“Always the beautiful answer, who asks a more beautiful question.” — E.E. Cummings
Something interesting happened last night.
During my first talk at WLU Business School (I spoke to two separate classes, back to back), a student asked me:
“Now that you’re moving on from basketball, what will you do next?”
And honestly, I didn’t know how to respond.
It’s a challenge I’ve been wrestling with for months now:
How do I describe the work we do here?
We could call it “personal development,” which would be sort of accurate…
…But that lumps us into the rah-rah crowd, with their mirror affirmations and gratitude journals and positive self-talk.
No bueno.
While the goal of traditional personal development is to build up the ego, to make yourself “better” in your own eyes and the eyes of others…
(a fool’s game, of course, because the thing that is trying to be better — ie. the ego — is exactly what is blocking you from being better)
…The goal of our work is precisely the opposite:
To deconstruct the ego and see beyond our limited sense of who and what we think we are.
In other words:
Traditional personal development aims to give us a prettier mask to wear.
Our aim is take the dam thing off so we can finally see ourselves and the world clearly, and stop pretending to be something false.
Yeah, not an simple answer to give a class full of third-year business students.
So I side-stepped it, and steered the discussion back to business and entrepreneurship.
All good, safe and sound…
…Until the second class arrived, and the question popped right back up.
No avoiding it this time (when the universe sends you a test, you’d best respond).
And when I started to reply, a new answer emerged:
“The common trait among the students I work with is that they have all turned inwards.
While most of the world looks outwards, towards money and pleasure and status — towards winning the survival game — the students who like my work know the true answers are not found outside of themselves.
So they’ve turned inwards, and my role is to guide them along that inner path.”
Interesting…
Now of course, that’s not a complete answer.
And the problem of “how to describe what we do here” still isn’t solved in full.
But now we have a fresh new clue, and you can be sure:
I will solve it.
I share this story with you for two reasons:
First, to provide a clearer picture of what this work is really about.
And second, to ask you the same question:
How would you describe the work we do, here?
I know we’re just getting started, and the work has barely begun.
But I’m curious to hear your thoughts, and see what insights they might spark.
What terminology, ideas, or descriptions resonate with you?
Hit reply if you have a moment, I’d love to hear.
And on that note, before we wrap:
Thank you, sincerely, to everyone who replied to yesterday’s entrepreneurship email.
The outpouring of interest and appreciation was beautiful to see (I didn’t expect such a huge response).
Y’all are truly the best.
Have a great one over there and we’ll chat more tomorrow.
– T
