MY LIFE 5
SESSION FIVE — MAPPING MY ASPIRATION
This is a link to the ‘Principles’ tutorial video - ‘My Life - Session 5 - Principles.’
Alongside the Principes video, I have included the ‘Activation Narrative’ that is part of this session in the self-guided workbooks. The stories I tell aren’t comfortable, nor are they trauma porn. They are designed to elicit a specific response from the reader, tied to the topic our clients are working on in this session.
The Fifth Blue Rule:
“A life without dreams is a meaningless nightmare. I’ve worked with too many successful people who dread falling asleep.”
― Robert (Sherpa) Millar
I have been sober for 10,985 days. I began my spiritual journey in an ultra-conservative Christian church that forbade almost everything. I have served as a missionary, minister, and leader of a Christian nonprofit. Most people would imagine my aspiration would be about some spiritual utopia where everyone believes in my God and obeys the rules. Perhaps the antithesis of John Lennon’s Imagine.
The reality? My Aspiration hasn’t changed since I dreamt about it as a small boy. That dream was ridiculous to me back then, and despite all that I have accomplished, it remains challenging to reach on any given day. I recall a time when all five of us kids slept in one room, with mattresses on the floor and the curtains open, so we could get up and use the bathroom at night. I’d lie awake late into the night and stare out the window and dream of one thing. Freedom. This utopian place where people couldn’t control me, where no one could apply constraints on me. It is hard to describe what being an extremely ADHD boy meant in the 70’s and early 80’s in Ireland. Sit down, shut up, or else! Followed almost immediately by ‘or else.’ I had repeatedly borrowed a copy of Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete stories of Sherlock Holmes from the library van that came to our neighborhood.
Sherlock Holmes was Santa, the Tooth Faery, and Jesus all wrapped up in a drug-addled eccentric Bohemian who refused to be constrained by his society. If you come into my home office, you will see four sculptures, one for each of my personas. Each sculpture is a picture of my prioritized places as well as an avatar for that persona: a Knight, Atlas, a Man, and Sherlock Holmes. Bohemian is the name I chose for my persona in the prioritized place of Aspiration. I’ll share a picture of my map below. In it, you will see each Place, Picture, and Persona laid out. To navigate my interior world requires only this map and the compass of curiosity.
I want to take a moment to sit down with you, just as I would with one of my clients, and discuss your aspirations. If you have reached this point in the My Success self-guided workbooks, then you are motivated, disciplined, and capable. This is the prioritized place that is most difficult for people like you and me to feel. It feels selfish, silly, and indefensible to admit it out loud. Think for a moment about what you know about my life. Would Bohemian and Freedom really be what you imagined I prioritize for Utopia? The one constant I’ve found in the My Life program is that I can never guess someone’s Aspirational place. It is always such an outlier. We all need a place to dream, a fantastical place to invest in, even if we can only imagine it and never experience it in reality.
In the next post, we'll explore the introduction to the paradox of Extrinsic/Intrinsic conflict in My Culture.
THIS IS NOT TRAINING. IT'S CALIBRATION.
Self-guided workbooks: $297 | Live coaching: $10,000 per series
They call me 'Sherpa' because I help people get to where they want to go. I can't promise you will have all your fingers and toes when you reach your summit. But you'll achieve it. If you're looking for easy, this isn't it. If you want transformation, start here: Sherpa Intro Tree — Bespoke Compass
— Robert (Sherpa) Millar | Bespoke Compass