Finding your purpose in 2024.
By Pete Mercer
Do you know why you are here? Do you know what your purpose is? It can feel like a loaded question for anyone who has doubted any of their life choices at any point. If we are honest with ourselves, we have all been there at one point or another. Finding your purpose is no small task and it will likely even require a good bit of failure before you get there.
That’s exactly what Jim Whitt went through on the path to discovering his purpose. After years of searching for what he was meant to do with his life and his career, Whitt had an epiphany on March 21, 1988 – his purpose is to help people reach their full potential.
Repertoire Magazine recently spoke to Whitt, author and founding partner of Purpose Unlimited, about what it takes to find your purpose in a challenging and changing world. He started Purpose Unlimited, a consultation and coaching company, as a way to help people and organizations find their purpose. He has written two books, The Transformational Power of Purpose and Riding for the Brand, both of which cover how individuals and organizations can discover and fulfill their purpose.
Finding purpose in the process
Part of what makes finding your purpose so difficult is enduring the process that it takes to get there. For example, you never plan on getting fired from your job, but sometimes that sort of shake up is exactly what you need to get the ball rolling. Whitt enlisted in the army after graduating high school but did not pass his physical. After three semesters as an art major at a community college he dropped out and eventually landed a job as foreman for the Oklahoma Methodist Boy’s Ranch. That too went sideways after Whitt got into a personality conflict with his superintendent and was fired.
He eventually found himself without a job, without a degree and without direction. He said, “What do you do when you’ve been rejected by the Army and the Methodists? I went to Oklahoma State, and they accepted me.” Whitt said that “being fired was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.” At Oklahoma State, he graduated with a degree in animal science, which completely changed his trajectory. But his journey wasn’t done yet.
After graduating, he spent 10 years in sales with Ralston Purina working primarily with large commercial feeding operations, then became a marketing manager with the Central Soya company before resigning to do contract marketing with a couple of his former customers. That venture ended in failure but in the aftermath, he discovered some notes he had taken during a seminar while he was still employed by Central Soya. At the top of the first page, he had recorded the date, March 21, 1988, and had written this question underneath – “What is your purpose in life?”
While reading that, he remembered working with a young salesman who was feeling anxious about what to ask a prospect on his first sales call. Whitt told him to write down a series of questions that would help to guide the conversation with the prospect. These questions were designed to gain a better understanding of what sorts of challenges and pain points the prospect was facing. Armed with the answers to those questions, Whitt developed a relationship with the prospect to help him solve his most pressing problems. It was this process that helped him become one of the top producers in the company.
“When I looked into the eyes of this young man,” Whitt said. “I saw tremendous potential. I remember thinking that he just needed somebody to help him get there. I had no idea how it would impact his life. That’s when I knew that my purpose was to help people reach their full potential.” Years later, that sales rep went on to start his own company, which he eventually sold for $180 million.
Building the process for the people
With Purpose Unlimited, Whitt has taken a singular conversation with a green sales rep and manifested it into a more than 30-year journey of helping others find and fulfill their purpose in life. The process he developed was documented in, The Transformational Power of Purpose, which was published in 2002.
Whitt’s only prerequisite for people who are interested in discovering their purpose is to be willing to look inside themselves. He said, “I can’t tell you what your purpose is, but I’m going to give you a shovel and tell you where to dig. If you want to know, you’ll find it because you are acting on a spiritual principle – seek and you will find.”
Building off of the same process of finding purpose in his first book, Whitt wrote Riding for the Brand, which is a template for building a purpose driven organization.
The biggest challenge in getting everyone on board with organizational development is to get them to make a commitment to change. “We consider ourselves to be partners with clients in the process and we tell them that we will want to move faster than they will. Everyone wants things to change in the organization until they realize they have to change.
“Change is hard,” Whitt continued. “It’s uncomfortable. It requires a commitment to a process. Events don’t change behavior, processes do. The process starts with the question of purpose because without a purpose our only motivation is reward and punishment.”
Sidebar:
The Science of Axiology: How do you see yourself?
By Jim Whitt
Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Jim Whitt’s The Transformational Power of Purpose: Finding & Fulfilling Your Purpose in Life.
Having personally witnessed the inhumanity accompanying Hitler’s rise to power in pre-war Germany, Dr. Robert S. Hartman envisioned a science which could organize good as effectively as the Nazis organized evil. After years of research, Hartman created a new mathematical system called Axiology which successfully orders the values of our everyday experiences. Derived from two Greek words – xios (worth or value) and logos (logic or theory) – Axiology examines “how we think” and helps us to understand the patterns we use to make judgments.
Hartman identified three distinct dimensions of how we judge and value things:
- Systemic – The dimension of formal concepts, ideals, goals, structured thinking, policies, procedures, rules, laws, “oughts” and “shoulds.” It is one of perfection.
- Extrinsic – This is the dimension of comparisons, relative and practical thinking. It includes the elements of the real, material world, comparisons of good/better/best, and seeing things as they compare with other things in their class.
- Intrinsic – The dimension of uniqueness and singularity. It includes people, love, feelings, etc.
- Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses in their ability to apply these three dimensions when making decisions. No one uses each dimension equally to make a decision.
From a systemic point of view, we measure people against a standard. It can be a system of policies, procedures, rules, laws or a religion. This is a black or white comparison. It’s either pass or fail.
When we examine people extrinsically, we see them comparatively. They are better than, worse than or about the same as someone else, relatively speaking
If we view people intrinsically we value them for their uniqueness, their essence, their spiritual being. They are the one and only.
We not only view others but ourselves through the prism of these same three dimensions. If we see ourselves purely through systemic eyes, we’ll be frustrated failures. No one can live up to all the rules of any system – even if we get to make the rules.
From an extrinsic viewpoint, we either think more highly of ourselves than we ought or find ourselves lacking.
It is only when you look into the eyes of your soul and view yourself intrinsically that you understand your true value. When viewed from an intrinsic point of view you see yourself exactly as your Creator sees you. You are the one and only. Just as no two snowflakes are alike, you are singularly unique.
Dr. Hartman devoted his life to answering the question, “What is good?” The conclusion he reached was, “A thing is good when it fulfills its definition.” Good can be defined as “certain to elicit a specific result” and “something conforming to the moral order of the universe.”
Your purpose is God’s definition of you. You were created to elicit a specific result. When you are fulfilling your purpose you are conforming to the moral order of the universe.
That is good.