Hello and welcome to another talk in the Foundations of Wisdom series.
In this series of three talks I will be looking at the value of and methods to discover your purpose.
Hello my name is Martin Crees-Morris.
I'm an executive mentor.
I lecture on MBA programs and I work with people one-on-one.
One of the key things I have found both personally and in my everyday life is that people who understand purpose have an incredible advantage.
So in this first talk we'll just be looking at why should we understand,
Put the work into knowing our purpose.
And in life generally people will tell you that there are three core personal motivators and the first is purpose,
The second is having autonomy,
Control of your life and the third one is having opportunity to put your purpose into practice.
So how do we define purpose and there could be many ways of doing this but just as a working definition I would define purpose as the unique gift that we bring to the world.
This gift which is in the service of others or in the service of the planet.
We should also understand what purpose is not.
Now purpose is not a job,
It's not a profession,
It's not a title.
Though you find many people would define themselves,
Would think that their purpose is defined by job and profession and in fact you can see that people who have a change of circumstances they actually have a loss of identity.
Now your purpose is also not an objective i.
E.
To pay the mortgage and so on.
It's not a goal and most particularly purpose is not a better version of what others would like us to be.
So often people are engaged in activities in order to keep other people happy,
To fit in with others expectations of us and again this is not purpose.
Purpose is our unique gift,
What is in the room when we are in the room,
What is not in the room when we are not there.
So why do we need to discover and understand our purpose?
Because as I've just said attaching our identity to anything other than purpose generally is worthless because it can disappear.
And purpose defines us no matter how much we neglect it,
That's why I say we're looking at discovering our purpose and it forms our real identity that no one can take from us.
And in many ways understanding our purpose is one of the biggest single determinants of our personal well-being and I'll come back to that.
It creates meaning from life's challenges for us,
It lasts a lifetime,
It's always with us no matter what phase of life that we are in and particularly it works in all aspects of our lives.
You know in our personal lives,
In our professional lives,
No matter what we're doing if we understand our purpose we are actually working from purpose,
We understand really the benefit that we give to other people or the planet,
Nature,
The environment.
It also helps us understand that we are genuine so it can remove imposter syndrome that we have found ourselves in a situation that we feel unworthy of.
But again if we've chosen that situation from an understanding of what our purpose is then it doesn't become an issue.
And purpose can flow from ourselves to the other people that we are responsible for,
If you like,
You can define that as a leadership type activity.
Understanding purpose is something which underpins all other leadership attributes and research has found that people who have a strong sense of purpose are more resilient,
Exhibit better recovery from negative events and the pandemic has been an excellent case study.
So people who can definitively say that they are living their purpose particularly at work compared with those who aren't,
The sense of well-being is up to five times higher than the people who do not understand their purpose.
And particularly from a work point of view,
Higher levels of engagement,
People want to be fully engaged in their work activities.
People tend to live longer,
Healthier lives.
In the Rush Memory and Ageing Project,
These are looking at older people but the people who had a greater sense of clarity around their purpose were two and a half times more likely to be free of dementia,
Lower risk factors for stroke and far less likely,
50% less likely to have actually suffered a stroke.
The trick is at work,
Even if we understand our purpose in our lives more generally,
Can we then translate that into helping other people find their purpose and within whatever activity that we're engaged in,
Are we aligned with the purpose of the organisation or do we have to look at that so that people are more fully aligned?
So how can we help people grow,
The people that we are responsible for?
The answer is simply to help them find their purpose,
To understand what it is and to develop them and give them opportunities which reflect the fact that they are using their purpose,
They're living their purpose.
So you can increase people's level of awareness.
Having said that,
My experience is this is not always an easy task.
People really can be very goal orientated,
They're just there to earn money,
Fulfil a function and really get home to something that they enjoy far more.
So the bigger question is also on that level,
Is my individual purpose aligned with the organisation that I work for or not?
But if it is aligned then you get a flow and you get a flow,
You get greater productivity,
You get a much stronger culture.
So in the next two talks we'll take you through an exercise which will allow you to,
At sort of level one as I would call it,
Do a fairly high level view of understanding your purpose and then at level two we will take a deep dive into your life,
Your past and get a very personal understanding of what your purpose is.
So join me on this journey of discovering your purpose.
Thank you.
