Empty yourself before filling yourself up

Two summers ago I drew this. I didn´t know where the third cartoon came from at the time. ¨Empty yourself before filling yourself up¨? Lately I´m figuring it out.

Enter meaning. We spend a lifetime looking for it, the answer to the¨why, why are we here?¨. We keep looking in the wrong places: ¨the what¨ and ¨the how¨.
The what: I want to climb the corporate ladder. I want to marry that person. I want to have a private jet.
The how: I´ll become a Wall St. broker. I will hang out with the ¨right¨ people. Someday I´ll win the lotto.

Where´s the meaning? Why all this? I don´t think that´s the reason why we´re here. That´s ¨filling yourself up¨.

Mark Earls talks about ¨the Purpose Idea¨. Not new, but a fresh way of asking ourselves (or our Organizations) ¨WHY do I get up every morning¨? What´s the point? As it turns out, ¨the Purpose Idea¨ helps us figure out a way to ¨empty¨ ourselves first.

And so by asking ourselves ¨what´s my purpose?¨, meaning responds.
It responds not when we focus on ourselves first (¨filling yourself up¨) but on something bigger than us that becomes our purpose (¨empty yourself¨).

Bonus: A good way of finding your purposes is by leading a Tribe. Seth Godin knows about it, and he explains it beautifully.