“When you’re living true to your purpose, you disappear inside of your purpose. Life becomes an opportunity to get better and better, more reliable for staying true. So the game I’m playing with my life is to be reliable for living true to my purpose 24-7, even in my dreams.” – Alan Cahn 

Back by popular demand, you won’t want to miss Alan Cahn’s fifth visit to the TEDM podcast!

Alan and Patrick revisit and expand their conversation about purpose, and mindfully connect it to values alignment and integrity. Always a thought-provoking conversation, with a lot of levity, Alan and Patrick use that foundation to discuss health and wellness, relationships, the work place, hard business decisions, upgrading our operating systems, and living a life of contribution and appreciation. Alan offers listeners more than a few golden nuggets of wisdom along with a couple of pro-tips for more effective action! It has been a few years in between, but definitely worth the wait.

 

Show Notes

[0:42] Patrick introduces his next, back by popular demand, first five-time TEDM guest, Alan Cahn.

[02:10] Alan and Patrick re-connect for their fifth TEDM conversation. It’s been a while so how does Alan explain what he does these days? Status Quo Disruptor and Evolutionary Accelerator!

[03:50] Breaking the status quo. Alan offers the example of health to describe what that looks like. Energy and environment are critical to support changing our actions to achieve our desired result.

[05:32] In his work with clients, Alan, a self-described contrarian, explains his approach to help people take the action needed for their desired outcome. Up and forward! The priority shifts when we work from why we desire to do something vs. why we haven’t done it so far. Check out the pro-tip from Alan for shifting the language in our calendars!

[09:30] Fitness vs. wellness: Alan and Patrick each discuss what that means to them. Alan shares four things that impact health that we need to take care of: immune system; rest; aerobic activity; positive mindset.

[15:09] Although their language is somewhat different Alan and Patrick each describe WHY those of us committed to be of service to our purpose must make our own well-being a top priority.

[18:27] Alan shares where he starts the “Purpose” conversation with people, with a definition of what a purpose is: the impact you’re going to make. Alan shares what his purpose is for being invited to the humanity party.

[20:38] Patrick takes the angle of a stressed out 40-year old in today’s world – how the heck do they get beyond survival to even consider a bigger purpose? After all, survival is our default. Alan offers a great and simplified explanation of how to get to that purpose with an initial conversation.

[23:20] Alan discusses why life is the opportunity to become more and more reliable to staying true to our purpose, 24-7, even in our dreams. In each interaction we can ask ourselves if we’re being true to our purpose and if not, what can we do to true it up. Purpose is not about you. It’s about the contribution.

[26:55] The purpose conversation is happening at every level, and both Alan and Patrick agree – this is the conversation that should be happening in elementary school!

[28:45] What gets in the way of people discovering, then maintaining commitment to, their purpose? Anything that reactivates our ego, that we see as a threat, that’s in our shadow. We are hard wired to have our lives be about us. If we all realized that our innate survival mode is what gets in the way of us living with purpose, we may experience a much different world.

[31:25] Our O/S, our ego, is the patterned way we interact with the world. It can be boastful, secretive, self-important, and protective and that stimulus gets in our way of living a life of purpose. A life of purpose is a creative life,