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Answering Your Call: A Guide for Living Your Deepest Purpose PDF

169 Pages·2003·0.87 MB·English
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Answering Your Call Other books by John P. Schuster Hum-Drum to Hot-Diggity: on Leadership The Power of Open-book Management The Open-book Management Fieldbook Answering Your Call a guide to living your deepest purpose John P. Schuster Answering Your Call Copyright © 2003 by John P. Schuster All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. 235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650 San Francisco, California 94104-2916 Tel: (415) 288-0260, Fax: (415) 362-2512 www.bkconnection.com Ordering information for print editions Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the Berrett-Koehler address above. Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They can also be ordered directly from Berrett- Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626; www .bkconnection.com Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626. Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Ingram Publisher Services, Tel: (800) 509-4887; Fax: (800) 838- 1149; E-mail: This book is dedicated to all the grand provocateurs and evocateurs who activated me: Sister Veronice of my Omaha grade school, Thomas Savage, S.J., at Xavier, Bill McGrane II in my twenties, Peter Block and Frederic Hudson in midlife. And to the leaders who started careers in the marketplace, in government, and in community and who now transform them into calls. Contents Preface xi Introduction: You Are Called 1 Difficulties of the Call ■ Multiple Calls ■ Sources of the Call ■ How to Read This Book Part I: Getting Started with a Calling 11 Chapter 1: What Is a Call? 13 Working Definitions ■ Responding to the Call ■ Calls and the Times of Our Lives ■ Exercise: Thinking About the Nature of Calls Chapter 2: Common Calls 25 Calls Both Obvious and Subtle ■ The Working Quadrant of Calls ■ Common Calls ■ Giving the Role Much More Than You Thought You Had ■ Exercise: Reviewing Your Call History Chapter 3: Mightily Believe You Have a Calling 39 Listening Past the Social Noise ■ Making Money and the Social Drummer ■ Going Beneath the Noise ■ Maintaining Purpose While Managing the Doldrums ■ The Monastery Versus the Doldrums ■ Focusing on the Limitless Within Your Limiting Conditions ■ Exercise: Heeding Your Inner Voice and Believing When the Evidence Is Sparse Part I: Summary 53 contents ❘ vii Part II: Breathing Depth into Common Calls 55 Chapter 4: Endure the Saboteurs 57 High Purpose Attracts the Demonic Destroyers ■ Learning the Signs and Patterns of Saboteurs ■ An Early Lesson in Sabotage ■ A Master Saboteur ■ The Damage Saboteurs Inflict ■ Lessons to Learn ■ Fighting Your Saboteur Self: The Ultimate Battle ■ Exercise: Reflecting on Saboteurs and Their Impact Chapter 5: Pass On the Evocateur’s Gift 76 Calling Forth Potential ■ The Coach and the No-Dribble, No-Shoot Point Guard ■ Lasting Memories, Lasting Lessons ■ Tapping That Which Lies Dormant ■ A Writer’s Evocateur ■ Gifts Surfaced: Passing It On ■ Exercise: Deepening Your Appreciation of Evocateurs’ Impact on Your Life Chapter 6: Provoke the Stifling 91 Battles Fought ■ Mary Harris: Provocateur Extraordinaire ■ What Provocateurs Do ■ Guidelines for Everyday Provocateurs ■ Provoke When You Have Little Authority, Sponsor Provocateurs When You Have It ■ Exercise: Provoking with Skill and Courage Part II: Summary 108 Part III: Keeping Focus for the Long Term 109 Chapter 7: Go Gently Against the Ego 111 Managing False Messages ■ The Ego in Disguise ■ Leaning into Fear ■ The Fun Factor ■ Cooperating with the Ego ■ Exercise: Reflecting on Ego Containment Chapter 8: Work the Veil 129 Evocateurs Revisited ■ A Sandwich Dream-Weaver ■ A Chorus of Calls ■ Welcoming Your Calls with Balance ■ Exercise: Working the Veil Part III: Summary 141 viii ❘ answering your call Appendix: Questions in Interviews for Answering Your Call 142 Notes 144 Index 146 About the Author 151 Preface A good number of profound life guides and competent mentors have made themselves available to me in my life. As long as I can remember, I have been motivated to do good and live a meaningful life. Yet I often missed the signals of my calling. I dallied when I should have sprung forward; I lurched ahead when I should have delayed. I went for worldly goals and titles when I should have retreated from things mate- rial; I swore off worldly things when it was time to accept and use them. I enjoyed a happy childhood with loving parents and only the usual traumas to endure. One of the world’s great religions and its heritage absorbed me, giving me rituals to mark the passages of my life from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. I was afforded a well-balanced education in private schools with dedicated teachers setting high stan- dards and taking the time to give me individual attention. I inherited the privileges of my culture. I am white, male, from a stable middle-class family and was bright enough to make the most of those educational opportunities, graduating from university summa cum laude and going on for my M.A. Many of my athletic coaches brought out the best in my team play and built my confidence for achieving difficult goals. My siblings were loving and attentive, and my extended family was a place of joy and acceptance for my life and the place it held in the loose clan of Schusters and Cunninghams that we remain to this day. But in spite of these gifts and resources, a steady stream of available knowledge, and even wisdom, I blew it on numerous occasions. I did not always heed my calling. At times, life called me and I either refused to hear or created my own false signals so I could avoid the real choices and make more convenient ones. I muted the call entirely on occasion,

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