What do I do well?Anchor yourself in enduring truths rather than in pop culture or fads, then stand on those principles even through difficult times, so you can experience meaning, joy, and success in all circumstances.
IT WASN’T UNTIL we’d circled the island twice that we realized we were lost.
It was dark. We were on night ops in a black rubber boat, one of six on the Chesapeake River in Virginia, taking part in a Navy SEAL extreme adventure. We’d been sent on a mission to rescue some hostages our “enemy” was holding captive. Our faces were painted with green, brown, and black camouflage paint. We were to travel by river to a drop-off point, cross over some land, encounter the enemy, and get the prisoners out. I had been charged with leading two boats.
But things weren’t going as we’d planned. We’d identified the North Star to orient ourselves, or so we’d thought. Now we were reading a compass and map in the dark using a small military light a lot like the kind of flashlight you’d carry on your keychain, except that it emitted green light. It was important to be stealthy and move quietly. We’d be traveling through communities, people’s actual neighborhoods. So we whispered to each other and used hand signs to communicate between boats.
At one point, the river split and we passed a tree-covered island. Then we faced a series of choices where we chose to stay left. But the trip seemed to be taking too long. A lot too long. The landscape seemed increasingly familiar.
After a while someone whispered, “We’ve seen this before.”
“Wait, that’s the same island!” another guy responded.
In the pitch dark, we hadn’t realized it, but if you keep turning left at every choice, eventually you go in a circle. We’d actually gone around the island a couple of times. After the initial embarrassment, it was actually kind of funny, though I felt kind of stupid—especially because ABC Nightline had been filming at the SEAL complex during the time we were at the camp. I’d be embarrassed if that were caught on tape. Finally, we picked out a beacon pulsating from a factory or airport. We realized we needed to be near that light, so we hugged the tree line and headed toward it.
Of course, Nightline had, in fact, been reporting on this part of the adventure. When the episode aired, they closed the segment with the line, “Pastor Waller’s boat returned considerably later.” The fellas still haven’t let me live that down.
When we conducted our postmortem of the boat trip, we realized that we got lost because we had not prepared properly to point in the right direction. Before we headed out, we should have read the map, identified some landscape markers, and created a plan. Instead, all we’d done was look for the North Star. Even then, we didn’t orient ourselves well enough to tell where we were by what we saw in the sky. We also hadn’t practiced reading a map by limited light. All of our shortcomings—our struggles to follow the North Star, read the compass, row the boat straight, and communicate with hand signals—contributed in getting us lost.
Getting lost on the river that night reminded us of how important it is to build your life upon the Truth and all the work it takes to make that happen.
Psychologist M. Scott Peck opened his famous book The Road Less Traveled with the words “life is hard.” Peck is right. Life is definitely hard. But the fact that life is hard isn’t negative. A person can find tremendous purpose even in the midst of the greatest difficulty—and even because of that difficulty. Indeed, any man can find massive meaning in hardship. But to do that he must build his life upon Truth. A righteous warrior is truthful.
There is a difference between things that are true and things that are True. I distinguish between them with the use of the initial capital letter.
Something that is True is true everywhere. It’s True no matter your race, your gender, your ethnicity, your sexual orientation, how you look, or where you live. For instance, on earth, gravity is True. So are the other principles of physics—the laws of aerodynamics that allow airplanes to fly, the laws of motion, conservation of mass, thermodynamics, and so on—unless you create some sort of laboratory experiment or technology specifically created to defy them. On a compass, True North is the North Pole, the fixed point that travelers use to orient themselves on a planet that’s spinning at a thousand miles per hour as it hurtles through space. God’s undying love for you is True. No matter your religious background—or even whether you consider yourself religious at all—I believe that you were created in the spiritual image and likeness of the Almighty. So you are not an accident; you are not a mistake; you cannot lose God’s love for you no matter what you do.
Something that’s True endures over time. Consistent with this, so does telling the Truth. When we tell the Truth, the version or story we tell will last. A truthful character persists as well. That’s one reason a righteous guy can take pride in telling his Truth. Whether or not people like or agree with what he tells them isn’t the issue; the important thing is that he is honest. At times it may cost him some friends; it may cost some opportunities. But whether people like him or not, they respect a man who stands by his words and thinks enough of them not to deceive them. More importantly, he respects himself. Indeed, a righteous man tells his Truth regardless of the consequences he may face. He also needs at least one person in his life who is willing to tell their Truth to him.
In self-defense, we discuss tactics as being either “true” or “false.” In this context we don’t mean morally right or wrong, but physically and biomechanically proper or improper. When I use the term “biomechanical,” I’m referring to the mechanical laws that affect living beings. When you’re fighting, a True stance is a fighting stance balanced over your center of gravity. Your feet are slightly more than shoulder-width apart, your knees are bent, your weight is slightly forward on the balls of your feet, and your upper body is relaxed with your hands out in front of the chest. A fighter whose stance is True has found his center of gravity. He is at his most stable and it isn’t easy to throw him off balance. He can launch both attacks and defenses when he has centered his weight. Even if you’re not a martial arts fighter, you may already be familiar with this posture. In many sports this stance that we know is True is often called the “ready position.”
When a fighter’s stance and his footwork are True, he can hit harder by throwing his body weight while simultaneously maintaining his balance. The strength of the punch comes not from the arms, but from the stability of the man’s stance. When he launches a kick, what makes that kick a kick is how the fighter moves his feet and adjusts his hips. A stance that is too closed will make a man wobble. A stance that’s too wide will make him too slow. (We all know what happens to a man in the ring who moves a step too slow.) There’s a perfect stance that makes a fighter strong, agile, and stable. Any adjustments to that stance will impact his abilities. False footwork will cause a fighter to lose his balance, make it difficult to launch an attack, and make him struggle to defend himself. He may even fall.
Somewhat different from what I am calling True, things that are true with a lowercase “t” are subjective—they change depending upon the perspective from which they are viewed. As a result, they tend not to endure. The difference between things that are true and things that are True is the difference between things that are temporary and things that will last. A group of people can witness a car accident and tell entirely different stories about what happened. None of them intends to lie or deceive, yet their stories are different. Indeed, things that are true are not permanent, so they don’t endure the test of time. In the martial arts, footwork that is not True leaves the fighter a little bit off balance. This won’t necessarily make him a sorry fighter, but it will definitely make him less effective and leave him more vulnerable to getting hurt.
During his life, every man will have to fight, so it is essential to build a True foundation.
If a man’s foundational postures in life are True, he is far more likely to ride out the challenges and experience an amazing life. However, if a man’s foundational postures are off center or weak—for instance, if he doesn’t have sufficient support from his loved ones, his education has fallen short, or he is low on resources—he will struggle at least somewhat and may even stumble and fall. But no matter how much support or resources he has, he is even more likely to flounder if he builds his life upon lies, whether lies he tells to others or lies or half-truths he tells himself. When we performed our postmortem on our not-so-peak Chesapeake experience, we discovered that we’d told ourselves a number of half-truths. Though we’d believed at the time that we were following the North Star, we later found out that we weren’t. In one way or another, most of us had intentionally or unintentionally cut corners (making other assumptions, looking at other things on the horizon, and not being disciplined enough about what we knew to do). This turned out to be the equivalent of lying to ourselves, since it made us believe we were prepared when we were not. Our individual errors compounded themselves when we laid them on top of each other.
One area of life where I find men deceive themselves is in the area of their health. In the years before he got his wake-up call and started to take better care of himself, Jerome had been a yo-yo dieter who wasn’t yet serious about his well-being.
“On Monday I’d tell myself, ‘I’m gonna change and start this diet and I’m gonna really work out, I’m gonna do all this stuff.’ By Wednesday I’d say, ‘Oh, I worked out two times this week so I can celebrate by having a cheesesteak.’ I always went back and forth.”
At church, we had a very sobering experience of how men deceive themselves about their well-being. Leroy and I had been reading a national report about the disparities between the health of Black and White American men. For a whole host of reasons—from the unconscious racism that has been documented in medicine to the fact that we are more likely to live in communities with more pollution and less fresh foods—the health of African-American men is generally much worse than that of White men. This shows up in Black men’s higher rates of illness and shorter life spans. The report listed issues like not having a doctor, lacking insurance, probe-a-phobia, and fear of hearing bad news among those things that kept men from going to the doctor.
“We can overcome eighty percent of these barriers,” we thought. So we teamed our church up with a local hospital to organize a men’s health event. The idea was to create a man-cave experience, where guys would feel comfortable to hang out for three or four hours, get a haircut, watch the game, play cards, ask the docs questions, and take diagnostic tests: height, weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, HIV, and the PSA test with the digital rectal exam. (A lot of the guys had been avoiding that one.) Aside from medical staff, no women would be allowed. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner would be provided and any man who wanted to was welcome to come.
More than twelve hundred men of all races, religions, and backgrounds—members of our church and nonmembers, as well—came to what we called our “Know Your Numbers” event. We were surprised that a handful of guys’ test results were so abnormal that nurses walked them straight to an ambulance and sent them to the hospital. In fact, the docs didn’t know how some of them were still standing. We sent another three hundred guys to be triaged onsite because their numbers were so far out of balance. Many immediately scheduled a doctor’s appointment. We learned that a lot of guys had high blood pressure but hadn’t been taking their medication. They’d been deceiving themselves that their health wasn’t too bad—boy, that sounded awfully familiar to me. My father was known for adjusting his diabetes medication based on whether he was preaching that day. In hindsight, he was probably trying to control the medicine’s side effects. But when we don’t tell our healthcare providers what we’re doing, they can’t give us the appropriate advice or assistance.
Two weeks after Know Your Numbers, the endocrinologist shared the data from the entire event.
“Everybody’s a walking heart attack, stroke, pre-diabetic, or obese being,” he told us.
We weren’t exactly shocked. Every year one of our ministers preaches a funeral for some forty-seven-year-old Black man who’s had a heart attack.
“You gotta get them moving,” the doctor told us.
The issue became personal and part of our Purpose. Leroy and I had both lost brothers and fathers to health problems. We didn’t want to lose anyone else.
Many men lie to themselves about their health; however, lots of us also deceive people on purpose. Intentional lies fall in an entirely different category than self-deception, misread situations, and mistakes.
Many philosophies and religions have thoughts about the destructive nature of intentional lies. For instance, because we believe that Jesus was God in the flesh and that God and God’s word are the same, Christians believe that lying is the most anti-Christ thing that anyone can do. When we are being Christlike, we are in alignment with our words and our words are True. As a result, they endure and pave the path to greater freedom in everything we do. In order to access our very best life, it’s important to build upon a firm and True foundation. Indeed, Truth not only gives strength to our words but also to the quality of our life. What’s more, our ability to tell and deal with the Truth shows our true colors and reveals who we are.
Lies, on the other hand, are a destabilizing force. When we tell intentional lies, we should expect negative things to arise and knock us off course, both from the energy the fabrication sets in motion and because of how off-balance telling them makes us. Conversely, when your word is intentionally not True, that’s the most anti-Christ thing you can do. That’s why Christians call Satan “the father of lies.” Building your life upon falsehoods is the equivalent of a martial artist demonstrating poor foot posture. Rich’s youth provides a perfect example of this. By ignoring the sound moral instruction he had received from his parents and becoming involved in a life of crime, Rich started his life out on poor footing. It was merely a matter of time before he would fall.
One of the biggest challenges that every man faces is that he must figure out his own Truth—his personal True North, his North Star, his destiny—in a constantly changing world that’s trying to distract him onto society’s agenda. We live in a world where people—whether family members, bosses and coworkers, or friends—will attempt to pull us in different directions in order to get their needs met. This doesn’t mean they are necessarily evil or even bad; most often they’re just being human. It’s also important to understand that businesses can make a fortune off of you if they can make you believe that you need the things they sell, many of which tend just to be interesting or a distraction. So taking the time to discover your Truth will provide you with a way both to center and defend yourself in a constantly changing world where marketers always vie for your attention.
But just like any explorer does, you must embark upon a personal quest to discover your Truth. No one can do this work but you. I highly recommend that you do it. There is great beauty in the discovery process, and the rewards are many. Among them, you will find that organizing your life around Truth and telling the Truth will not only free you from many mundane human experiences but will also allow you to transcend them.
The second P of Personhood involves identifying and occupying your spiritual Place.
Every human being gains Power when life is breathed into him. He is also endowed with the innate ability to align himself with a unique spiritual position that no one else in the history of humankind has ever occupied or ever will. That position is his spiritual Place. Your Place is within God’s will for your life. God’s will for my life is as a pastor seeking to preach Christ and break down stereotypes and walls of partition that divide the human family. Just as four rivers flowed through the Garden of Eden, when a man aligns with this higher position, he won’t have to hustle and scrape; life will flow to him.
A man’s Place is not a static physical location. Though it may include a particular place, it moves forward across space and time as he embarks upon the journey toward his destiny. This is his spiritual journey or path. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this concept can be hard to grasp, particularly because, one, our traditional masculine manhood socialization devalues a man’s inner emotional and spiritual life; and two, we live in a physical world that overflows with interesting and distracting experiences and items. Depending upon who you are, you may have to work hard to find your Place. Then again, this may come easy to you.
So if a man’s Place is in the invisible world, how is a man supposed to know when he occupies it, or when he’s on his path and when he’s not? I’m so glad you asked. There are a number of telltale signs. For one, when you’re on the right track, you experience inner peace no matter what’s going on around you. Conversely, whenever you wander off your path, you tend to feel stressed out and frustrated. Indeed, when you’re totally lost and circling a dark island in the Chesapeake, you tend to lose your peace completely. Second, consider the extent to which life’s blessings are flowing to you. Things that could be more difficult tend to happen more easily than is logical. For example, as soon as I shifted into my spiritual Place by accepting my call to become a minister, I received the scholarship to seminary despite my poor grades. This inexplicable and illogical type of stuff tends to happen as life begins to flow toward you.
It’s also important to know that even when he’s in the flow, a man’s blessings don’t necessarily flow to him directly. They flow to the spiritual Place where he’s supposed to be. It’s a lot like when Tom Brady or Russell Wilson throws the perfect spiral pass. They don’t throw it to where the receiver is, they lob it to the location where the receiver is going to be. Whether the receiver catches the pass depends upon whether they are in that position. The same holds true for you. God throws the “pass” but you can only receive it if you’re in position. Since, unlike Wilson and Brady, God doesn’t throw a bad pass, the spiritual placement and timing are always accurate. It’s merely a matter of whether you’ll be there. So, learning how your spirit speaks to you becomes one of the most important activities along your spiritual journey.
To help you geolocate yourself within your spiritual Place, it’s important to set aside regular time to listen to yourself. Go to the park, sit in your car, or find a place in your home where you can be still and ask, “Am I on the path to my destiny?” Then be still and listen. If you’re like me and many other men, you will have to resist the urge to get up and go on about your day. Instead, pay attention to the still, small voice inside of you and the gentle nudges that come from your spirit. In the beginning, these may be hard to feel. What I’m asking you to do may seem stupid. You may wonder if you’re imagining things or even making them up. You may think you sense something or you may be unsure. Sometimes you may feel certain; other times unclear; still other times, you may be moving so fast that you don’t hear it at all. Get still and trust that God or something greater than yourself is real. I promise you that if you commit to having this conversation, you will begin to learn what your inner voice sounds like as it speaks to you. Sometimes I hear a voice speak to me clearly and loudly, as I experienced after my brother passed away. Other times, that voice is merely a whisper. I may just feel a sense of the most wonderful peace. Once you discover how your spirit speaks to you, you will begin to develop the confidence to move through your life based on that information, no matter what appears to be happening around you. When this occurs, you will sense that you are firmly in your Place.
Your Place is spiritual and therefore invisible, but it can also involve physical locations. For instance, during this season of my experience my spiritual Place not only involves being a preacher but also carrying out my call at the Enon Church in Philadelphia. It may be easiest to imagine me being in my spiritual Place at my church, preaching and otherwise serving my congregation, but my Place is not limited to my physical church. I was also occupying my Place at the Navy SEALs training, where we were the only Black participants and my peaceful presence challenged negative and limiting stereotypes about Black men who come from urban settings (as well as what ministers do and do not do), and as I ministered to and encouraged the White men who led and also attended the program as we trained and shared meals. I occupy my Place, as well, when I attend meetings in Philadelphia that require me to speak truth to power to our political, civic, and religious leaders. Recently, I’ve been learning that my Place even extends around the world as I’ve been called into leadership roles that challenge me to provide more imaginative solutions to human problems in other countries. That said, I don’t always get my Place right. Even though God has told me that I’m not supposed to be a professional musician, I am constantly trying to identify the line between expressing the gifts that God has given me and not allowing my ego to pull me out of my Place and into the music industry. As much as I love it, I am also clear that becoming a gospel recording artist is not part of my spiritual path.
Part of the Power of engaging in your spiritual journey and making sure you’re in the right Place is that it puts you along the path to your destiny. The path between where you find yourself in your life today and your destiny is rich with meaningful experiences, contexts in which you can grow, and engaging opportunities. You don’t have to get to the end of it today or be perfect at every step of the process; it’s a journey and you should enjoy it. While you are on your spiritual path, life will come to you, but when you drift off of that path, you are likely to find that the pickings will be slim. If the pickings are slim in your life right now, consider making some adjustments spiritually. If you stray outside your Place for a while, doing so will undermine your productivity and sense of purpose. Stay outside of God’s Place for too long and it will kill your spirit.
Once you’ve figured out your Place, it’s time to figure out your Purpose, the overarching and passionate pull that people experience that helps you understand both yourself as well as the meaning of life.
Every human being was placed on earth for a reason. The reason that you are alive is connected with the same reason that every other human being was born. This reason—this Purpose—that connects all of humanity is so great that human beings cannot comprehend it. Every human being has free will, or the freedom to choose to do whatever we want. We can be good and even exceptional people, we can commit grievous errors or do anything in between; the choice is ours. Though every human being will experience difficulty in life, when we strive to find our Place and our spiritual path as well as to be the best person we can be, we possess the Power to overcome our troubles, large and small, as well as the rewards that come with fulfilling our potential and destiny.
Human beings aren’t the only living things created with a Purpose. Everything in nature was created with a Purpose. In fact, if you want to understand better how God works, just spend some time outdoors and observe what’s going on in the natural world. In nature, not only is everything purposeful, it is also interconnected. Whether human beings or trees, everything natural fits into the larger ecosystem of life. For instance, consider this simple example: The rain waters the tree, the tree transforms carbon dioxide into oxygen, the oxygen supports human life, and so on and so on. A living thing’s Purpose can often be found in its fruit or its seed—whether the acorn that grows the mighty oak or the sperm that germinates humanity. So like the seed, which grows into the food or fruit that feeds insects, animals, and people, everything in the natural world exists for something greater than itself, and so do you.
Indeed, every human being is born with a spiritual Purpose. Every human being has been designed to bear fruit—and I’m not just talking about having children. Innate within every one of us is both the ability to make a difference in the world and the desire to do good. And because every human being is interconnected, in the invisible realm we are like puzzle pieces that fit into each other. One of the most important goals of life is to identify and develop the fruitful aspects of yourself to the greatest extent possible, so you can connect with others and share your seed in humanity’s fertile soil. Between now and the time you take your last breath, you want to complete the things you were put on earth to accomplish. When human beings line up with their Purpose, they experience an incredible sense of meaning, as well as peace and joy. When we fail to fulfill our Purpose, life can feel painful, meaningless, and irrelevant. As I speak with men these days, I am growing to understand that far too many people are feeling lost. I get it—there have been times when I’ve felt lost! But when you haven’t yet found your Purpose, life tends to frustrate you far more than it does when you’re living for something much greater than yourself. But even if you’re down right now, I really urge you not to give up. Because you haven’t really started living yet, you haven’t discovered the thing you were born to do.
Lots of guys have a sense of what their Purpose is even if they’re not pursuing it. Your Purpose may scare you, just as my Purpose scared (and still sometimes scares) me. You may not have all the answers. You may be afraid of making a mistake and making moves that cause other people to think you’re crazy. You may even need to remove mental blocks or develop yourself. But far more guys than you might expect have a sense of the direction in which they should be heading—whether or not they are making any moves or are fearful about pursuing it.
In the same way that Purpose plays out in nature, where among a tree’s many Purposes is to create oxygen for other living beings to breathe, your spiritual Purpose is not about you. There were things going on in your family, in your community, and in the world long before you got here. You are part of a much larger narrative. Your Purpose is connected to that. Your Purpose exists to support and even bless other people. So if it’s just about you and yours, your vision is too small and that’s not your Purpose. You will have to make sacrifices to accomplish it: time, money, relationships, and so on. But what you give up will be replaced by things that are even better.
In order to figure out what your Purpose is, I’d like to invite you to spend some time reflecting upon your gifts, your talents, the things that bother or even burden you in the world, and the areas of life where you’ve been disappointed, or hurt, or even traumatized, or otherwise “broken.” Make a list of these. I encourage you not to be ashamed, afraid, or worried about the things that are “wrong” with you. Indeed, every character in the Bible is imperfect. And the world is full of stories of folks who have done amazing things against all odds or with something wrong with them. From Barack Obama, who felt lost because he’d never known his father; to basketball player Kevin Love, who shared his mental health struggles; to actor James Earl Jones, who struggles to speak without stuttering, but can recite his lines from a script stutter free and selects parts that allow him to use his voice to fight for Black people’s rights.
One of the amazing things about exploring and following your Purpose is that you will address the thing that troubles you in the world at the same time you heal the thing that is hurt, scarred, broken, or “wrong” within you. Because when you hook up with your Purpose, you will find meaning and strength in the areas where you are broken. And I don’t mean in spite of your brokenness, I mean because of your brokenness. As you embrace your brokenness, it will give you power, as Leroy’s and my brokenness empowered us.
Also ask yourself questions like:
What do I do well?
What do people value in me?
What do I like to do?
Once you’ve examined all those areas, create a Venn diagram of overlapping circles that depict the places where what you do well, what other people value in you, and what you like to do come together. Your sweet spot is where they all intersect.
Leroy and I felt a sense of Purpose about the health of the men in our church community. We are leaders at our church. Between the two of us we have spiritual gifts around teaching, leading, and encouraging others. We felt burdened by the health of the men who attended Know Your Numbers and our hearts had been broken by the loss of our dads and brothers earlier in our lives. We are also good at sticking our necks out and taking the lead. Our church has grown immensely during my tenure. People tend to value my ability to break down the Bible and make it plain. They value Leroy’s compassion and concern for other people. He is a people person and will give you whatever he has to help you.
In fact, we both have a heart for other people. The situation was ripe for our leadership.
“Not on our watch,” we said to each other. “We’re not going out like that.”
We wanted to demonstrate leadership and to use our considerable platform to address this issue that was so much bigger than us. So with a doctor’s recommendation, we decided that we needed to create a boot camp. That’s where Leroy’s and my Purpose intersected with Vernell’s. I’d known Vernell because he’d been coming to Master Robinson’s martial arts training. One day, he also came to my rescue when I needed a haircut. Eventually he became my barber. And not only did I like Vernell, we are about the same height, unlike the other fellas, who are taller than me.
“I was a scrawny dude who got picked on when I was growing up,” Vernell recalls about his difficulties earlier in life. “I began boxing when I was thirteen and during my late teens started training so I could put a little weight on my frame and take better care of myself. Eventually, I got into personal training. At one gym, I got to train the clients and in exchange come to the gym for free.”
One day, I picked up the phone to call Vernell, but as I tried to dial, he was already on the line. Turns out he was calling me.
“I had a revelation—I want to run a boot camp at church,” he told me.
I kid you not; this is what he said to me.
“I don’t know what it’s gonna cost. I don’t know how it’s gonna play out. I’m just telling you I’ve got a very good idea,” he told me.
That’s the perfect example of the kind of thing that happens when you’re in your right Place and following your Purpose. I invited Vernell to put his plan on paper and submit it. When he turned his proposal in, he had already created workouts. But his workouts were not only for men; they were also for women, children, people who had never exercised before, people with back problems. In other words, he had already created exactly what we had been envisioning.
So beginning in 2011 and until this day, Vernell shows up every Saturday morning and leads the physical activity at our church. And as Vernell has stepped into his destiny by showing up week after week to train church members without fail, he has attracted like-minded people and developed deep relationships with other men, which has helped fill the hole he faced from losing his dad and being an only child. To take this even further, shortly thereafter Vernell’s Purpose overlapped with Jerry’s.
“I still wanted to stay fit because that’s what that lifestyle called for,” says Jerry, a thirty-three-year military veteran, of the time right after he retired and when he joined our church. He met Leroy and started coming to boot camp. “That led to ‘What else do you guys do?’ That’s when I found out about the Tough Mudders and other activities. That’s when I became part of the group. At first, we called ourselves the Philly Four: Alyn, Leroy, Vernell, and I, then the other guys joined in.”
In the event you haven’t already had the experience yet, at some point in your life, something will begin to pester you and the burden won’t go away. When I use the word “burden” in this context, I mean thematic burdens, or the issues in the world that trouble you. I’m talking about things that disturb you in a way they don’t seem to bother other people. Issues that lay heavy on your heart, problems in the world that attract your attention, worries that cause you distress and even haunt you. Maybe you see certain things, but other people can’t, don’t, or won’t. For instance, the level of disorganization and lack of leadership in your department may work your last nerve, or unfair systems that cause working people to lose their homes may infuriate you, or the corruption at the heart of the opioid epidemic may get under your skin.
The reason this jacked-up situation attracts your attention isn’t the only thing bothering you. A large part of why you’re attracted to the issue in the first place is because your gifts are absent from the situation and your spirit is disturbed by that reality. The reason that you have the burden is because you also have the gift. People who don’t have the gift don’t feel the burden. Applying your gift to the situation would improve it. This is related to your Purpose; follow it.
Even seeking your Purpose is part of your Purpose. So commit yourself to figuring it out. This is particularly important because, if you don’t know what your Purpose is, other people will try to tell you what it is. But the direction in which they will point you will serve their ends, not yours—and it definitely won’t lead to your destiny. Doing things that are in line with your Purpose, and doing them right and with excellence, opens the door to opportunity, even in circumstances where there appears to be none.
Another way to think about your Purpose is when your talents line up with your spiritual gifts in the Place where you’re supposed to be, doing the things you and only you were made to do. That said, it’s possible to have some things right and other things wrong. You can be in the right ZIP code but in the wrong neighborhood. In the right church, but the wrong ministry. The right organization, but the wrong city. The right city, but doing the wrong thing, et cetera. It’s not uncommon to have to make some adjustments across the course of your life.
One of the reasons a righteous man pays attention to his inner spiritual life is so he can learn to become sensitive to the gentle nudges from the spiritual realm. When you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, when you’re supposed to be doing it, in the Place you’re supposed to be doing it—you will have found the sweet spot of life. Part of how you locate it is by listening.
When I first accepted my call to ministry, the path seemed very daunting to me. If you can relate, don’t worry; that’s natural. Your Purpose will fall somewhere between your ability and your anxiety. To fulfill it, you have to work hard and stretch out of your comfort zone. As a matter of fact, one way to know whether you’re on track is by whether it both calls you and scares you. If you’re on the right track, looking further down the path is going to scare you because what you are supposed to do is so much bigger than who you are today. If you don’t feel scared about the thing, it’s probably not your destiny. Life will help you grow so you can get there.
When I was a young preacher, I asked my father about a problem that I continue to have: being very nervous every single time I preach. “When the nerves stop, you stop,” my father told me. He said I should always feel like my calling is daunting. Similarly, in the beginning, preparing for and leading the boot camps was a big stretch for Vernell. Over time, however, he grew into the role and his leadership came naturally.
The fact of the matter is the journey to your destiny requires you to be spiritually, mentally, and emotionally strong. You have to be willing “to boldly go where no man has gone before,” as William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek, would say. You’ll need to overcome your fear and work hard to do your part. This includes doing things like sharing your gifts. So don’t wait until you are in high places before you practice using them. I strongly suggest that you develop your gifts one step at a time as you go. By the time you hit the big stage—whatever the big stage is for you—you will be strong enough to stand up to the pressure. In fact, if you want to be ready on game day, practice using your gifts when you’re in the basement of your life. Trust that life will take care of everything else. If you are along the path to your destiny, the world can’t stop your destiny from unfolding, but if you’re living outside your spiritual Truth, whatever you’re doing will stop itself.
Another way to get a feel for your Purpose is that it gives you joy and a consistent sense of meaning and fulfillment. It feels very oppressive to live outside of your Purpose. In fact, it feels a lot less like fun and a lot more like work. You are also at your most attractive when you’re following your Purpose. Not only do you attract every resource you need—in part because you have found your right spiritual Place—but you look your best, you sound your best, and you have a smile on your face. Living in a capitalist system, we’re told that marketing is essential; however, a person pursuing their Purpose doesn’t have to promote himself. In fact, if you do have to promote yourself to make it work, there’s a good chance that what you’re doing isn’t “it.” It may be true, but it’s probably not True. Similarly, if you have to tell someone who you are, you probably aren’t. I watch too many people chase after things they see other people do, or follow in other people’s footsteps instead of hooking up with their unique Purpose.
When you’re expressing your gifts, pursuing your calling, and being “it”—the person God called you to be—people will naturally be drawn to you. In fact, you won’t even need to tell other people who you are; people will start telling you. Mark my words: You will attract partners of all kinds—from business to romantic—because people will be able to see who you really are and what you have to offer. I was attracted to Vernell’s work ethic, hustling and running from job to job. I saw how committed and disciplined he was. I had no doubt he could run our boot camp.
Now, while prospective romantic partners will be attracted to you, just know you’re not ready yet to find your ideal Partner, because you haven’t figured out your Parameters yet. However, you’re getting close. Because once you figure out your Purpose, you know where you fit in the world. Your Purpose gives you Power, peace, and attracts the right people into your life. How significant you become in your life depends upon your ability to hook up with your Purpose.
That being said, following your Purpose is going to cost you something. Just as Jesus gave up his life on the cross, you will have to sacrifice yourself to achieve it. Your hands will get dirty along the way and you will have to learn to live in the dissonance of life.
Now, even though I live in Philadelphia, I’m originally from Cleveland, Ohio. Yes, the 216, the CLE, the North Coast, Believeland, the Rock and Roll Capital of the World. That’s us! And as a native of Cleveland, I’m a Cavaliers fan. Unbeknownst to him, LeBron and I had a tough moment when he took his talents to Miami. But once he came back home, we were good again. I’m fine with him heading to Los Angeles.
When people think about guys who have found their Purpose, they often think about great men like Martin Luther King Jr. But you can see a great example of a modern-day man who’s living his Purpose in LeBron. No, I don’t mean because he’s a basketball legend, though he’s clearly that. I’m talking about how he’s living his life.
Since I grew up in Cleveland, I watched a young LeBron grow up playing basketball in his hometown of Akron, located about forty miles south of Cleveland. Even back then, people knew that LeBron would be great. The residents of Northeast Ohio hoped the Cavs would draft him after he graduated and that he’d turn the team’s longtime losing fortunes around, bringing the city of Cleveland the sports championship that had eluded its fans for decades. Our hopes rose when he first came to the Cavs; however, he didn’t have the right players—and some would say the management—around him that he needed to lead the team to the championships.
When he took his talents to Miami, he followed his dream because, like any professional ballplayer, he reached a point where he wanted to win. But he never lost sight of Cleveland and Akron. In 2014, when LeBron wrote his Sports Illustrated letter stating he’d be returning home in hopes of helping to bring Cleveland a championship, he knew that he would be the team’s “old head” and mentor, responsible for helping to cultivate younger players. He also knew he’d be collaborating with Tyronn Lue, who back then was the new head coach.
I cannot tell you how greatly I admire that righteous decision. But LeBron had been leveraging basketball and his celebrity to change the economic tides for the residents and the city of Akron long before he returned home: from building his house in Akron, to renovating the Boys & Girls Club there (and nationwide), to starting schools, to helping to educate and then hire the friends he grew up with—guys who have become major forces in their own right rather than the usual hangers-on—to starting a foundation that emphasizes education, physical fitness, and a healthy lifestyle. Even while he was playing in Miami, LeBron still did for his hometown.
Many guys like to argue about whether LeBron is the greatest basketball player of all time. See him as a basketball star if you will. I see a man who has found his Purpose—a humanitarian who is using his celebrity and basketball to save lives in the community he comes from. He’s used his ability to play basketball to be a blessing.
Yes, when people think about guys who have found their Purpose, they often think about great men of the past like Martin Luther King Jr. and not of contemporary men or even themselves. But I wonder if King knew who and what he would become. Dr. Lawrence Carter, professor of religion at Morehouse College in Atlanta, and the first dean of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel there, says that in reality Martin Luther King was a very normal and ordinary guy. He didn’t get great grades when he attended Morehouse, but he always had a great passion for what was right and equality.
Ordinary guys can become heroic men when they follow God’s guidance and seek their Purpose. Don’t ever underestimate yourself. Your greatness, too, is just waiting for you.
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” In other words, a man who is clear about and committed to what he’s been put here to do can deal with most anything that happens as he gets the job done.
Consistent with this, the second question in Peter Schreck’s rubric asks “Why am I here?” The question covers similar ground as the 5Ps question about Purpose; however, Schreck’s “Why” question deals with a man’s productivity and industriousness, or what he calls Industry.
In order to live the life you deserve, you need a cause that you feel excited about. Indeed, every man needs to feel that he is wanted and needed. He also needs to feel that he is effective at whatever he does. Because a man’s existence is not about what station in life he occupies now. It’s about whether he has a dream that causes him to jump out of bed in the morning so he can reach toward the vision in his mind’s eye—or whether, on the other hand, he allows himself to become what my grandmother used to call “breath in britches”—lacking meaning so not contributing.
Every man needs to have a why and every man needs a dream. Now, I’m not talking about dreams (plural) that run you ragged and stretch you thin, I’m talking about a single vision that you can focus upon for the duration of your life. I believe that every man needs to connect with a cause that he can fight for and is perhaps even ready to die for. And when I say “die” I don’t mean physical violence—unless you are in the military, law enforcement, or some other frontline protector experience or are protecting your loved ones, children, or other innocent people. When I say “die,” I mean that you’re willing to give life everything you’ve got. You are willing to lay everything on the line and leave it on the field or on the floor. You are all in and willing to sacrifice everything you’ve got. In fact, I find that a man isn’t really living until he finds something he is willing to give his all for. When he was in the military, Jerry gave his all, as he supported men on the battlefield.
Now how do you figure out your why? All human beings have a vision within themselves—and this vision comes with a plan. But unlike the toys you assemble at home, this plan requires you to read and follow the instructions. All too often a man looks for a woman to give his life meaning, but Eve cannot give a man either a dream or his sense of purpose. Adam needs a dream first, and then Eve can encourage him as he goes after it. But let’s put a pin in this topic for now. We’ll dial back to Eve’s role later. Achieving your destiny becomes your mission, if you choose to accept it. Achieving that vision will become your why. Your why will wake you in the morning and make you get up instead of hitting the snooze button. It will motivate you to do what you have to do and compel you to continue when the going gets tough and the tough part of you has to develop or get going.
Each man’s vision appears first within his mind’s eye, but as he embarks along his spiritual journey and his life unfolds, that vision will slowly begin to play out in his world.
Every righteous warrior will face challenges related to his vision.
First, there will be times when your next steps may not be clear. You may experience weeks, months, or years when you grapple with the meaning of life and perhaps even the existence of God. You may also wrestle with your vision. When this happens (and it’s likely to happen) continue to stay engaged; this is part of your spiritual growth process. Don’t be surprised if you experience fear or other emotions about your vision. Many guys feel intimidated by how enormous it is. Because it can seem so daunting, a lot of dudes choose not to do it. In fact, many men feel the pull or spiritual call to follow this path, but relatively few will answer it. Even among guys who do respond, many pursue part but not all of their destiny. As someone who has run from his calling at various points in my life, I include myself on this list. Most guys neither start it nor finish it.
Once you start to get clear about your vision, don’t be surprised if it takes years, decades, or maybe even your entire life for it to come all the way to fruition. You may even experience a gap in time between the moment you begin to envision it and when it begins to manifest. Expect to experience an interval—maybe even a long stretch—where what you imagine does not match your external reality. During this time, you will be the only person who is able to see your dream. Because it is part of your spiritual journey, no one but you will ever be able to see all of it. In fact, the people you share your dream with—even, and sometimes especially, the people who know you and love you the most—may express doubt, uncertainty, questioning, skepticism, negativity, and/or even downright “hateration.” I’m sad to say it, but don’t be surprised when that happens.
It’s important to learn to have faith in your spiritual path. Or as the motto of the Philadelphia 76ers once stated: “Trust the process.” Remember, the vision and the ability to achieve it were given to you, not others. Spiritually, when you are given a vision, the provisions—the resources you need in order to get it done—will arrive along with it. Other people have their own vision (though they may not be aware of it or are pursuing it). They can’t see your vision and you can’t see theirs. So just stick to your own and pursue it.
As you wait for the ultimate vision to unfold, keep taking steps in that direction. Just imagine that you are the wide receiver heading downfield to make the game-winning catch. Keep moving forward toward your dream, and over time it will land in your outstretched hands. Though he couldn’t always see where it was heading, Vernell continued to train one-on-one with Master Robinson even as he juggled all his jobs. He also learned more about the security field. Over time, he began to feel called to safeguard others. Today, he provides protection to some of our city’s leaders.
Life is calling you to your next level, but you have to do your part to get there. By that I mean don’t just say your goal is to graduate from high school, demonstrate your faith and make plans to enroll in college. Don’t just say you’re going to have a business one day, have faith and take steps to start it. So even though all the pieces may not be in position, I encourage you to pursue the degree you need to do the work; obtain the professional certification; apply for that job that will teach you the skills; start stacking your loot; place your down payment on the equipment you’ll need; build relationships with people who can help you. These are the steps that men who are serious about their dreams take in order to slowly move themselves into Place. I meet a lot of men who talk about what they’re going to do, but never get started. If you dream of being an entrepreneur, stretch yourself and take steps toward starting your own business. Don’t just talk about it, be about it.
But even when I ask men about the steps they’re taking to follow their dream, all too often I hear “I’m waiting on God” or “I’m waiting until the time is right.” Usually this means that they’re waiting for the perfect conditions or for their dream to just land in their lap. In other words, they’re being passive and aren’t really doing their part. You must go out to get your dream; Santa isn’t going to leave it under the Christmas tree. As long as you are on your spiritual path, life will give you everything you need, but you have to get there yourself. You have to trust the process. In the meantime, during the period after you step into your vision and before you begin to see it unfold, I strongly encourage you to pray. Ask questions like: Is this really what I’m supposed to be doing? How can I encourage myself? How can I use my own resources to make the vision manifest? What resources are already available to me that I haven’t used or seen?
I will never forget back when I was ten years old and I overheard my father say, “A real man always sweats when he works.” Of course, I wanted to be a real man, so the next morning, I put on my little white sleeveless undershirt and went outside and pushed the manual lawn mower until I perspired. I didn’t mow the lawn to help my father; I mowed the lawn so he could see me sweat. Working hard was a rite of passage I believed would transform me overnight into a man.
You may not wear an undershirt to work, but to carry out your Purpose you are going to have to work hard. Because no matter how much you may want to win the lottery, most of us have to earn our keep. But for some reason I don’t understand, the idea of hard work today turns some people off. (Sadly, some folks seem to be turned off by the thought of working at all.) But you are a part of the fabric of humanity, so it’s essential that you contribute your gifts and talents to society. The good news is that work is an inherently humanizing experience. It feels good to contribute to something bigger than yourself and participate in the greater good. There is something intrinsic to a man’s makeup that helps him be at his best when he’s being responsible, taking care of something or someone, and knows that others respect him. And most guys feel satisfied by and enjoy the fruits of their own labor. So whether you have a full-time job, a part-time job, or you do volunteer work, it’s important to have someplace to go and something meaningful to do.
Doing something productive just feels good, whether that involves laying cable, hitting your sales plan, changing the oil in your car, coaching the local soccer team, mowing your elderly neighbor’s lawn, volunteering at the area Boys’ Club, or helping out at a store in the neighborhood while you look for a job that pays. Even—and perhaps especially—if you’re unemployed, it’s essential to get up and out of bed and out of the house every day so you can contribute to the world. Life is not easy and it’s not always fun. Nobody wants to sit on the bench. Even if you’ve lost your job, have been out on disability, or have been unable to find a job for a long time, try to figure out a way to turn your unemployment into an opportunity to learn, grow, and develop in some way. For example, consider helping the little old lady down the street get to the doctor, or go get her groceries, clean out her basement, or weed her garden when she’s not home. Volunteer at your local house of worship, sports organization, or a business or nonprofit in your community. Take another young man under your wing; teach him how to read, or tie a tie, or fix a flat; talk to the young boys hanging out on the corner. Because the truth of the matter is, at some point over the course of their life most guys will experience some economic uncertainty and a good number will lose a job for some amount of time. For this reason, if for no other, it’s important not to center your self-worth in your job title or even the type of work you do.
But not only does working make men feel industrious and give us a sense of meaning, it’s important to take pride in your work, whether it’s digging a ditch, building a house on a construction site, or bolstering a young man so he can rise up and become a leader. Do your job well because you respect yourself and are proud of who you are.
After seeing him bagging groceries at Trader Joe’s, a woman job-shamed Geoffrey Owens, formerly an actor on The Cosby Show. After experiencing the initial devastation of being humiliated for making the honorable choice to both provide for himself and his family and remain committed to his calling as an actor, Owens told People.com that he hopes the conversation sparked by his experience will reshape “what it means to work, the honor of the working person, [and] the dignity of work.”
“There is no job that’s better than another job,” he said. “It might pay better, it might have better benefits, it might look better on a résumé and on paper. But actually, it’s not better. Every job is worthwhile and valuable.”
Take pride no matter what type of work you do, how big your paycheck is, or what anyone else thinks of you. I want you to feel good about yourself even if, for you, going to work means volunteering or doing pickup work that doesn’t pay. There is dignity in that fight. Unfortunately, some people think of work as just a necessary evil or believe that life should come easy and you just reach out and grab its riches. But if you want to experience life’s riches, you have to put in the time.
One way you can learn more about work is to spend some time enjoying and studying nature. Everything in nature that is healthy is fruitful. Every healthy tree will produce fruit in its season. So set your sights on figuring out how you can be fruitful with the gifts you have to offer in the spiritual Place where God wants to plant you. If you don’t have the type of job you want yet, wherever you can find work, it’s important to show up. Every job teaches some type of skill—whether high-level technical skills or the discipline of showing up and giving your best effort when things are unenjoyable. Building those muscles will pay off when you need them in other aspects of life. Unfortunately, the work ethic is diminishing in American culture. Too many men no longer take pride in their work. Other guys think certain jobs are beneath them. Don’t think any job is beneath you. There are times when you may have to live beneath your pay grade; that’s okay. But no matter what kind of job you have, be the best you can be and give it your all. Don’t work hard because somebody’s watching you; work hard because you respect yourself. Even if you do not like your job, the discipline and suffering that you are engaged in can be a proving ground to grow and develop the skills that will help you reach the next level.
This brings us to the subject of success. In our capitalist system, the mainstream definition of success revolves around possessing material things. Titles and wealth may make you a success in society, but wealth isn’t the same as significance. He who dies with the most money still dies; even if you have the most toys at the end, it’s still game over for you. A man can be wealthy yet insignificant; he can also be poor yet significant. No matter how much material wealth he has, a righteous warrior strives to be significant.
Significance is not about what you have, it’s about what you do for someone else. You become significant when the part of the world you touch is better because you’re there. A man can be significant while having little or modest financial means. People like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, both of whom are dead, are far more significant than many living people who are very rich and have lots of social media followers. Though they are no longer with us, their names are regularly upon our lips. As they and many other memorable men did, a righteous guy dies having made a positive impact upon humanity.
No matter how spiritual you are, for at least part of your life you’re likely to have a job that is not your actual Purpose. Some people’s work is actually their Purpose or calling; other people’s work funds their Purpose or calling. Leroy was an insurance broker before he became a minister. As he began to change his career, the income he earned from his insurance business paid for him to return to college to prepare for the ministry. Everyone’s work provides an environment where they can grow and develop, in the process preparing them for their next season of life.
So even if the job that’s available to you is lower than your pay grade, just get in where you fit in, do the best that you can. As Vernell’s story of struggling and taking odd jobs for years demonstrates, if you work with the right spirit, over time things will work themselves out. When we are faithful in how we handle things that are small or even seem to be beneath us, we build the skills and prepare ourselves to assume responsibility for bigger things.
That said, I believe our society has a moral obligation to provide opportunities for people to be employed. In our capitalistic democracy, our political and business leaders are responsible for creating an Eden where everyone can work. If it’s a moral responsibility for everyone to work, it’s also a moral responsibility for our leaders to create a context in which work can take place. For far too long and for far too many people, that contract has been broken. Stepping into your Purpose to help fix this breach would be a powerful way to demonstrate significance.
Economic prosperity is one of the signs of good political leadership. A sign of righteousness among business leaders, middle and upper managers, politicians, government officials, and other leaders in our communities and society is the understanding that they have a moral obligation to create jobs, not just profits. Such a mind-set runs counter to our current business and political culture, so it will likely take you outside your comfort zone. Indeed, the idea of standing up for what’s righteous may both appeal to you and scare you. But wherever you lead, you can find great meaning if you make it part of your Purpose to help create just outcomes. In turn, the members of our society have a moral obligation to pressure leaders to provide jobs that pay adults a living wage, not force them to do work originally intended for kids, and employ people at home, not just overseas—and to support those leaders who do. Indeed, jobs can’t leave our nation unless business titans and political leaders allow that, and jobs will come back here if leaders commit themselves to bringing them home.
Righteous leaders take responsibility for the long-term well-being of the human beings they shepherd, rather than merely their own short-term success or profits. Yes, there are times when being righteous will cost you, but great Purpose can be found in the fight. And your choices will not only serve and sustain humanity, they will withstand the test of time and the critique of later generations who will look back and ask what you did with your power and resources.