Purpose

RESOURCES TO STAY ON TRACK WITH YOUR MISSION AND PURPOSE

Looking for an at-a-glance list of resources to support you on your Wayfinder’s journey? You’ve come to the right place!

Here is a list of interviews, books, and blog posts I’ve compiled to help you stay on track as you seek your life’s true purpose:

The Gathering Room Podcast episodes Episode 37: Signs of New Life Episode 44: The Cure for Overwhelm Episode 123: Tracking Your Spirit Episode 131: Wired to Awaken Full Archive of The Gathering Room Podcast Interviews with Martha Life Coaching interview

Books and Writing

Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True [...]

Finding Your Vocation

I’ve never really had a job. I’ve worked my whole life. Hard. Year in, year out, night and day. But a job? Nah. Couldn’t do it.

Like you, I was raised to believe a job was synonymous with survival. But I couldn’t get one. In my “build-your-empire” years, I was too crippled by autoimmune diseases, too busy raising children, to follow conventional wisdom.

Lucky me.

Because I couldn’t do a job, I had to open up my imagination. Instead of “How can I get a job?” I learned early to ask, “How can I add value to the world, to other people’s [...]

On Resolutions

Many years ago, my then three-year-old daughter Katie told me, “I just met the nice fat lady who lives next door.”

“That’s great, honey,” I said. “But from now on, let’s call her Mrs. Ellis.”

Katie frowned, “What if I forget?” 

“No problem,” I said, “I’ll remind you.”

Katie thought a moment longer, then asked, “What if I refuse?”

That was one of those special parenting moments, the moments we realize we have no ultimate control over our own tiny toddlers, let alone anyone larger. 

“Oh well,” I remember thinking, “at least I can control myself.”

As if.

January is the month when many of us, overfed [...]

How to Make Big Decisions

I want to tell you a secret about that really big decision you’re trying to make. You know the one. Ready? Here it is: You have already made that decision. 

Say what?

Your brain may not have told you yet, but it’s true: You don’t have to decide. You just have to access the part of your mind in which the decision is made.

I’ve coached thousands of people through big decisions, so I’ve seen how it works. If you can get that brilliant, busy brain of yours to calm down, you’ll find your answer waiting peacefully inside you. It’s been there [...]

How to Track Your Life’s Purpose

Why should you care about rhinoceros tracking?

I thought you’d never ask.

At the moment I’m at a South African game park called Londolozi, running a change-your-life retreat for a few hardy souls who’ve joined me from all over the world. They’re here to find or clarify their sense of purpose, so that they can follow it with more energy and less effort. The quickest way I know of doing this is to make them track a rhinoceros.

Like finding your life’s purpose, tracking a rhino can be baffling, discouraging, frustrating, and even frightening. But precisely because it’s so difficult, it can [...]

Compass v. Culture

As the seventh of eight children, I was raised with little pressure. For instance, no one at home cared much about my test scores, or even whether I took tests. This was wonderfully freeing but disorienting, so as an adolescent I absorbed the culture of driven materialism that still dominates American society.  Of course, this created the suffering that arises when we live life from the outside in, rather than the inside out. That blessed &%#$ suffering helped me let go of societal expectations and feel around for my “inner compass.” Ever since, in any argument between Compass v. Culture, I’ve [...]

Development Alchemy + Aim