CHAPTER SIX

Life Aligning Question One
THE PURPOSE QUESTION

COACH INTERRUPTED Ray and Carol’s musing with, “Ready for the next step?”

“Sure!” Ray said. Carol nodded her approval.

Coach Eric continued. “Listening to the things that upset you, I understand that one of the most frustrating is that life—especially your work life—doesn’t seem to have much meaning anymore. Do I have that correct?”

“Correct!” Carol responded with emphasis.

“Good,” Coach said. “I’m going to send you to Mary and Mike Hall. At one time they had so little meaning in their work lives that they were both ready to quit their jobs. Today they’re masters at living a life full of meaning. I’m sure they’ll be glad to share their journey with you. Could you two free your schedules to meet with them this Saturday?”

“Definitely!” said Carol with enthusiasm.

“Great!” Coach responded. “In Mary and Mike, you will find an exceptional example of how ordinary people can be very successful getting what they really want, in this case a very meaningful life starting with work.”

“Starting with work? What’s that mean?” asked Ray.

“Mary and Mike will show you. Remember, implementation is the key. Mary and Mike have discovered a lot to share,” said Coach with a smile.

The next Saturday evening, Ray and Carol pulled up to Mary and Mike Hall’s modest home. As they walked to the door, Carol commented on what a clean, well-cared-for look the house had.

Mike Hall met them with a warm smile. “Come in, you guys. Mary and I have been looking forward to meeting you.”

Mike was tall with silver hair, and he appeared to be in fine health. Ray wondered how he stayed so fit.

Mary welcomed them with a smile. “We’re so honored that Coach Eric asked you to visit us first. What a difference implementing Aligned Thinking has made in our lives! Come on in and make yourselves comfortable.”

While Mike and Mary brought out drinks and snacks, they talked and laughed with Ray and Carol.

“You two do look happy,” Ray commented.

Mary laughed. “It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when we were totally fed up with our lives, especially work.”

“What changed?” asked Carol, immediately searching for answers.

“To explain, I have to go back to when all the kids were in school. We figured that with the expense of college coming, I needed to return to work. Before the kids, I was a nurse in a hospital. I loved helping people. Now the hospital was looking for a head nurse on one of the floors, so I applied and got the job. To increase his income, Mike accepted the service manager’s position at the dealership where he worked.”

Mike picked up the story. “I really enjoyed fixing cars. I would have stayed in that job, but the boss said if I wanted to get the raise I asked for, I needed to take the manager’s job he’d offered me twice before. He said I would be great at it and talked me into giving it a six-month trial. For financial considerations, I finally gave in. Immediately life went downhill.”

Mike paused. “No, not just downhill; more like crash and burn!”

“I could see Mike change,” Mary added. “He began yelling at the kids, which he rarely did before. At the same time, I was suffering in my new job. As a nurse, I had loved to get up in the morning to help people get well. But it was different as a head nurse. Not only did I have to deal with patients, but I had to deal with doctors, visitors, regulations, employees, and other nurses as well. That wasn’t my thing. I didn’t even enjoy getting up in the morning anymore.”

Ray and Carol nodded their heads. Mary’s story felt familiar.

“So what did you do?” Carol asked.

Mary blushed slightly and said, “This is the part Coach doesn’t know about. It’s not what we recommend, but since it might help you understand how down we were and how Aligned Thinking helped us, here’s what happened. Mike came home one night and yelled at the kids. Later, with a heavy heart, I said, ‘Mike, you’re changing.’ Then he started yelling at me. For about four minutes, we went at it. He shouted, ‘You’re changing, too!’

“I shouted back, ‘If you had my job, you’d understand! If I just didn’t have any patients, my job would be easy!’

“Mike just stared at me and slowly began to smile. I stopped yelling and thought about what I’d just said. If there were no patients in my hospital, I wouldn’t have a job! I realized how ridiculous I’d sounded. We both started to laugh. We agreed that we would have a heart-to-heart talk right then and there.”

“I went first,” said Mike. “I complained about how my frustrations started in the morning with irritated car owners. Things got worse from there with the phones ringing, mechanics with this or that problem, customers upset about their bills, slow workers, and parts that weren’t available. There were too many interruptions. And too much stress!”

“I can relate to that,” Ray said. Carol nodded her agreement.

“I went next,” said Mary. “As head nurse in charge of my floor, I had treatments to give, medicines to distribute, employees to supervise, doctors to keep happy, emergencies to deal with, and patients and their families to talk with. My days consisted of interruptions interrupted by interruptions. Talking about it with Mike that day just upset me more.”

Ray and Carol were leaning forward, relating to each frustration. “That sounds all too familiar,” said Carol. “How did you solve these problems? You seem so happy and calm now.”

Mary continued, “Our first solutions weren’t good ones. We decided that Mike and I were just not cut out to lead. We wanted the money so we could send our kids to good colleges, but we figured it was not meant to be. We decided to back off from that dream. Since Mike’s six-month trial period was ending, he planned to resign. I also planned to step down as head nurse of the floor. Things were so bad, giving up our cherished dreams was a relief.”

Mike nodded. “I went to our dealership’s owner and told him I wanted my old job back. I shared with him how Mary and I felt. He said I could have my old job back because that was his promise, but he asked Mary and me to attend Coach’s Aligned Thinking workshop first. We didn’t like the idea, but we agreed to go. Thank God we did. Our nightmare turned into a dream.”

“This is the binder we kept from that workshop,” Mary said as she placed a book on the coffee table. “I think you two will be especially interested in the first of the Life Aligning Questions. This is the question that helped us realign our lives.” She pointed to a page from the seminar notes.

“So this is the purpose question on Coach’s Aligned Thinking pyramid,” Ray said. “How do you figure out what you really want? Simple as that question is, with so many life pressures, it’s hard to know for sure.”

“Coach’s tools really helped,” said Mary. “First, we wrote our own eulogies, with emphasis on how we would like to be remembered.”

“That must have been challenging,” said Ray.

“It was,” said Mary. “But very insightful, like opening the door into my heart. My first ‘aha’ was that Mike and I had lost sight of our original life purpose. Coach pointed out that the meaning of our daily actions comes from their purpose. With Mike and me, since there was no alignment between our daily actions and what we wanted from our life or work, we were starved for meaning. Working harder only made matters worse. Coach also pointed out that this lack of alignment causes problems for most people.”

“So what did you write in your eulogy?” Carol asked Mary.

“I wrote, I would like people to say that I really cared about them as people and that I had the skill, attitude, and energy to help many of them.’ As a young girl, I always enjoyed helping people. When it came time to pick a career, I felt helping others as a nurse would be a great life’s work. But in my job as head nurse, I couldn’t connect the incessant demands with my life purpose. All I saw were interruptions interrupted by interruptions.”

“My situation was similar,” Mike added. “I was looking for a similar accomplishment in my eulogy. As a young man, I thought of going into the priesthood or the Peace Corps. But I enjoyed fixing cars and was good at it. So I became a mechanic to help people by fixing their cars. As a service manager, I couldn’t see how all the interruptions I dealt with were helping people. I could not connect my daily actions to my vision and values. I only saw the interruptions as interruptions. When I didn’t connect my actions to what I really wanted from life, the actions lost meaning. My life became a void. I wanted out.”

“I can relate,” said Ray.

“My first ‘aha’ was similar to Mary’s, only I would say it a little differently. We were miserable. We had huge bomb craters where our inner fulfillment should have been and couldn’t understand why. We just did not understand the nature of inner fulfillment. We wanted to do good things for people—Mary by helping them get well, me by fixing their cars.”

“So what was the problem?” asked Carol.

“Basically, we couldn’t connect our everyday actions with our original purpose of helping others. Answering this first Life Aligning Question helped me focus on what I really wanted from life—to help people. Eventually, Aligned Thinking showed me how to make the connection between my daily actions and the life I dreamed of living. That awareness brought into focus that the interruptions at work were really opportunities.”

Ray and Carol wondered how Mike had made that connection.

“Before I was an Aligned Thinker, if one of my mechanics came to me demanding this or that, I would see him as a troublemaker. Once I aligned my thinking, I could see that he was really just calling for help. When a customer is upset, he or she is really saying, ‘I’m frustrated. I need your special help.’ Slowly—ever so slowly—I began to realize I had more opportunities to help people as the service manager than I ever had as a mechanic. As I saw how my actions aligned me step-by-step with my true life purpose, the very actions that had sapped my energy before now gave me new energy. Today, there is nothing that gives me more energy than seeing myself as a successful person doing what I really want, which is helping people.”

“Even though it is the same job?” asked Carol. “How come?”

“Because activities that give life meaning also give ‘here and now’ energy,” Mike replied.

Ray grabbed a pen and piece of paper. “Mike, would you say that again? I want to make a note of it.”

As Mike repeated the words, Ray jotted them down:

Activities that give life meaning
also give “here and now” energy.

Mike continued. “My boss pointed out how much I’d accomplished. He said I’d created a fourfold win. First, his win was keeping me in the position. Second, I treated clients much better once I saw their problems as opportunities—the clients win. Third, this translated into repeat business and greater profits—the company wins. Fourth, because I used the mechanics’ needs as opportunities to serve them, I improved their morale and they became more motivated—the mechanics win. My boss was right: it was a quadruple win.”

“There was another win, too,” said Mary with a smile. “When Mike was just going through the motions at work and not feeling connected to his life purpose, he came home exhausted and cranky. He even looked older.”

“I was a bear,” Mike said with a laugh. “I yelled at everyone. Nonaligned living was taking years off my life. I felt terrible most of the time.”

“You look great today,” said Carol.

“Thanks. People tell me I look young for fifty-nine. I’m a living example. Because what I do is taking me to where I want to be, I can love what I do. It keeps me young.”

“I heard you saying two things,” Ray said. “First, clarify your purpose and what you really want from work. You did it by writing what you would like to hear in your eulogy. Second, make certain your actions at work are connected to what you really want—in other words, what is meaningful to you. Would you say I’ve captured what you’ve been telling us?”

“I would say you’re close,” Mike replied. “But I would add, ‘Make certain every action takes you back to what you really want.’ Mary and I started with work but eventually connected all our actions to our life purpose, including what we did in our personal life. If an action doesn’t take you back to your purpose, why do it?”

“That’s a good question,” Ray said slowly as he considered it. “Coach said you started out with being aligned in work, but he didn’t say where you went from there. So you went to the personal and covered everything?”

“That’s the simplicity of it,” Mike said. “Eventually, you’ll see how the simple elegance of the MIN Secret helps you be aligned 24/7.”

“Simplicity?” Carol said with a frown. “Give me a break!”