Happy Sunday Everyone:
One of the blessings of Sunday Thoughts is it allows me to stay in contact with a bunch of great friends I’ve met throughout the years. One of those friends responded last week, Kelly Z. I have a lot of respect for her. We’re on similar paths right now, her a little ahead of me. She mentioned she’s reading a book “Seat of the Soul”. She didn’t suggest it, but I trust her enough to be intrigued. I downloaded it and started listening on one of my long walks. The two prefaces are Oprah and Maya Angelou. Two fairly strong literary endorsements. The book has nothing to do with Sunday Thoughts but listening to the preface does.
I had a very productive week last week. More stuff done, felt more concentrated in my efforts/actions. It was on purpose. A quote I heard from Oprah, and one I had heard before, she walks into every meeting with the question “what is the intention of this meeting”. Sounds simple, seems simple, is simple but I took it to heart last week, and it mattered. I opened up our team meeting with the concept, I discussed it on some business partner calls, and it made a difference. I said it to myself on phone calls I made, I said it to myself as a i wrote a few thank you cards, sent a few emails, recording a few videos etc…I had it on rotation in my head most of the week and it mattered. I’m trying to rap my head around two thoughts; one is what would my world look like if I had the discipline to ask the question of “what is the intention of this action” in everything I did? The other thought is how much of a fog people live in by not thinking about their intention in everything they do. Having thought through this more this week than any time in my past, and now writing about it, it’s actually a daunting question. It’s one thing to ask about the intention of a meeting or a thank you card, it’s another question to ask the intention of my life, and our lives.
I’ll keep this Sunday Thoughts between the lines of productivity vs. laying in a hay field contemplating life but “intention” matters. It acts as a concentrate. It allows you to get to the root level of what you’re doing and why. It creates more time by minimizing or eliminating wasted time. It creates clarity by asking the simple question “what is the intention of X”. Not sure how much accountability you want to have with this but it’s kind of fun. I think of “what is the intention of Sunday Thoughts”. The intent was to allow me to brain dump some of my own thoughts, life experiences, learning moments, out of my head and on to paper, and to share them with a few coaching students in the hopes of it helping them too. Slightly larger audience today vs. 10 years ago but hopefully still the case.
If you’re up for the challenge, spend today/tomorrow asking the simple question-“What is the intention of X”. If I had to sum up my own thoughts, asking the question requires you to put more purpose in everything you do vs. going through the motions of life.