LA 070: When to be Agile and When to Keep on Keeping on

How do we find our purpose to listen to wisdom to rightly choose when to be agile and change and when we should keep on the same track? Wisdom Tenacity and Agility I was at my wits end. Burned out and utterly lost in a quagmire of my own making. I'm uncertain as to what came first. Was I burning out and thus started to get stressed and failing to close business or was my failure to close business causing the stress that made me burn out? Whatever, the upshot was that times were tough, the economy was in the doldrums and it didn't look as if there was a recovery happening anytime soon. You'd think that after 15 odd years of this rollercoaster life we loving call entrepreneurship that I would know better than to allow myself to become exhausted but then many of my coaching clients experience very similar situations. Perhaps that was it! Burnout is a contagious disease!! A mind virus that constantly reminds you there but for the grace of God go I. And boy did I jump down the rabbit hole. When I asked close friends, mentors and fellow coaches, most of them advised me to "keep on keeping on" - that I was "on the right track", not to "get distracted". Others suggested I flip and change. Take off and do something different. The latter seemed easier - after all, the grass always does seem greener... Stupid, stupid mistake! Oh well, that was an eighteen month error. The grass wasn't just not greener, it was an arid, dust-filled desert of disappointment and regret. When would you dig your heels in and stay the course and when should you switch and change? A couple of weeks ago, I was participating in a webinar of fellow entrepreneurs and the discussion moved to the idea of following one's passion. For a long while I was keeping quiet and listening in to folk enthusiastic and new to running their own business and several soon to be corporate refugees along with some old hands at this game. You could hear the passion in people's voices, their wanton desire to impact lives and make a difference and it was delightful to hear. But after a while I began to become concerned that many were confusing passion for purpose and that an obstacle such as I had faced just ten years ago could so easily derail them. On the other hand, their passion and excitement was vivid - something I rarely sense with my clients in the corporate world. And I'm thinking that passion is that fuel that keeps us keeping on when times are tough and each day seems more like a battle than an enjoyable journey. So, do we change with agility when trouble looms or keep on keeping on? I plan on discussing a lot in this episode of the Leadership AdvantEdge. So hold onto your hats as I try to distinguish between passion and purpose because these appear to drive what we choose to do in our lives (even if we're uncertain what they are). And how passion and purpose can help us wisely decide between being agile or being tenacious. Does Passion fuel Purpose or are they the same thing? I believe that passion and purpose are not the same thing. For me, purpose is your reason for being, it’s the what you were born to do or achieve in this life. Passion is the drive, the desire, love, aching want to do or achieve something. Passion is turned into energy to act, while purpose is your reason to act. Passion without purpose can quickly become dead works. For example, I can be wildly enthusiastic to pursue a particular course of action but will likely run out of steam when I find there is no reason or motive for doing so. The fuel of desire runs out. Purpose is something that pulls you along, it’s what brings meaning to life and actions. Perhaps simplistically? Passion is the emotion, whilst purpose is the reason. Purpose is your key to life! Does this matter? It seems that yes, this matters a great deal. I have met so many people who love what they do. They are, without doubt, passionate about their work. Of course, I've met many more who don't enjoy what they are doing one little bit. You w