Leadership: Discover Your Design
Finding your calling is not ‘the answer’—it’s a lifelong dance with the question: What is mine to do? Richard Rohr
Gregg‘s Reflection
My adult life has been a never-ending path of self-discovery. Trying to figure out the call my faith has on my life has been an ongoing process of discernment. After we sold the business, and I was trying to discern my calling for the rest of my life, I figured out a few things. I decided that the trajectory of my life up to that point would inform my path forward. I figured God would not have had me spend 25 years learning leadership if it was not part of my calling.
I realized God would not have gifted me for “A” and expected me to do “B“. I realized that my life’s passion emerged from what Richard Rohr would call my ‘father wound’. So, I began to discover my design, first by coming to understand my Myers-Briggs personality style, then using the Enneagram for a deeper look at my wiring. I came to see that my calling (see my post on Calling) would be at the intersection of my gifts and passion. But, my church had never helped me understand my gifts.
I made a design choice to follow the energy in my second career and do more of what energized me, and less of what drained energy away. I spent a year paying attention to my energy flows at work and discovered some important things. Many of the skills I had learned, management, negation, administration, operations, were on the energy draining side. The thing that energized me most was sitting down with young college graduates in their first year with the company, and helping them envision their career.
This became the seed of my calling, which came to me in an image as I stood here on the mountain where we built our cabin. In the image, I was holding a large pipe, and standing with a foot in two worlds: the secular world of leadership, and the Kingdom. I discerned my calling was to bring the best of what I had learned of leadership to equipping next generation leaders for the Kingdom.
In my journey across the Lutheran church, I came to know Dave Starks, one of the authors of Life Keys: Discover Who You Are. I went to a workshop and got trained to facilitate the course based on this material. Over the next decade, I took this foundation, and imported ideas from my own learning journey to create a course called Discover Your Design, which I offered for ten years while on staff at CityChurch Eastside in Atlanta.
I led the young men and women on a journey through six different exercises of self-discovery. Those who wanted to go deeper, I did coaching work to include structure work and the Enneagram for deeper self awareness.
Most people started the workshop in a fog, not having any real idea of who they were, and what God might be calling them to in their lives. I thought of a compass which could point to any of 360 degrees around the dial. Each instrument and exercise would bring some clarity and narrow the field where they might discover their calling.
Life Skills
The first instrument we looked at was Life Skills, using the Strong‘s Interest Inventory. The Strong Interest Inventory (SII) is a widely used career assessment tool that helps individuals explore their interests and potential career paths. It identifies interests across various occupational themes and provides insights into work preferences and styles. The SII is not a test with right or wrong answers, but rather a self-assessment tool for career exploration.
Personality Style
The second instrument we used was the Myers-Briggs personality indicator. While it has since been supplanted by new instruments, I found great usefulness in the tool.
Each person falls on one side of four scales, resulting in a 4-letter type (e.g., INFJ, ESTP). The Myers-Briggs measures four dimensions of personality. Look for a free test here.
Energy Source
- Extraversion (E) – Draw energy from others; outgoing, expressive
- Introversion (I) – Draw energy from solitude; reflective, focused
Information Processing
- Sensing (S) – Practical, detail-oriented, trust the tangible
- Intuition (N) – Big-picture, patterns, abstract thinking
Decision Making
- Thinking (T) – Logic, objectivity, truth-focused
- Feeling (F) – Empathy, values, people-centered decisions
Lifestyle Structure
- Judging (J) – Prefer structure, planning, closure
- Perceiving (P) – Prefer flexibility, spontaneity, openness
Your tendency in each of the four dimensions will result in you being one of 16 types.
Some general trends hold true for the four subsets of the 16 styles:
Spiritual Gifts
By the time we have gone through the first two instruments, people are used to sharing their self-discovery. The third lens we used was Spiritual Gifts. Find a Spiritual Gifts Inventory here. Often times, those close us us can help us see gifts we don’t see ourselves.
Values
After working through spiritual gifts, we did a values exercise. One thing about values is that they change over the course of life. Genie and I started our marriage focused on adventure and travel. When the kids were born, the desire for financial stability and providing a safe home became primary. With an empty nest, and selling the business, our focus changed to deepening relationships with God and others, ‘having fun and doing good’ as Genie put it.
These cards are a helpful tool for identifying values.
Once we left the business world, I became much more focused on living into my values. There did not seem to be much overlap in my career. Check my post: Living into my Values
Passions
The last exercise we led people through was on Passions. It is not a quick and easy process to uncover your passions. My own inability to access the wisdom of the journey given my difficult relationship with my father led me to discover a passion of mentoring and coaching next generation leaders, helping them along the path. Wherever you are on your spiritual journey, there is always someone behind you seeking the path.
Wade in with me to find how deeper self-awareness helps us discover the intersection of our passion and our gifts, our deep desire and the world’s need. This is a key to finding what is yours to do, your calling in life. Blessings
Journaling Prompts
Does your church have a process to disciple you into your gifts and calling? If not, ask why not? When have I felt most alive and deeply engaged in my work or relationships? What are some consistent patterns or themes in how others affirm me? Which of my strengths and passions seem to point beyond myself—to something sacred or needed in the world? Where do I feel the Spirit nudging me toward greater alignment or authenticity? What part of me still hides in the “fog”? What am I afraid to see or claim? My spiritual director says our calling is at the intersection of our deepest desires and the world’s greatest need. What might that look like for you?
Scripture
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
Jeremiah 1:5
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.”
Jeremiah 29:11
The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.
Proverbs 20:5
For as in one body we have many members… we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith…
Romans 12:4–6
Let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you.
1 Corinthians 7:17
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord… To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
1 Corinthians 12:4–7
We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10
Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
Ephesians 4:1
The gifts He gave were… apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry… until we come to maturity.
Ephesians 4:11–13
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10
Ancient Voices
The good for man is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, in a complete life.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, 1098a16
Know thyself.
Delphic maxim, inscribed at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
The glory of God is the human being fully alive.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies
I have done what is mine to do. May Christ teach you what is yours.
Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol. 2, The Founder, p. 640. St Francis’ last words to his followers
Modern Voices
We call it a gift and we call ourselves gifted, but gifts are never really earned, are they? Only given. Talent is grace made visible.
Stephen King, You Like It Darker: Stories, p. 53
What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization. It refers to the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality, p. 91
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.
Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Calling is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC
The life that intends to be fully responsive to God’s call must be lived from the inside out.
Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
Finding your calling is not ‘the answer’—it’s a lifelong dance with the question: What is mine to do?
Richard Rohr, adapted from Living School teachings
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living; we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs
Design is the conscious choice of how we want to live.
Charlotte Roberts, personal teaching context (Living Systems coach & mentor to Gregg)
A person’s essential path is not chosen. It is discovered.
James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
Most people think passion is the starting point. But in reality, passion is often the result of being in pursuit of a deeply held vision.
Robert Fritz, The Path of Least Resistance
The most fundamental choice a person can make is the choice to be the predominant creative force in their own life.
Robert Fritz, Creating: A Guide to the Creative Process
Personal mastery means approaching one’s life as a creative work, living life from a creative as opposed to a reactive viewpoint.
Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, p. 141
The goal is not to create meaning, but to uncover it.
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, p. 6
We’re not playing the instrument—we are the instrument.
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being
The things that are meant for you will find you. You don’t need to chase them… The work you’re here to do will call to you like a beacon.
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, p. 29
The goal is not success. The goal is to be in alignment with your creative essence, to live from the inside out.
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act, on p. 84