For the last few years I’ve ended all my interviews for the Off the Rak podcast with the same question: What in life are you most grateful for?
The answers have been so revealing, encouraging, inspiring, and thought-provoking that I asked my team to put together a highlight reel of the responses. And one thought those responses provoked has led me to a new capstone question that I’ll use on Off the Rak starting in 2025: What purpose are you most passionate about pursuing?
There’s a critical link, I believe, between gratitude and purpose.
When our purpose is lacking, either because we don’t know it or it is self-focused, it’s easier to feel bitter, resentful, disappointed, depressed, or jealous toward the world around us. We haven’t really defined why life matters or we defined it poorly, and therefore we are easily distracted and overly influenced by things we can’t control. Then we chase things that will never satisfy us at a soul level.
But a noble purpose directs and supports a grateful heart. Steve Taylor, a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University, once put it this way: “Purpose is a fundamental component of a fulfilling life.” When our life is fulfilling, I believe we can’t help but express gratitude. And when we are grateful, we wake up eager to live out our noble purpose.
Furthermore, when we have a clearly defined and meaningful purpose, the people we lead are more likely to find it inspiring, relevant and worth following. And they not only will support it but they may also share in our gratitude.
Purpose is a key component to effective leadership. In fact, when I put my personal approach to leadership into a bullet-point list, it looks like this:
- Overcome fears and pride (they stunt your influence)
- Build transparency into your leadership (open a window to your soul)
- Develop a strong core of authentic values (the foundation of your decisions)
- Passionately pursue a meaningful purpose (a vision for your life and work that’s bigger than yourself)
In combination, I’m convinced this formula equips leaders to pursue opportunities, embrace complex challenges, and have a more positive influence on their organizations and communities.
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So how do we discover our purpose?
Well, in reality, we can’t. Purpose isn’t hiding under a rock somewhere. But it is something we can create, I’ve learned, by starting with the right questions. And while it’s counter-intuitive, those questions aren’t about what we want to be, what we want to do with our lives, what our goals are, what ambitions we have, or what dreams we have for our future.
As Rick Warren points out, they aren’t about “ourselves” at all.
“Focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose,” Warren wrote in The Purpose Driven Life.
Instead, we find purpose when we ask questions about how our lives can have a positive impact on others—how we can serve others or, in the words of the late, great Bob Buford, how our fruit can “grow on other people’s trees.”
Harold Kushner, a rabbi and prolific author who passed away in 2023, once described this type of others-focused purpose as the purpose of life. And I agree.
“The purpose of life is not to win,” Kushner said. “The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought into other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.”
Whatever is going on in your world as we turn the clock toward another year, my hope is that you won’t be overly distracted or influenced by things outside of your control. Instead, my hope is that you can awake each day with gratitude in your heart and a noble purpose to passionately pursue.
So I’ll end this blog the way I plan to end my forthcoming Off the Rak interviews:
What purpose are you most passionate about pursuing?
