Hard Choices on Purpose

The other day I talked with someone who read my article about living inspired (and therefore “in spirit”). Like what often happens, we talked BIG PICTURE. Like a 'I only have so much time on this earth and what I do with my time matters' kind of conversation.

When I asked him a question that Dr. Wayne Dyer often asked (“What’s your intention?”), he spoke about his desire to build a legacy. He doesn’t care about whether or not someone will remember his name, but wants more than anything for people to benefit from his life’s work down the road, well after he leaves this life.

He wants to create something that matters. And something tells me you do too.

Much like how you may not know Thomas Edison, but you surely will benefit from using a light bulb.

Or how you may never have heard of Tim Berners-Lee, but you surely will have used the World Wide Web.

Or you may not know Elon Musk, but you certainly have used e-commerce (i.e. Paypal). He’s also the guy behind sending monkeys to Mars (i.e. SpaceX), bringing the electric car to mass production (i.e. Tesla), and cladding our homes with solar panels to fuel our energy use (i.e. SolarCity)

I understand this drive to build a legacy that matters. That’s the hero inside of us calling. Screaming. Reading to be activated and charge into legacy-building combat.

But being a hero on this level requires some hard choices.

The man I sat there having this conversation with happens to also have a beautiful two-year daughter, a loving wife, and also is a co-caretaker for his parents.

Would building an epic legacy mean that he can’t also play these equally important roles?

History teaches us that’s not so easy. In Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs, he equally celebrates the genius gifts that Jobs has given all of society while also exposing that in his formative years at Apple, he was an absent father and husband.

It wasn’t until his later years and the birth of his son Reed that he began to take his family role seriously and did a 180 degree turn. He quickly switched from staying late at Apple to being home every evening for a meal with the family. But this was after he had already established his legacy at Apple (and Pixar).

A similar story goes for Elon Musk who has achieved extreme success. Musk is notorious for spending so much time on his projects that he is absent in his role as family man. His ex-wife, Justine Musk, wrote very publicly about how difficult it was to be married to someone so devoted to his work.

On her popular blog, she wrote that “Extreme success results from an extreme personality and comes at the cost of many other things.” In this case, it was the cost of their marriage.

But do you have to give up being a loving partner and parent because you have such an internal drive to create something that matters?

Of course not.

Just ask my friend Stephen Tracy. For the past several years, Stephen has held one of the most coveted positions by millennials all over the world. Tracy held a high-level position at Google. He scootered between meetings, traveled all over the world on the company dime, and filled his belly with Google’s free delicious food.

While working at Google, Tracy’s spirit kept egging him on to leave Google and start his own project that matters. Besides, Tracy’s position at Google required a tremendous amount of time. Time that Tracy couldn’t choose how to use. And that time included being away from his husband.

So Tracy had a spark of insight and lit his entrepreneurial candle, quite literally. He made the hard delicious on purpose to leave Google and start up a for-purpose candle company.

Tracy has a tremendous love for his former employer, Google, but has not looked back since taking the leap.

When we sat down for a chat, he said:

“I've found so much more purpose in every single day since leaving Google. The biggest change is in the alignment between how I want to spend my time, and how I actually spend my time. Now I choose where my time and energy goes. I feel liberated, empowered, and excited by the future. It's been the best decision I ever made.”

Tracy partnered with his husband to create KEAP and just recently launched on Kickstarter, already raising well over their 25k goal!

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So, what about YOU? As you activate the hero within and walk your heroic journey, how do you choose to spend your time?

It’s the age-old question of work vs. life balance, but with the entrepreneurial revolution that’s upon us, finding this balance is quite difficult when it’s your work that brings you life.

And now, I need to make a hard choice on purpose. This episode will be the last episode for season 2. Season 3 will be here before you know it, but in the meantime I have to press pause on the podcasting fun for a little while.

Of course, I want to hear from you. What do you want to see in season 3?

Also, if this happens to be the first time you’ve tuned into the show, make sure to listen through the over 90 episodes that nearly 100,000 thousand people have listened to.

And if you haven’t checked out yourlop.com yet, make sure to sign up for my newsletter.

And lastly, I will be creating more meditations because i’ve been touched to see that over 30 thousand people have listened to the meditations I created on Insight Timer. How awesome is that!?

From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for joining me on this journey and I seriously look forward to season 3.

It’s a beautiful time to be alive and I thank you for joining me on the stage.