“The goal of life is to match your nature with Nature.” – Joseph Campbell
Hey, welcome back :)Quick recap before we jump into today’s lesson.
Yesterday, we spoke about a practice called:
“Kill the Buddha”
Which basically means:
Question your deepest beliefs to see if you can prove them false.
Not because you want them to be false, but because you want to get to the truth.
So that’s what I was doing last week at our retreat…
Continuously questioning one of my strongest beliefs:
That my current life purpose is to teach internal development.
I attacked it from many angles:
– If I didn’t do this, what else would I do?
– What do I dislike about this work, and am I willing to endure those drawbacks for the rest of my life?
– What do I love about this work, and could I get that from a different type of work?
etc, etc.
Ultimately, there are many other things I could do.
Things that might make me more money, with fewer/different drawbacks, that I could even fall in love with.
Yet every time I questioned whether or not I want to teach internal development, the belief grew stronger.
Why?
Well, to start…
There are a great many things I suck at.
Managing large teams, technology, and 11th grade math come to mind.
But as I sat at the front of the room, teaching advanced, complex material from morning until night…
…Nothing I’ve ever done in my life has ever felt so natural.
I spoke all day, but my voice rarely got tired.
I answered hundreds of questions — and my mind felt more refreshed with every reply.
I had a week of advanced material to teach, but it wasn’t heavy or hard.
Honestly, it felt kind of…
Easy.
And I found myself in a continuous flow state from morning until night.
I can’t say the same about basketball, scaling online businesses, or anything else I’ve done for that matter.
(like I said, I have sucked at a great many things…)
But teaching internal development, for now, seems to be hard-coded into my nature.
I’ll probably take a few more cracks at that Buddha, and I’m happy to change my mind in the future.
(my commitment is not to any particular path, but to the Truth)
But for now, it looks like you’re stuck with me 🙂
Anyway, I hope you caught the core lessons here:
1. Continuously challenging your deepest beliefs can help lead you to the Truth about what you were born to do.
2. What you’re born to do is often what feels most natural and effortless to you (even though it is challenging for others).
3. Take notice of what puts you into a flow state automatically, without you needing to “try” to get there.
One last analogy:
Have you ever met someone that brings out the best version of you, every time you’re with them?
Something about their personality brings your most natural personality to the surface…
And you find yourself cracking jokes and laughing and having smooth conversations effortlessly?
That’s the feeling to aim for as you discover “what you’re born to do.”
Or, we could say it like this:
Do the thing that brings out the best version of you.
The same principle could be applied to romantic relationships, too…
…But that’s a story for another day 🙂
I’ll be flying home tomorrow, so I’m not sure when/if we’ll drop an email.
We’ll see where the flow takes us…
Have an awesome one over there.
You deserve it.
– T
P.S. Lots more on this topic (ie. finding what you’re “born” to do) in The 9th Law.
