What fuels your mornings – concerns or the spark of a higher purpose? For years, I used to be consumed by worries related to my business, projects, customers, and employees. The stress of meeting deadlines, managing challenges, and ensuring payroll were constant companions, often causing sleepless nights and early awakenings. What about you? What keeps you up at night?
In this shared experience, I discovered that I wasn’t alone. Many of my entrepreneur friends and C-level executives confessed to grappling with anxiety as an inherent part of their lives. Throughout my initial two decades as an entrepreneur, I accepted this reality, believing that stress was an inescapable facet of leadership.
However, as I entered my 40s, I realized an alternate reality was possible. The ceaseless stress and anxiety I had embraced weren’t conduits to my full potential, business growth, or happiness. Instead, they reinforced the misconception that only relentless effort yielded results.
The pivotal shift arrived on September 11, 2001, casting my business and life into a new perspective. The persistent discontent I experienced as the CEO of a tech company prompted a profound question: Why was I pursuing this stressful path? The pursuit of profit was no longer sufficient.
During my twenties, my driving force was wealth generation. Transitioning into my thirties, the focus shifted to cultivating meaningful relationships and nurturing a fulfilling family and social life. Upon entering my forties, a more profound yearning emerged – pursuing a purpose, transcending the self, and aiming to leave a substantial mark. As I entered my fifties, the emphasis evolved toward finding contentment within my inner world. My Purpose laid the foundation for my business endeavors and life experiences throughout these stages.
The evolution of my purpose unfolded through distinct phases:
- Letting Go – Releasing Aversions: Shedding undesired aspects of my life – the job I loathed, a failing marriage, and an unfulfilling living location. The external circumstances seemed unsatisfactory.
- Manifesting – Pursuing Desires: Manifesting the aspirations I lacked – my tech company, meaningful connections, and international travel. The external conditions that my mind promised me happiness.
- Soul’s Purpose – Nurturing Inner Desires: Embracing a higher calling centered on inner growth, freedom, tranquility, and love for life. The internal realm I aimed to experience.
- Life without a Story – Embracing the Present: Embracing consciousness without preferencing, identifications, or narratives. Engaging with the mystery of life as it unfolds in each moment.
Though simpler said than done, relinquishing attachments follows an awareness of aversions. Letting go often requires substantial pain, as I found before detaching from my company, career, projects, or marriage. Hindsight revealed that releasing these anchors took twice as long as I wished.
LETTING GO
Is letting go universally essential? Yes and no. Yes, when alignment with current circumstances wanes. No, if adjustments can realign you. Identifying alignment involves confronting fears, seeking truth, and avoiding avoidance. Unattended lessons escalate until faced head-on.
Trusting this process is pivotal. Releasing something precious is daunting. Yet, consider that letting go of an aligned aspect might lead to its eventual return. After releasing my coaching practice, an unexpected shift reinstated it at a higher level.
Persisting in Zone 1 – the victim state – prolongs unhappiness. Transitioning to Zone 2 – the problem-solving zone – demands action. The shift begins by acknowledging the misalignment of purpose and seizing the initiative.
What within your current business or life is urging you to let go?
Manifesting Your Desires
Imagine having a glass of red wine but yearning for white. The process entails pouring the white before the red, as you cannot bring forth the new without releasing the old. I encountered a stark failure when attempting to initiate a new business while clinging to my job out of fear of failure. Triumph emerged only when I relinquished the job that held me back.
How can you discern your heart’s desires? This query rests within your mind, awaiting a response from your heart. To truly grasp it, you must feel it. Until you experience this sensation, the answer remains elusive. I once believed my heart’s inclination was towards crafting high-tech equipment – a result of perceiving my role as a technology broker as inferior to value-creating manufacturers. This narrative was a fabrication, detached from my heart. Unsurprisingly, discontent settled in years later, as my new venture lacked genuine passion. It was a tale constructed in my mind.
Venturing into the terrain of fulfilling desires operates within Zone 2 of consciousness. This realm necessitates troubleshooting challenges to pave the way for desired outcomes. Nearly all businesses traverse Zone 2 to some extent. However, dwelling here as an entrepreneur can lead to a blend of endeavors – tireless labor, dedicated hours, anxiety, stress, and relationships reminiscent of addiction. Yet, within this realm, accomplishments, achievements, creation, growth, resilience, and the satisfaction of surmounting obstacles also flourish.
Your purpose might reveal itself through business, family, hobbies, and all facets of your life. Within Zone 2, a purpose aligns with your heart’s yearnings, possibly encompassing multiple aims across different areas of life. Some of your goals might clue you to your purpose if you repeatedly ask why I want this.
What would it be if you had to state your purpose right now?
Soul’s Purpose
The conventional belief often centers on the Soul’s purpose as outward actions – making a positive impact, aiding others, contributing, and giving back. However, consider this perspective: your Soul’s purpose revolves around you, exclusively you. Achieving alignment with your Soul’s purpose naturally fosters a ripple effect – influencing others, extending assistance, contributing, and giving back – all as a result of living in harmony with your purpose rather than merely chasing it. Welcome to Zone 3 of consciousness, the Zen Zone.
Over the years, I held steadfast in the conviction that my purpose revolved around enhancing humanity’s consciousness. Can you fathom the magnitude to which this purpose grew, eventually transforming into a burdensome weight? The enormity of it nearly cost me my life. Yet, the moment I recognized my purpose as the inner-world one, not external, I declared my new purpose as becoming love itself, the weight lifted, and a newfound zest for life blossomed within me again.
Perhaps you’ve been conditioned to deem self-focused purpose as selfish. But let’s ponder this: imagine your cup of love is overflowing. The excess becomes your offering to the world. Its quality is unconditional, as your purpose is already fulfilled. An empty cup holds little to offer, with attached strings or conditions.
Harmony between your external creations and inner world experiences is paramount. Discrepancies plunge you back into Zone 2, entangled in troubleshooting the discrepancies between your external manifestations and inner-world desires.
Finding equilibrium between your inner and outer worlds unfolds organically. Focus on your inner realm, and your external reality will naturally synchronize. A personal example: my clients and business orientation seamlessly adjusted when I shifted my coaching practice to prioritize the development of the inner world. This transition necessitated releasing incongruent clients, clarifying new Soul-driven objectives, and acting on these fresh intentions.
Your purpose may diverge from your business’s purpose. You and your business stand as distinct entities. While solo entrepreneurs often meld the two, in team or business settings, the business’s purpose might transcend, being different and loftier than your purpose.
In the context of your business, a Zone 3 purpose could involve cultivating an atmosphere conducive to evolutionary growth, establishing a joyful realm of creativity, or creating a space where individuals flourish through the synergy of collective intelligence to shape the desired future we all envision.
Has a clear purpose emerged for you yet?
Life without a Story
Welcome to Zone 4, the realm of life without narrative, where the present moment thrives. Dwelling in this void signifies the absence of stories, convictions, and preconceived notions regarding events. This state of openness paves the way for embracing all potentialities and acting solely upon the opportunities calling you.
In Zone 4, my purpose entails becoming part of oneness – transcending duality to encounter the unity of existence. This involves experiencing each moment without the lens of a narrative, liberated from preferences, aversions, and desires. Love and appreciation flow unconditionally, unburdened by a story.
This paradigm reveals that life exists independently, and you are the consciousness that observes and immerses in it. Life is not centered on you; you are harmoniously entwined within it. This realization spawns my immense gratitude for the 13.8 billion years of evolution that paved the path for our planet’s existence in its current form for us to enjoy this moment as a miracle.
One evening, following dinner, I ventured onto a dim, tranquil street in Boulder, CO. A towering sunflower, stretching 5-6 feet, partially blocked the narrow sidewalk. One blossom met my gaze at eye level, prompting a pause to marvel at its beauty. Standing there, captivated by the giant yellow bloom, I felt an overwhelming surge of affection and appreciation. The flower seemed to shift towards me, evoking a connection akin to human interaction. At that moment, magnetic energy emerged, engendering a sense of communication. The resonance intensified, drawing me closer until we merged in a dance-like rhythm. That moment was a miracle for me.
Yet, the narrative I share regarding this encounter merely scratches the surface of the experience. A story, however eloquent, pales compared to the genuine interaction with the sunflower. This revelation unearthed the profound distinction between experiences and the stories we craft around them. While I frequently recount these stories, understanding this disparity has profoundly reshaped my life.
Ask yourself: Are you living your life through the stories you’ve woven, or are you engaging with them as moments of experience? This question, paramount in its profundity, occupies my thoughts daily. Only the present moment can unveil the authenticity of an experience. Although stories generated from life are valid encounters, they stand a step removed from the raw essence of experience itself.
Recognizing this, I realized that many of my life experiences were not rooted in reality but in stories. These stories revolved around aversions and desires, the former spawning suffering and the latter igniting discontent when left unfulfilled. A lifetime was dedicated to appeasing these narratives about happiness and discontent, inadvertently missing the life that can only be fully embraced in the present.
To exist without preferences implies a conscious choice to disengage from the narratives surrounding likes and dislikes. This involves relinquishing the compulsion to mold external reality to align with the stories we’ve woven.
A distinct pattern emerges Upon introspecting my various business endeavors throughout the years. It becomes evident that the failures or setbacks I encountered were intricately linked to the narratives I constructed around reality rather than reality itself.
As an illustration, consider the instance where I crafted a narrative suggesting that entrepreneurs weren’t prepared to embrace Zones 3 and 4 in their businesses, making securing clients challenging. Although this narrative appeared plausible, it was a tale of my own making that inadvertently led to a lack of clients.
Please take a moment to contemplate your business pursuits and their interconnectedness and limitations with your narratives.
In Zone 1, stories often adopt a negative hue – declarations of failure, inadequacy, scarcity, or lack. In Zone 2, positivity takes the stage – declarations of success, competence, achievement, or potential. Zone 3 stories may encompass happiness or dissatisfaction, reflecting the pursuit of fulfillment. However, Zone 4 introduces a narrative-free existence. Contentment, gratitude, peace, love, and freedom emanate from life. While you can still recount experiences through stories, you’ve unlocked the distinction. Embracing life without narrative becomes the overarching goal.
Within the framework of your business, a Zone 4 purpose might entail harmonizing our creations with the core principle of doing the loving thing, embracing the uncharted with a sense of wonder, or placing trust in our collective intelligence to serve a higher purpose.
What’s your idea of a Zone 4 purpose for your business?
Summary
In summary, the journey into Zone 4 purpose – a life devoid of narrative – is an invitation to revel in the present moment. This state liberates you from the bounds of stories, allowing you to relish life as it is, devoid of the compulsion to narrate or shape it. It’s an exercise in experiencing contentment, gratitude, peace, love, and freedom amidst the unadorned tapestry of existence.
Purpose’s evolution comprises four stages:
- Letting Go: Release aversions, fostering a shift from Zone 1 to Zone 2.
- Creating Your Desires: Actualize aspirations, residing in Zone 2.
- Soul’s Purpose: Prioritize inner fulfillment in Zone 3.
- Life without a Story: Live moment to moment in Zone 4.
This journey transcends external objectives, yielding fulfillment in the present. Surrender your inner desires and outward creations into your true Purpose unfurls as life unveils its mysteries one moment at a time. Irrespective of the Zone your purpose resides in, if it continues to ignite your passion, hold onto it; however, if its spark has waned, relinquish it to create space for a fresh one.
Perhaps, at some point, you’ll find yourself awakening in Zone 4, having shed all unnecessary narratives. On that day, the simple essence of life will suffice as reason enough to greet each morning, devoid of any external purpose or justification.
