Finding Authentic Purpose
Jeff Lovell | Jeff Lovell Coaching | Founder of The Great Life Project
Jeff Lovell is an expert guide and coach for authentic living. He created The Great Life Project to help successful creative founders and executives who are great at work be great at life. Together they create new ways to stop playing it safe and wondering what if, and instead start living a life you love, with people you love, while accomplishing your most important work.
https://jefflovell.coach
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-lovell-coach/
www.marlanasemenza.com
Audio : Ariza Music Productions
Transcription : Vision In Word
Marlana
Jeff Lovell is an expert guide and coach for authentic living. He created the great life project to help successful creative founders and executives who are great at work be great at life. Welcome, Jeff.
Jeff
Thanks for having me. It's great to be with you.
Marlana
So, we're gonna have a conversation today about authentic purpose. So first, let me start by asking you, because the word authentic is thrown around by a lot of people. What does it mean to you?
Jeff
That's a great question. I appreciate you clarifying that. I think something that's authentic is true all the way through, like, I have an authentic looking desk, that's not made of real wood. So there, it lacks the integrity all the way through, you peel under a layer, and you pretty quickly find out it's not the real thing. And so authentic purpose is it comes from the core of who you are. And it's born out of your identity, and a deeper sense of who you are and what your life is about, rather than just some of these more surface level things.
Marlana
So then how do we find ours?
Jeff
That is the question, isn't it? And I think people often wish there were a quick answer to that question. I think part of my work is helping people slow down and find a better answer to that question. And one of the places I often start with people is rather than just diving into, well, tell me what is my authentic purpose? Let's slow down and talk about all the kinds of inauthentic purpose that oftentimes is a part of our life.
For a number of people, like for me, part of that journey was a coach that I was working with, at that point in time asking me this question, what if the thing you're searching for that next mountain you need to climb isn't out there somewhere, but what if it's actually in here, what if the best work you need to do is something that's happening inside of you. So, that kind of set me on this journey of unpacking these inauthentic versions of life and purpose and meaning that I think most of us encounter them from time to time.
It's not that we're doing something bad when we, we experienced them, it's just that we shouldn't settle for them. I think of things like, you know, there's all these other me's that are out there, there's the me that I wish I was. I wish I was taller and better, or basketball, or at least middle school just wished I was taller and better at basketball, you know, or there's the me that I think other people want me to be, whether that's my boss, or my family, or friends, or even just kind of that society or this. Depending on your career of choice, there's kind of versions of you that you think you're supposed to be to succeed. I don't know, there's all kinds of those.
I think one of the big ones that people tend to fall for is that there's the me that people will pay me to be right, or the me that has succeeded. And so sometimes those things, send us down these other roads that we keep going down, and because they keep paying us and it feels successful. But I don't know if you've ever had this experience. I've woke up one day in my 30s and said, Oh, I'm successful, but I don't want to do this.
Marlana
How many of us do you think, seek that purpose and that validation outwardly, as opposed to looking inwardly for it?
Jeff
I think that is the most common starting place, as we say, when we're searching for purpose, a lot of people are searching for purpose. And that isn't always the words we put on it. Sometimes it's just that laying awake at 2am, saying, There's got to be more to life than this, or what am I doing with my life, or it just feels like something's missing. But I would kind of put the word searching for purpose on that. And I think a lot of people are searching for it. We search for it and all these outward places, it's from our culture, from our community, from our family. Sometimes our success tells us what feels like purpose. Sometimes our failures tell us something and we kind of live our life chasing after these things. I think some of the most important work we can do.
To answer your question more specifically, I want to help people make a mindset shift from being a searcher of purpose into being a bringer of purpose. Like we don't just experience purpose from our work, we actually bring purpose to our work. We don't just get purpose from our family, in our relationships, we can bring purpose to it. I think that is a key mindset that unlocks a lot of things for people.
Marlana
So, how do we get to that point?
Jeff
The slower it's a courageous journey. At least for me, I would say it took courage it took slowing down. It takes willingness to say maybe what I have right now isn't the version I want it to be, which is scary. And I think it's okay to do the scary thing. And sometimes that's why we need coaches. That's why we need a good friend or others to come alongside us to not have to go on those journeys alone. I think named having the courage to name the other ways that I've sought that purpose. Again, people really want to quickly jump to how do I find it where it's the thing.
There's an unlearning process before you can learn. So, let's unlearn what you've been taught about purpose, about meaning. A lot of my clients work in branding, design, marketing and advertising, which is about winning the awards. It's about climbing the ladder, and it's about getting your name in the articles and all that, that's great. There's nothing wrong with those things. But subliminally a lot of us, it's pretty common, that starts to feel really good. Except for that it's kind of the shiny candy shell.
It's the thing that's pretty on the outside, and everybody looks at it, and it's glossy and happy. But it's kind of a melting mess in the middle. So, I think a lot of people find that they get down this road and start to ask themselves, well, is that really my purpose? Is it just to keep climbing the ladder? Or is there something else that I'm missing?
Marlana
So, are there questions that we should be asking ourselves along the way to see whether we're on the right path or not?
Jeff
Of course! I don't know that there's a one size fits all. One of the true things is that there's some good been great, some great research in the last 20 years, brawny where wrote about it, Daniel Pink is writing a lot about regrets. These days, there was a big Harvard grant study where people are talking about regrets. And one of the number one regret that comes up over and over again for people is that when they get to the end of their life, they wish they had had the courage to live a life that was true to themselves. So, I think there's a lot of kinds of questions that can emerge out of that.
If you play the movie of your life forward, kind of fast forward, what track you're on, like, a great question is, where does that story end, what's the next chapter of that story? And is that this chapter, you want to be living? I think a lot of people right now are scratching their heads about the next chapter.
We've kind of come out of the season in this crazy couple of years, where people have done a lot of thinking about what life wants, what, what matters most to them in life, and what they want their next season to be life. So, I think the first question is, is this story going the direction I want it to be? Am I proud of living this story? Is this the story I want to look back on until?
Marlana
Interesting! So, let's say we decide that this isn't the story that I want to tell, and we want to shift gears. How do we start to do that?
Jeff
That’s great! So, where does authentic purpose actually come from? After we've unlearned some of those things, I'm going to name that. Maybe I've been a success at work but I'm not so much a success at home, or I'm great in the community around me but the people that know me best don't get the best version of me. So, that’s where we start. Is the question they want to ask, because again, what's the quickest way? What's the road, it's gonna get me there the fastest. And so, if I change my job, if I make the move, if I changed the relationship, if I only got married, or if I only ended the marriage, or, if I got another course, took another degree, all these activities that are these external things.
I think people think those are going to open the doors that they're looking for. And so, a lot of a common mistake, I think that people make in trying to force their way into purpose is to start changing activities. And the problem with changing activities is those are all asking the wrong question. They're answering the question what do I do? And I think a better approach to actually unlocking real authentic purpose because, again, those just cover the surface. That's the fake desk, the laminate desk, but a better approach is rather than changing activity, is to clarify identity. That's where we slow down and say, okay, you know, tell me about your story. Let's unpack those chapters, because most of my clients are people in their late 30s or early 50s, where they've got some life experience now, and usually that life experiences include some things that they're not quick to talk about. There's some pain. There's some lessons learned the hard way. There are some were probably regrets and we kind of want to gloss over those, but I think that that's where it's really incred More powerful things come from where purpose emerges because your pain can be redeemed. Oftentimes, the things that have been most painful to us are places where we can make the biggest difference in the world.
I have a friend who his house burned down when he was nine years old. And it sent them through some painful things and some really difficult things. But he ended up in a career that is a disaster relief. I mean, there's this deeply embedded thing in him out of that painful moment, but he found there were people that were really helpful to him and his family and that moment, and it just kind of shaped who he's always been. I think that's true for most of us, is that even those painful hard parts of our story are if we are willing to dig into them and unpack them, and I'm not a therapist. And it's not therapy work. But I think that there's something true about our pain and the hardships that we've been through that are an ingredient in our purpose.
Marlana
Do you think we do ourselves a disservice by glossing over those moments in our lives?
Jeff
I'm sure the simple answer is yeah. And I think those moments are too important and too formative two, that gloss over. And I know they're not the things that make it to our Instagram reels or LinkedIn profiles, except for on Mental Health Awareness Week when everybody's got those two. I don't mean this, say that in a cliche kind of way. I just think, when we lead with everybody's experienced pain, and so when we lead with that, when we put that out there, I think it makes us more human.
I think purpose, if it's authentic, is actually attached to our most human parts, that's the deeper inside. I mean, it's one thing to talk about purpose, I'm going to change the world and help feed all the hungry people and find world peace and all, that's amazing. But that's also a kind of a glossy version of it, versus those painful things that happened to me or sending me on a journey. And so, our purpose emerges from our story, not just our pain, I think also emerges from our superpowers and our genius. And you have this unique thing about you, all of us do that, only you can do. And so, helping people own that and not, again, I work with a lot of branding and design people. So, there's kind of this sense of what it takes to be brilliant in that world. But the best, the people who are the most brilliant aren't doing it like everybody else. So that's the part two is like, unlocking your sense of passion and your unique genius and the things that only you can do like for Marlana, but there's a version of Marlana from middle school that was doing what you're doing now. Like, it's always been you. And there's that version of us, that's always been us. And that's what I want to help people uncover, unpack and kind of set free.
Marlana
Do you think that if we look back on the story of our life, we will see what the common threads are?
Jeff
I hope so. And I think that that's some of the most important work we can do. And part of the great life project, kind of a chapter in the great life project is unpacking your story and looking for those threads and the high points, the low points. But I think some of that, it's one thing to kind of catalog the events. But it's another thing to start to give them meaning. So, we begin to say, Okay, let's just, for example, take the first decade of your life, and let's put a chapter title on that. And then the second decade, what's the Chapter Therefore, for example, one of my friends, or one of my clients, who became a friend, I love it when clients become friends. It's another thing when friends become clients, but it's better when clients become friends.
She had a really difficult childhood. And so, she named the first chapter of her story broken. But then she named the second chapter of her life brave. And then the third chapter is becoming, and this fourth chapter is beauty and for her, what that means is that when we see where those first few chapters have brought us, we get to name the next chapter. And I think that's the really powerful thing in our story, is that there's the events, sure. And then we give them meaning, and then we get any good story, we can start to see where it's going like that make your life a predictable movie.
It's also not just something that's happening to you, you get to help create it. So that next chapter of your story that's going to emerge out of these other ones, I think is the powerful thing is it's not you're not a victim of your story. You're not just something that's about to happen to you. You get to help write what happens next.
Marlana
Right! And so, as we're going through and we're looking at our life story, are we looking at our reactions to the events and the way they make us feel? How are we going about that?
Jeff
A common approach is to, I think the word people can most easily enter into the process anyway, is we start with the events, there's the obvious ones. We moved when I was in third grade, or all the things and that's fine. Fill a page with the ones that matter, and then then start circling the wagons and then put some names, who are the key players in the story. And a lot of times, it's a surprising thing, it's surprising to the people doing it, it's not surprising to me anymore, because I've seen it happen enough times.
You start to put some names down, who were the key players. And usually that starts with some heroes. But if we push a little further, were like, oh, there's some villains in this story, too. And there are some turning points. So, whether it's a 55-year-old man, or a 25-year-old woman, or anything in between, it's not uncommon for some tears to show up as we unpack our story. I think the emotion matters, the emotion is where we get authentic again. It's one thing to share the facts of the story. It's another thing to share an opinion of the story. And it's a deeper things still to feel the feelings of the story. And I think, understanding what is it about those feelings? Why is that significant? There's a part of my story where it's incredibly joyful, happy, and celebratory. That's okay. What was it about that, that made it so significant?
There's a part of my story that at the most honest level, probably still makes me mad. . And so, what is it about. When people start to understand the feelings behind it. Again, you can't use it get there without naming the events and cataloging the people and but then, that's when I think the real beautiful work begins? And again, I think that's where I say it takes courage to do this journey. But man, it's costly not to do it. The cost of not doing it is I never live a life true to me. Never redeem the story.
Marlana
Let's go back to your client because you had mentioned her different chapters. If you can share, how did she use that to find her authentic purpose?
Jeff
I think for her, a lot of folks in that 40, 30, late 30s, early 50s range. And I think even now, in the world situation, like we're asking that, what's next question, what do I want to do next? That often is an undercover purpose question. In my life, people don't usually come to me saying, hey, what's my purpose? They usually say, what's next? Or should I change my job. And again, that's change, I want to change the activity, hoping that's going to unlock purpose.
So, we slow down, and we get help them take the courageous journey. Again, for her to help people define the next chapter, to say, well, let's, you got to slow down, we can just talk about the next chapter, we have to see where the stories come from. And so, for her, like she had reached that point of broken, brave rebuilding, I think she wanted to become a whole version. But for her the next question was, what is that next chapter going to be like? Who do I want? What purpose do I want to bring to my story that gives purpose again?
We become a bringer of purpose to our story. Our story isn't just all that junk that happened to me are all the good stuff that happened to me, but also, I'm now reinfusing it with purpose, because it set me up for her to be a creator of beauty. And for her that meant, like, literally, in her works as a creative. But she also used it to build this mentoring program for young women in her industry, and she wanted to help them not experience some of the crap she had been through. Right, and so, I think that's how our story infuses purpose for what's next, but I think the beautiful thing too, is that it reinforces the story of the past and brings new members back into it.
Marlana
So, what I'm hearing is that people use this process, when they don't know what's next or where they feel. What if they do have an idea of what's next? Do you then reverse engineer it and start with Okay, well, this is where I want to go? So how does the story then play into that? Or is it still the same process?
Jeff
The pathway of the great life project includes a number of different pieces. Authentic purpose is a big one that people feel or they ask a lot of questions around it. So, what's next is a big one for a lot of people, one of the last pieces is actually lasting contribution for life to be great. It has to live beyond itself, . And so, for people who feel like okay, I know what I'm doing and all my life is about, but I don't have a plan necessarily for how to make this lasting contribution, or I don't know who to pass it off to, I don't know how to take the superpowers or this company that I've designed, are founded and built, I don't know how to hand that off to the next people.
So, that lasting contribution piece is another key component of great life. And then a third piece of it is, is actually what I call life giving practices and helping people master. Okay, you know, what you want your life to be about So let's design your life to make it about that like so that your life is built around these things in an intentional day to day basis, so that the rhythms, the practices are all in place, and so that it's kind of feeding it and you're living from this place of overflow, not just oh, I hope I have enough energy today to do the things that I think I care about.
Marlana
Who is usually a good candidate for your project?
Jeff
People come to me from two places. One is a place of pain, and one is a place of desire, . The pain is. I'm awake at 2am Wondering what's next in my life? What's missing? I'm really good at work? And I'm not so great at home, I don't want my coworkers to know about that. Or, you know, but my wife knows, or my kids know. And so, the people that I'm closest to don't rarely get the best version of me.
So, there's that kind of pain, where I'm trying to figure out, why I always am distressed to the max, I don't need to manage my stress. It's amazing how many of us can get to midlife and still not know how to lead ourselves? Well, we don't know ourselves well enough, we're kind of just in constant reactive mode. So, I really help people get intentional with an get out of free act and into proactive mode. That's that people that come from places of pain. And that's great, I can often help people, at least there's aspirin, you can take this short term, minimize the pain, . And then there's, let's get you into an ongoing therapy program. Not like real therapy, but like life building. And but then the people that come from a place of desire are I just want my life to be great. Like I want to give the best version of me, and I want to design a life that I love with people I love, where I'm giving my best work. And I'm making a contribution.
There's just this longing, that's one thing I love about designers. They do everybody else's projects, and they make them amazing. And they know that their client never could have had this amazing thing without them. And that's a conversation, I'd love to have, like that what you can do for other people. Find a coach like Jeff, or The Great Life Project or some other coach that's out there that can help you do that for your life, your life is your most important project. And you you've spent your life giving your best to everyone else. If make let's get intentional and make sure you're giving some of the best to you so that at the end of this thing, you have a story to look back on that you're proud of. And you feel like you have designed and lived a life that you love.
Marlana
Love that! I know you have projects coming up, and that there's something that you're launching in the fall, tell us about all that.
Jeff
I've been doing this kind of work for over 15 years. And then in the past year, I've really kind of narrowed that focus to creatives. I've worked with tons of creatives along the way, and finally was able to say, these are my people, I want to just focus and narrow this work into that. So, creating it as the great life project. And this fall, we're launching a yearlong coaching process, where it's not just a course it's not just a program or a group of people together on a call but an intentional year long, guided expert journey.
It's high tech, it's high touch, and it's high end, and I love to help people get really intentional with that. And I think the differentiator between what I do, and some other programs is that I try to bring a real sense of presence and connection. I love to look people in the eye and just hear their story and think my unique genius is that I see what they can't see. And I can help connect the dots and help them slow down to build the thing that that's in their head or in their heart, but they're not always sure how to put all the pieces together.
Marlana
So, if anybody is kicking off a yearlong version of that this fall, if anybody's interested in that, how do they go about finding that?
Jeff
There's two great ways to connect with me. I'm on LinkedIn, that's probably the primary place on a daily basis where I'm sharing content and teaching and a lot of the pieces of the puzzle come up there. But also, my website is jefflovell.coach and there's information And about The Great Life Project, there are some video overviews and a way to book a call there as well.
Marlana
Perfect! And with that, I just have four final questions for you. First one, what is the best piece of advice you're ever given?
Jeff
I am grateful that I've been given a lot of good advice. And I've listened to some of it. Probably the thing that rings most true to me, in terms of the best advice, because it's still a question that I hear in my head on a regular basis is something my dad used to say growing up, is “just remember who you are.” Remember who you are. And what's funny is I think that's the work I'm still doing to this day. When I'd ask him a question, or when I'm wondering what I should do about a situation, or when I was getting ready to make a bad decision, his first words were remember who you are, because who you are, takes care of what you should do a lot of times even in terms of purpose, . We're all trying to answer what should I do question. But if we slow down and answer the, Who am I question, the what you should do, becomes clearer.
Marlana
Show us one thing on your bucket list.
Jeff
My bucket list is full. I'm a kind of guy who is full of ideas of all the things that I would love to do. I think the thing I most want to do that like if I if nothing else gets accomplished in the rest of Jeff's life. I want my kids to have great lives, I want them to feel confident and knowing who they are. And so, I don't think that they really want to go through my coaching program. But I hope I'm confident that they are becoming young women who are going to change the world because of who they are. I actually just shared on LinkedIn. Or actually, it's a post I'm going to share or later this week about the picture of my daughter from fourth grade, where they had superhero day. And she didn't come home and say how do I dress up like X.Y.Z superhero, she wanted to create her own superhero. She knew who she wanted to be her own version of things. So, I think the number one thing on my bucket list is, I want my kids to become their own thing, their best version of themselves and feel confident in that.
Marlana
When the toy companies finally get around to making an action figure of you, what two accessories will it come with?
Jeff
I asked my kids to consider this for me because I like okay, what are you going to say? And I'm gonna give you three answers, even though but number one is a cup of coffee. I always have a cup of coffee. And usually, I'm sitting across from somebody having a great conversation with it. So that goes hand in hand. One daughter said it's probably a lawn mower because it's my hobby. It's my way to get outside and just get some exercise. But my other one said, a mirror, I would come with a mirror like what is a mirror but and she said, You are really good at helping other people see themselves in a way that they can't see in themselves. So, I'll take that. I thought she was gonna say I'm really vain or something. But that wasn't her point. I'm here to help people see themselves in a new way.
Marlana
That’s great! How old was that daughter?
Jeff
She's 18.
Marlana
Very insightful! And the last one Tell us again, how do people find you?
Jeff
LinkedIn, Jeff Lovell, or on my website is jefflovell.coach.
Marlana
Perfect! Thank you so much, Jeff. Thanks for being here.
Jeff
It's been enjoyable. Thank you.