pur­pose, you have to dis­cov­er it. On­ly you can hear the in­ner call and hence the onus is al­ways on you, the in­di­vid­ual, to hear this call and to act on it. No oth­er per­son can tell you what your pur­pose is or what it should be since they are not privy to your in­ner self. Many well-in­ten­tioned par­ents and teach­ers have de­stroyed the lives of their chil­dren be­cause they be­lieve they know what is best for them.

When you ig­nore the in­ner call you end up "fight­ing up" with life as you pur­sue ca­reers that are not in con­gru­ence with your true life-in­ter­est. Dis­cov­ery of your pur­pose can best be done through in­tro­spec­tion in­to the pri­va­cy of your­self. It means dis­cov­er­ing your in­ner self. In or­der to do so, you have to tem­po­ral­ly re­treat from the many out­er dis­trac­tions that ob­scure your abil­i­ty to see and hear your in­ner self. Soli­tude and quiet­ness fa­cil­i­tate the in­tro­spec­tion process so that you can bet­ter hear your in­ner voice, for there­in lies your pur­pose. The Lead­ing from Above The Line pro­gramme has de­vel­oped a se­ries of in­tro­spec­tive ex­er­cis­es to fa­cil­i­tate this process and in ad­di­tion it pro­vides par­tic­i­pants at­tend­ing the Lead­er­ship Self-Dis- cov­ery Re­treat with the Lead­ing From Above The Line In­tro­spec­tion Man­u­al.

When you are able to let go of the var­i­ous dis­trac­tions in your life you dis­cov­er your in­ner self and the beau­ty that lies with­in. You are bet­ter able to find clar­i­ty of your pur­pose but this may take some time to ful­ly re­veal it­self to you, hence re­peat­ed in­tro­spec­tive ex­er­cis­es over an ex­tend­ed pe­ri­od of time are nec­es­sary.

When you are in touch with your in­ner self you can help the process by ask­ing your­self the fol­low­ing ques­tions: What does life want me to do? What is it that I en­joy do­ing? What comes nat­u­ral­ly to me? What will make me tru­ly hap­py? What is it that I re­al­ly want to do? What is my call­ing? The search for pur­pose is re­al­ly an ex­plo­ration process and pur­pose on­ly re­veals it­self as you ex­plore it. We all have the ca­pac­i­ty to be great ex­plor­ers of our­selves. The search for pur­pose is a life-long pur­suit since it con­tin­u­ous­ly re­veals it­self over time. Hence it is im­por­tant that you find your path and com­mence the jour­ney to a more ful­filled life, which will pro­gres­sive­ly re­veal it­self as you un­der­take the jour­ney. Your pur­pose con­tin­u­al­ly morphs and changes over time as greater clar­i­ty is re­vealed to you.

With­out pur­pose you are like a rud­der­less ship drift­ing in an ocean of un­cer­tain­ty not sure of where you are go­ing. You can eas­i­ly lose your way and find your­self trapped in a job or ca­reer that bring you lit­tle sat­is­fac­tion. In fact, you may of­ten hate what you do but pur­sue it pure­ly for sur­vival rea­sons. All is not lost if you are able to step back and look at your­self and ask your­self the tough ques­tions that will help you to hear your call­ing. It is nev­er too late to dis­cov­er your pur­pose. There are many peo­ple who strug­gle through life trapped in bor­ing jobs and who on­ly come alive to the rea­son for their ex­is­tence in their re­tire­ment years. When you be­lieve that you have a pur­pose you open the door to dis­cov­er­ing it and set­ting your­self on a high-en­er­gy path to a more ful­filled life.

Lead­er­ship ed­u­ca­tor

fer­gu­son.theodore@gmail.com

www.the­ofer­gu­son.com