Over the weekend, I had an exchange with a few people, notably Sims Tillirson and Jan Jensen, which involved some inquiry into the ideas of “work-life balance” and “purpose.”
This caused me to think about this word, “purpose;” How is it people can find meaning in different aspects of life, such as business, family, art, sports, and contributions to science? I was perusing LinkedIn over lunch yesterday and came across an amazing video from Bo Nickal on the nature of confidence and “doing the difficult things every day.” I’m including it here for your review.
I personally believe there is a clear connection between mastery and meaning; Between an ability to execute and a sense of purpose. And I think Bo’s connection of preparation and confidence bridges these. In this quote, Scott Galloway really captures my point:
Your job is to find something you’re good at, invest in those skills, become great at it, and the accoutrements of being great at something will make you passionate about whatever “it” is.
And what does it “look like” to become great? I love this quote from Billie Evans, which is also linked below:
Actually it takes years and years and years of playing to develop the facility so you can forget all of that and just relax and just play…
I think Jonathan Larson captured the spirit of this post in his song, “Why.” It is one of my favorite songs. (Check out Andrew Garfield’s performance in Tick Tick Boom, linked below… It is so good!)
Going back to Sims’ post. He wrote, “To each his own I suppose…” Precisely!