What happens at The Intersection of Purpose & Now?

Posted on February 12, 2010 by pdncoach

What is The Intersection of Purpose & Now? What happens there?

The starfish thrower

I awoke early, as I often did, just before sunrise to walk by the ocean’s edge and greet the new day. As I moved through the misty dawn, I focused on a faint, faraway movement. I saw a boy, bending and reaching and waving his arms – dancing on the beach, no doubt in celebration of the perfect day soon to begin.

As I approached, I sadly realized that he was not dancing, but rather bending to sift through the debris left by the night’s tide, stopping now and then to pick up a starfish and then standing, to heave it back into the sea. I asked the boy the purpose of the effort. “The tide has washed the starfish onto the beach and they cannot return to the sea by themselves,” he replied. “When the sun rises, they will die, unless I throw them back to the sea.”

I looked at the vast expanse of beach, stretching in both directions. Starfish littered the shore in numbers beyond calculation. the hopelessness of the boys’s plan became clear to me and I pointed out, “But there are more starfish on this beach than you can ever save before the sun is up. Surely you cannot expect to make a difference.”

He paused briefly to consider my words, bent to pick up a starfish and threw it as far as possible. Turning to me he simply said, “I made a difference to that one.”


This short story, first published by Readers Digest in 1991, now exists in hundreds of variations such as that above, based on one originally written by Loren Eisely in his classic book The Unexpected Universe. I love the lesson of the popular tale above, but equally I love Eisely’s telling of his original lived event.

Eisely was indeed on pre-dawn walk along the ocean’s edge at Costabel. He was noticing the unusual number of starfish stranded along the beach, doomed to die and end up in some sheller’s collection. That is when he came upon a boy, at the base of a “gigantic rainbow of incredible perfection”, picking up a single starfish and casting it into the ocean.

“It’s still alive,” Eisely commented to the boy.
“It may live,” said the boy, “if the offshore pull in strong enough.”
“Do you collect?” Eisely asked.
“Only like this,” was the boy’s response, “and only for the living. The stars throw well. One can help them.”

The stars throw well. One can help them.
So many coaches, inspirational speakers and the like seem to be in a spitting match most of the time. They boast of earning great wealth, buying condos near the beach and of great heights to be climbed. These things are great, for some people.

But there are those of us who find our greatest achievements in the way our children approach the day, with great care and curiosity. There are those of us who find more purpose in serving a great meal to a group of good friends than we do in skydiving or building a profitable marketing network. There are those of us who are satisfied by earning, really earning, the big job promotion for which we are striving rather than an annual cost-of-living increase. There are those of us who care more about the neighbor who is crying on our shoulder than the number of followers we can gain on Twitter in the next 30 days.

There are those of us who just want to wake up another day and make a contribution, knowing that we have value to give.

We all find ourselves washed up on the beach at times. I want to help you get back into a strong current.


My clients crave focus on the things that are important to them (not what is most important to society or the big-name speakers and authors). I have written before about my Grand Aim. My purpose, in part, is to develop people with dreams into leaders with vision, who through authentic self-expression will add value to the world around them. I COULD measure my success by the number of leaders with whom I work – who I “collect” – each year, and by the goals they achieve as a result. But that would not be true to The Intersection of Purpose & Now.

At The Intersection of Purpose & Now I measure my value by the person who finds clarity and renewed commitment with my direct assistance or by the words I am writing right now. I can make a difference for this one.

Only like this, and only for the living. The Intersection of Purpose & Now is a moment, not a lifetime. It’s a person, not an audience. It’s only for the living. And what I do right now…determines how someone lives or dies.

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in coaching, Purpose, starfish, starthrower | Leave a comment

A Question of Balance…or Something Else?

Posted on January 21, 2010 by pdncoach

Q: I struggle to find a healthy balance between work and family time. What can I do?

Questions about balance come from the very core of how and why coaching can be a powerful force in a person’s life, work and business. The “balance” question is quite common, yet seldom do I agree with the common answers, so I have written on the subject often – here, here, here, here, here and here. And, since I was asked the question above on this very day, I’ll revisit the subject once again here.

Balance between our work life and personal life, balance among our various roles – no wonder they seem so elusive, because:

You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything!

Sounds silly, but this is a great place to begin. You cannot do everything you want or must do all the time. Likewise, you might not want to sacrifice everything for the sake of one thing. Too often I find the concept of “balance” leads to guilty feelings about everything all the time…and that’s not healthy, especially if Health is something you are trying to balance!

If you often find yourself thinking, “I would rather be…”, then balance won’t help and it may even hurt. What would you rather be doing? Why aren’t you doing those things? The things you are doing may be “should do” instead of “must do” activities. What must you do with intention and priority today? How would you rather be feeling? Where would you rather be going? What would you rather have? With whom would you rather be investing your time? How would you rather be? Why would you rather…? What are some other questions you might ask? What is it you really want? What is it you must really do?

Consider this example: If you’re at work and you would rather be at home, isn’t your quality of life at home the reason why you work? If you are with family and think you should be working, isn’t family well-being the reason you work? If you want to achieve something you love, are you willing to endure some things you may hate (within reason) to succeed?

Tournament of Dreams
Here’s a start for living an On Purpose life rather than a guilty one dragging along in “balance”:

  1. What do you want? Make a long, exhaustive list;
  2. Match your “wants” in pairs to compete with one another
  3. Ask, “Which one is most important to me now?” until you have a winner. Do this for each area of your life, i.e. family, career, financial, health, spiritual/ethical, social, mental development, etc.
  4. Plan your days around the winners.

What do you want most?

Why do you want it?

What are all the things that might keep you from achieving it?

Can you be innovative enough to conceive solutions for all these barriers to success? (This is where coaching can be most powerful.)

When will you take the specific steps to implement these solutions?
Then, what does your time-line look like for these steps to achieving your goal?

If you won’t change your goal, which is admirable, you can always change the time-line. But what happens to most people is this: they don’t write down their goal and make it an ongoing priority; they lose focus; they fail to identify and address the obstacles and their solutions up front, so the time-line keeps changing, and they eventually forget or give up on the goal.

So write down the “winners” from your Tournament of Dreams in the form of goals. Conceive all possible obstacles and potential solutions for them up front. Then take the necessary steps whether they take you a year to complete or 20 years.

Breathe. Love. Have fun along the way.
Every Life Has a Reason

NOTE: Make sure you also check out my post as guest blogger today at the World Prayer blog. Here is the link http://ow.ly/133Pg .

Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in balance, dreams, priorities, Purpose, what do you want | 1 Comment

The Definition of Success

Posted on January 7, 2010 by pdncoach

Almost everyone I know, or can think of, wants the same thing: Success. How about you? Could anyone not want to be successful? Well, there’s been a lot written on the subject over the years, including some useful quotes:

  • Woody Allen opinioned that “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
  • The oft-quoted William Feather said that “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
  • Someone else once said “The road to success is always under construction.”
  • And Vince Lombardi, the immortal coach of the Green Bay Packers, noted that “The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will.”


Everyone has his or her own ideas about what success looks like. Success is individual and unique to everyone, so can there be a single definition of success? Success is something that we all strive and work hard for, so wouldn’t it be great if we could have a single definition of success that works for each of us?

I’d like to offer up a “Definition of Success” that works for me that I use with my clients, and that I think can work for each of you as well. (This definition, and for that matter my entire blog today, is the product of the folks at Resource Associates Corporation, the human development research organization behind my company with which I have been delightfully affiliated for more than 7 years.)

The continual achievement of your own predetermined goals, stabilized by balance, and purified by belief.


Let’s examine the elements of this definition more closely:

  • Continual – Ongoing, steady, constant, uninterrupted. You can’t take a break from life or your pursuit of success, no matter your situation or circumstances.
  • Achievement – Fulfillment, accomplishment, attainment, feat. You must take action. Ben Franklin said that “Well done is better than well said.” Progress must be made; otherwise you’re just treading water, if not losing ground.
  • Your own – It must be unique to you. Other people may have opinions about what success should mean for you, but only you can determine what is truly right for you.
  • Predetermined – To define and decide or determine in advance, to have forethought. Plan to be successful; it’s not going to happen on a whim.
  • Goals – Destinations, ambition, aims, objectives, targets. Goals provide focus; otherwise, there is no direction. And make certain that you have SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistically high, and Time-based).
  • Balance – Address all aspects of your life (social, career / financial, family, mental, ethics and beliefs, and physical) in a comprehensive manner.
  • Belief – Self-confidence, commitment, faith, trust, certainty, conviction. Ezra Pound said that “What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.” You have to believe in yourself … if you don’t, who will?


 Does this “Definition of Success” work for you? Try it on for size and see if it can help you (personally and professionally) achieve more of what you want and become more of who you want to be!

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
– Dale Carnegie
Join me at the Intersection of Purpose & Now.
Posted in achievement, balance, belief, definition of success, goals | Leave a comment