Nine years ago, I decided to pour all my energy into building the Purpose Development™ industry after exhausting my motivation to work with a team of entrepreneurs in the network marketing industry. To make matters worse, I was fresh off ending a 20-year marriage that left me homeless, broke, busted, and disgusted.
I found early success in marketing group benefits to corporations. However, this day was different. After knocking on doors in the unbearable Georgia heat, I pulled into a parking lot in Sandy Springs, which is just north of downtown Atlanta. Overwhelmed with exhaustion and my face firmly planted on the stirring wheel, I remember asking myself, “What in the hell am I doing?”
Before returning home that day, I had a greater resolve to finish what I started. Years prior to joining the network marketing industry, I became a student of personal growth. My affinity for helping people reach their highest growth potential led to digesting content by some of the greatest minds in personal and spiritual growth.
Individuals like Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Paul J. Meyers, Dennis Waitley, Robert Kiyosaki, John Maxwell, Og Mandino, Norman Vincent Peale, Jim Rohn, T.D. Jakes, Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Willie Jolley, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Napolean Hill, and Dr. Myles Munroe played parts in my obsession for personal and spiritual growth. Even though I was well read, I knew there was a missing piece in the personal growth puzzle.
Determined to make a difference
It didn’t take long to figure out that my so-called millionaire mentor didn’t share the same excitement I had for Purpose Development™. After informing him that I was leaving the network marketing industry to pursue my dream of making a difference with Purpose Development™, he stated,
“Purpose development is a waste of your time and personally, I can’t see you doing anything else but this business.”
Feeling dejected, I remembered that three blocks away was the parking lot where I made my decision to leave the network marketing industry. Instead of throwing in the towel, his words fueled my desire to figure out why people not only walked away from their dreams but how they throw in the towel at the first sign of resistance to climb the mountain of success.
After sprucing up my resume to highlight my instructional design and training skills, I landed contract gigs with Lockheed Martin, UPS, and Georgia Quick Start. I even had an opportunity to be the Fulton County Site Coordinator for the Harvard University Graduate School of Education Best Foot Forward Research program.
My Harvard experience opened my eyes to how the school system demanded teachers to put their best foot forward, but the missing piece in the personal growth puzzle was absent to help students put their best foot forward.
Can't stop writing
My biggest Purpose Development™ fan has been my wife and business partner – Dr. Lily Jenkins. During the early stages of Purpose Development™, she constantly inquired about my passion for writing about the industry because before she could get used to one program, I would introduce another one.
Each time I was convinced that the new program would put Purpose Development™ on the map. Unfortunately, my excitement was met with lack-luster enthusiasm from the people who could not see the value of embracing new models of understanding the subject of purpose.
Over the years, my writings produced thousands of pages of content that fueled growth in our Certified Purpose Development Coach training. A handful of people trained to become Certified Purpose Development Coaches. However, the quest to find the missing piece in the personal growth puzzle continued until Dr. Lily completed her doctorate degree in higher education leadership.
Since meeting my wife in 2010, she expressed an interest in completing this goal. Finally, in the summer of 2019, her dream came true. Her dissertation was instrumental in vetting Purpose Development™ with existing researchers in personal growth. It also helped us realize that Purpose Development™ was the missing piece in the personal growth puzzle.
Deficiencies in personal growth
It turned out that my millionaire mentor was wrong. He had all the trappings of success, but never mentioned the missing piece in personal growth. He was a master at providing advice on how to do what he did, but clueless on helping people remove bad ergonomics in growth potential to scale the mountain that leads to success. His attitude was indicative of an industry that champions reading good books without addressing the deficiencies in personal growth.
Dr. Lily's research introduced us to Robert Kegan, who is a retired forty-year Harvard Professor of Professional Development.
Mr. Kegan stated,
"The process of growth involves the evolution of meaning marked by continual shifts from periods of instability to periods of stability leading to reconstruction relationships between persons and their environment."
What my millionaire mentor failed to realize is that where advice leaves off, Purpose Development™ must take over to help individuals manage the evolution of meaning.
Providing good advice is sufficient to help people get started up the mountain of success. However, the journey is not easy which makes it difficult to reach the top of the mountain. A few manage to claw their way to the top through trial and error, but a vast majority give up on their dreams.
Getting to the top of the mountain of success requires embracing the reality that the degree of success in the future is dependent on the degree of purpose in the present. The human soul is the command center for the unique systems that controls the degree of purpose in the present. However, when these systems are knocked offline due to bumps on the road to success, the evolution of meaning shuts down and growth potential is aborted.
Giving up on the road to success is due to what is known in Purpose Development™ as Purpose Deficit Disorders™ (PDD). This is a pandemic that attacks the unique systems of the soul and good advice is not enough to treat this disease.
The missing piece
Purpose Development™ is not only the missing piece in the personal growth puzzle, it is the vaccine for PDD. Unlike traditional personal and spiritual growth, it reboots the unique systems of the soul to help individuals build meaningful relationships between their Design Potential™ and their environment.
Many gurus fail to build immunity against PDD, which increases the risk for giving up on dreams. Instead of increasing the degrees of purpose for the moment, most individuals are chained to moments that increases the risk for abandoning goals.
"You will encounter misguided people from time to time. That's part of life. The challenge is to educate them when you can, but always to keep your dignity and self-esteem and preserve in your personal growth and development." - Dr. Bernice King
Not only was my millionaire mentor wrong, he was not equipped to help me preserve in my personal growth by treating the PDD disease. More than an exercise in reading good books, treating PDD requires expert coaching to bring the unique system of the soul back online. It is the missing piece to scaling growth potential and the difference between inspiring people up the mountain of success vs. giving them a rope and pulling them to the top.
Deficiencies in personal growth are evident in every sector of our world. People have lofty goals but little insight on how to treat the PDD disease. If we desire to help individuals preserve in personal growth, both personal and spiritual growth circles must be disrupted to help more people increase their degrees of purpose for the moment. By doing so, we will help increase their degrees of success in the future by breaking the chains of average.
PDI Smart™ Lesson:
Beware of people who are blinded by their own advice. They are clueless on how to coach you through the process of rebooting the systems of the soul to get you up the mountain of success.