Answering Your Call: A Guide for Living Your Deepest Purpose

169 Pages·2003·0.87 MB·English

by  John P Schuster

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
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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,