Your Iconic Image : Finding Authentic Purpose

Your Iconic Image

Jeff Lovell | Jeff Lovell Coaching | Founder of The Great Life Project

Jeff Lovell is an expert guide and coach for authentic living. He created The Great Life Project to help successful creative founders and executives who are great at work be great at life. Together they create new ways to stop playing it safe and wondering what if, and instead start living a life you love, with people you love, while accomplishing your most important work.

https://jefflovell.coach

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-lovell-coach/

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Transcription : Vision In Word

Marlana

Jeff Lovell is an expert guide and coach for authentic living. He created the great life project to help successful creative founders and executives who are great at work be great at life. Welcome, Jeff.

Jeff

Thanks for having me. It's great to be with you.

Marlana

So, we're gonna have a conversation today about authentic purpose. So first, let me start by asking you, because the word authentic is thrown around by a lot of people. What does it mean to you?

Jeff

That's a great question. I appreciate you clarifying that. I think something that's authentic is true all the way through, like, I have an authentic looking desk, that's not made of real wood. So there, it lacks the integrity all the way through, you peel under a layer, and you pretty quickly find out it's not the real thing. And so authentic purpose is it comes from the core of who you are. And it's born out of your identity, and a deeper sense of who you are and what your life is about, rather than just some of these more surface level things.

Marlana

So then how do we find ours?

Jeff

That is the question, isn't it? And I think people often wish there were a quick answer to that question. I think part of my work is helping people slow down and find a better answer to that question. And one of the places I often start with people is rather than just diving into, well, tell me what is my authentic purpose? Let's slow down and talk about all the kinds of inauthentic purpose that oftentimes is a part of our life.

For a number of people, like for me, part of that journey was a coach that I was working with, at that point in time asking me this question, what if the thing you're searching for that next mountain you need to climb isn't out there somewhere, but what if it's actually in here, what if the best work you need to do is something that's happening inside of you. So, that kind of set me on this journey of unpacking these inauthentic versions of life and purpose and meaning that I think most of us encounter them from time to time.

It's not that we're doing something bad when we, we experienced them, it's just that we shouldn't settle for them. I think of things like, you know, there's all these other me's that are out there, there's the me that I wish I was. I wish I was taller and better, or basketball, or at least middle school just wished I was taller and better at basketball, you know, or there's the me that I think other people want me to be, whether that's my boss, or my family, or friends, or even just kind of that society or this. Depending on your career of choice, there's kind of versions of you that you think you're supposed to be to succeed. I don't know, there's all kinds of those.

I think one of the big ones that people tend to fall for is that there's the me that people will pay me to be right, or the me that has succeeded. And so sometimes those things, send us down these other roads that we keep going down, and because they keep paying us and it feels successful. But I don't know if you've ever had this experience. I've woke up one day in my 30s and said, Oh, I'm successful, but I don't want to do this.

Marlana

How many of us do you think, seek that purpose and that validation outwardly, as opposed to looking inwardly for it?

Jeff

I think that is the most common starting place, as we say, when we're searching for purpose, a lot of people are searching for purpose. And that isn't always the words we put on it. Sometimes it's just that laying awake at 2am, saying, There's got to be more to life than this, or what am I doing with my life, or it just feels like something's missing. But I would kind of put the word searching for purpose on that. And I think a lot of people are searching for it. We search for it and all these outward places, it's from our culture, from our community, from our family. Sometimes our success tells us what feels like purpose. Sometimes our failures tell us something and we kind of live our life chasing after these things. I think some of the most important work we can do.

To answer your question more specifically, I want to help people make a mindset shift from being a searcher of purpose into being a bringer of purpose. Like we don't just experience purpose from our work, we actually bring purpose to our work. We don't just get purpose from our family, in our relationships, we can bring purpose to it. I think that is a key mindset that unlocks a lot of things for people.

Marlana

So, how do we get to that point?

Jeff

The slower it's a courageous journey. At least for me, I would say it took courage it took slowing down. It takes willingness to say maybe what I have right now isn't the version I want it to be, which is scary. And I think it's okay to do the scary thing. And sometimes that's why we need coaches. That's why we need a good friend or others to come alongside us to not have to go on those journeys alone. I think named having the courage to name the other ways that I've sought that purpose. Again, people really want to quickly jump to how do I find it where it's the thing.

There's an unlearning process before you can learn. So, let's unlearn what you've been taught about purpose, about meaning. A lot of my clients work in branding, design, marketing and advertising, which is about winning the awards. It's about climbing the ladder, and it's about getting your name in the articles and all that, that's great. There's nothing wrong with those things. But subliminally a lot of us, it's pretty common, that starts to feel really good. Except for that it's kind of the shiny candy shell.

It's the thing that's pretty on the outside, and everybody looks at it, and it's glossy and happy. But it's kind of a melting mess in the middle. So, I think a lot of people find that they get down this road and start to ask themselves, well, is that really my purpose? Is it just to keep climbing the ladder? Or is there something else that I'm missing?

Marlana

So, are there questions that we should be asking ourselves along the way to see whether we're on the right path or not?

Jeff

Of course! I don't know that there's a one size fits all. One of the true things is that there's some good been great, some great research in the last 20 years, brawny where wrote about it, Daniel Pink is writing a lot about regrets. These days, there was a big Harvard grant study where people are talking about regrets. And one of the number one regret that comes up over and over again for people is that when they get to the end of their life, they wish they had had the courage to live a life that was true to themselves. So, I think there's a lot of kinds of questions that can emerge out of that.

If you play the movie of your life forward, kind of fast forward, what track you're on, like, a great question is, where does that story end, what's the next chapter of that story? And is that this chapter, you want to be living? I think a lot of people right now are scratching their heads about the next chapter.

We've kind of come out of the season in this crazy couple of years, where people have done a lot of thinking about what life wants, what, what matters most to them in life, and what they want their next season to be life. So, I think the first question is, is this story going the direction I want it to be? Am I proud of living this story? Is this the story I want to look back on until?

Marlana

Interesting! So, let's say we decide that this isn't the story that I want to tell, and we want to shift gears. How do we start to do that?

Jeff

That’s great! So, where does authentic purpose actually come from? After we've unlearned some of those things, I'm going to name that. Maybe I've been a success at work but I'm not so much a success at home, or I'm great in the community around me but the people that know me best don't get the best version of me. So, that’s where we start. Is the question they want to ask, because again, what's the quickest way? What's the road, it's gonna get me there the fastest. And so, if I change my job, if I make the move, if I changed the relationship, if I only got married, or if I only ended the marriage, or, if I got another course, took another degree, all these activities that are these external things.

I think people think those are going to open the doors that they're looking for. And so, a lot of a common mistake, I think that people make in trying to force their way into purpose is to start changing activities. And the problem with changing activities is those are all asking the wrong question. They're answering the question what do I do? And I think a better approach to actually unlocking real authentic purpose because, again, those just cover the surface. That's the fake desk, the laminate desk, but a better approach is rather than changing activity, is to clarify identity. That's where we slow down and say, okay, you know, tell me about your story. Let's unpack those chapters, because most of my clients are people in their late 30s or early 50s, where they've got some life experience now, and usually that life experiences include some things that they're not quick to talk about. There's some pain. There's some lessons learned the hard way. There are some were probably regrets and we kind of want to gloss over those, but I think that that's where it's really incred More powerful things come from where purpose emerges because your pain can be redeemed. Oftentimes, the things that have been most painful to us are places where we can make the biggest difference in the world.

I have a friend who his house burned down when he was nine years old. And it sent them through some painful things and some really difficult things. But he ended up in a career that is a disaster relief. I mean, there's this deeply embedded thing in him out of that painful moment, but he found there were people that were really helpful to him and his family and that moment, and it just kind of shaped who he's always been. I think that's true for most of us, is that even those painful hard parts of our story are if we are willing to dig into them and unpack them, and I'm not a therapist. And it's not therapy work. But I think that there's something true about our pain and the hardships that we've been through that are an ingredient in our purpose.

Marlana

Do you think we do ourselves a disservice by glossing over those moments in our lives?

Jeff

I'm sure the simple answer is yeah. And I think those moments are too important and too formative two, that gloss over. And I know they're not the things that make it to our Instagram reels or LinkedIn profiles, except for on Mental Health Awareness Week when everybody's got those two. I don't mean this, say that in a cliche kind of way. I just think, when we lead with everybody's experienced pain, and so when we lead with that, when we put that out there, I think it makes us more human.

I think purpose, if it's authentic, is actually attached to our most human parts, that's the deeper inside. I mean, it's one thing to talk about purpose, I'm going to change the world and help feed all the hungry people and find world peace and all, that's amazing. But that's also a kind of a glossy version of it, versus those painful things that happened to me or sending me on a journey. And so, our purpose emerges from our story, not just our pain, I think also emerges from our superpowers and our genius. And you have this unique thing about you, all of us do that, only you can do. And so, helping people own that and not, again, I work with a lot of branding and design people. So, there's kind of this sense of what it takes to be brilliant in that world. But the best, the people who are the most brilliant aren't doing it like everybody else. So that's the part two is like, unlocking your sense of passion and your unique genius and the things that only you can do like for Marlana, but there's a version of Marlana from middle school that was doing what you're doing now. Like, it's always been you. And there's that version of us, that's always been us. And that's what I want to help people uncover, unpack and kind of set free.

Marlana

Do you think that if we look back on the story of our life, we will see what the common threads are?

Jeff

I hope so. And I think that that's some of the most important work we can do. And part of the great life project, kind of a chapter in the great life project is unpacking your story and looking for those threads and the high points, the low points. But I think some of that, it's one thing to kind of catalog the events. But it's another thing to start to give them meaning. So, we begin to say, Okay, let's just, for example, take the first decade of your life, and let's put a chapter title on that. And then the second decade, what's the Chapter Therefore, for example, one of my friends, or one of my clients, who became a friend, I love it when clients become friends. It's another thing when friends become clients, but it's better when clients become friends.

She had a really difficult childhood. And so, she named the first chapter of her story broken. But then she named the second chapter of her life brave. And then the third chapter is becoming, and this fourth chapter is beauty and for her, what that means is that when we see where those first few chapters have brought us, we get to name the next chapter. And I think that's the really powerful thing in our story, is that there's the events, sure. And then we give them meaning, and then we get any good story, we can start to see where it's going like that make your life a predictable movie.

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