Just before the inauguration, Parade Magazine published a letter Barack Obama wrote to his daughters, Malia and Sasha. It is a touching letter, and repeats the off-heard theme that I have quoted above: we don’t achieve our potentials, can’t achieve them, without finding something larger than our own interests.
The president’s letter to his daughters implicitly raises the leadership question for anyone: “What am I serving that is larger than myself?”
This is not an easy question. The question itself requires a certain devotion, a certain humility. I think it requires us to go far enough into ourselves that we are finally allowed to get out of our egos, our shallowness, our “self-ishness.”
I would say the larger thing for me has to do with watching others claim themselves, their genuineness, their birthright of confidence and fulfillment. Perhaps the greatest thing for me is to watch another individual discover a capacity to do something the person didn’t believe he or she possessed. Often this involves a process of healing to the person’s own sense of self, overthrowing reasons for guilt or shame or a feeling of inadequacy in order to release true capacities, true radiance. Yes, that is what I do, what I live for. I do so because the forces of destruction that surround any individual can be strong enough to destroy that person, and are countermanded only to the degree we as people believe in ourselves and learn how to genuinely help one another. Each of us is more than we can see, really. And no one achieves their full destiny on their own.
Is this quest my own autobiography? In part, yes. I teach what I most need to learn. But it is more than that. It’s also a personal Vocation, a “fierce” calling, my native purpose and life-thread. It’s what I offer and have to give.
That is the star to which I have “hitched my wagon.”
I’d be interested where you have hitched your own.
I want to serve people by helping them fully engage with whatever work they do. Be that work as an employee, an indie consultant, a parent, looking for work, etc. I hope to have people realize the richness of engagement.
David, thank you. And now I’m curious. What do you mean by the “richness” of engagement? (I realize this is a little like asking Jimi Hendrix to discuss the “richness” of guitar, but what the hell.)