“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?”
What is the most effective strategy for living a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to human flourishing?
That strategy is: follow your conscience, no matter the obstacle and no matter the cost.
Your spirit originates with your talent, and your conscience originates with your spirit and points in the direction of your destiny. Your destiny is to become your most authentic, most courageous, most extraordinary self.
Following your conscience in the face of any obstacle and any sacrifice is a simple idea, but developing the skill that is required to consistently align your decisions and actions with your conscience is the most difficult adventure you could ever undertake. Developing that level of integrity is also the most rewarding adventure you could ever undertake, because integrity leads to flow, and flow is the optimal state of human consciousness that produces peak performance. When Joseph Campbell said “Follow your bliss,” flow is the “bliss” he was referring to.
Flow is the ecstatic state that allows your conscience to instantaneously flow through your decisions and actions with no fear of failure, uncertainty, time, or entropy. In the flow state, you have access to all of your talent and skill, and they can be transformed into peak performance, achievement, creation, and contribution with 100% fidelity and 0 waste.
Integrity and flow are trainable skills. They are actually the culmination of the Hierarchy of Heroic Skills.
Authenticity - The relentless return to what matters most, what matters most is your talent and your destiny. The alignment of your identity, decisions, and actions with your unique gifts and your highest conscience. Authenticity reveals who you truly are, and from that truth, courage becomes possible.
Courage - The ability to take action in the face of fear. Stepping toward transformation instead of away from it. Courage=hope+fear. Once you choose courage, your attention must be directed, and that is where focus emerges.
Focus - The full alignment of identity, attention, and long-term vision. With focus, the path sharpens, and clarity becomes the natural next step.
Clarity - Knowing what matters, why it matters, and what to do next. But clarity alone isn’t enough, you must hold yourself to it, and that is the work of accountability.
Accountability - The standard that you hold yourself to because how you do anything is how you do everything, and once you start cutting corners, when will you stop? And when accountability is practiced consistently, discipline becomes not a burden, but a natural expression of who you are becoming.
Discipline - Remembering what you really want, then prioritizing accordingly. Sustained discipline inevitably demands tradeoffs, and those tradeoffs form the essence of sacrifice.
Sacrifice - “Sacred subtraction.” Letting go of something meaningful so you can reach for what is most meaningful. And because no great transformation is achieved alone, sacrifice naturally leads you into community.
Community - Your community is the group of people who become the external embodiment of your conscience and your unshakable faith in yourself. Community strengthens resolve, and from that resolve, faith becomes unshakeable.
Faith - “I don’t understand how to do this yet, but I will figure it out, because it’s worth it. I can accept complexity. I can accept uncertainty. I can even accept failure. But I cannot betray my talent and my destiny, so I cannot accept surrender.” Faith demands bold action, and that action is audacity.
Audacity - Utter disregard for the uncertainty of the outcome. The knowledge that regret is an infinitely greater loss than the embarrassment of an unsuccessful attempt. When audacity becomes embodied, integrity is born.
Integrity - The ability to align your decisions and your actions with your conscience and your destiny. When this skill is mastered, flow becomes readily accessible.
Flow - The optimal state of human consciousness that delivers peak performance by allowing your conscience to flow through your decisions, actions, and performance without distraction by thoughts of failure or the uncertainty of the outcome. The embodiment of your spirit. Flow is the reward for practicing every skill that came before it, and the doorway to true mastery.
Do you want to live a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to human flourishing? Do you want access to the optimal and blissful state of consciousness that is flow? Do you want to transform all of your talent into peak performance, achievement, creation, and contribution? Do you refuse to allow your talent to go to waste?
What is the strategy you are following to live your life that way? What results has that strategy produced? Are those the results you are seeking? If the strategy you followed hasn’t delivered a life of meaning, fulfillment, and flourishing, of what use was that strategy?
The most effective strategy for living a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to human flourishing is: follow your conscience, no matter the obstacle and no matter the cost. Devote your time and attention to transforming your talent into peak performance, achievement, creation, and contribution. Develop the skills you need to get the results you want. Be the hero of your own journey.
The question and the answer have been right in front of us the whole time in the archetypal narrative pattern that Joseph Campbell called “The Hero’s Journey.” Campbell said that “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life,” and he was right. The heroic myths and legends that have inspired countless generations and generated billions of dollars in global box office receipts all follow that same archetypal narrative pattern.
Go watch or read your favorite hero story and observe how the hero learns to follow their conscience, no matter the obstacle and no matter the cost. Observe how they devote their time and attention to transforming their talent into peak performance, achievement, creation, and contribution to the flourishing of their community. Tony Stark, Thomas Anderson, Andy Sachs, Luke Skywalker, and Harry Potter all reveal the most effective strategy for living a life of meaning and fulfillment that contributes to human flourishing. That’s the reason those stories are so popular. We all aspire to live like heroes, and now we can.
Send this link to 5 talented people you believe in so you can join their community of allies and mentors and support their quest to transform their talent into peak performance, achievement, creation, and contribution to the flourishing of their community. Send this link to 5 talented people you believe in so you can build your community of mentors and allies to help you with your quest.