ISSUE No. 12
Purpose Series · Part 3 of 3
I asked ten people this week how they were doing. Five of them said the same word. Busy.
Not "good." Not "tired." Busy, like it was the whole answer and there was nothing more specific underneath it worth naming.
T.S. Eliot wrote a line decades ago that still nails it: people distracted from distraction by distraction. Busy isn't always a full schedule. Sometimes it's a way of staying in motion so nothing catches up to you.
I understand that instinct better than I'd like to admit. For a long time, "busy" was my answer too, and it usually meant I hadn't stopped long enough to know what the real answer was.
Here's the confession related to this issue: I write. I process things on paper before I ever say them out loud. It's how I get steady enough to lead my girls, my team, anyone who needs something real from me. For a long time I treated that like a guilty habit, something to fit in only after everything else was handled, because it felt like it was about me, and leadership was supposed to be about everyone else.
I had that backwards.
When I say leader here, I don't just mean the person with the title. The most demanding leadership job most people will ever hold isn't in an office. It's the mom running a house on four hours of sleep. It's the dad showing up steady after a rough day at work because someone smaller is watching how he handles it. If this issue only spoke to people with a business card, it would be missing most of the actual leaders doing the hardest version of this work.
Purpose isn't about me. My root isn't for me either. It's for my girls, for the people I lead, for the years I've still got left to give. But even that root needs care. If nothing goes into it, nothing good comes out of it. It might look strong for a while. It's just living off what it already had stored. Eventually it runs dry and the people around us feel it before we do.
Self-care isn't the opposite of purpose. It's what keeps purpose going.
There's actual research behind this, not just a metaphor. Psychologist Stevan Hobfoll built something called Conservation of Resources theory, and one of its core findings is straightforward: people burn out not simply from giving, but from giving without ever replenishing what they spent. The cycle only holds if what gets used gets refilled. Break that cycle long enough, and it's not just you who feels it. Everyone depending on you does too.
This is the part that leadership culture gets quietly wrong. We praise the one who never stops, who's always available, who pours out constantly and calls it dedication. But nobody's asking what they're pouring back in. A person who never refills isn't generous. They're running on what's left, and what's left eventually isn't much. The people counting on you don't need you busy. They need you rooted, which means you need to feed your roots.
I'm not talking about disappearing from your responsibilities. I'm talking about the ten minutes of writing, walking, praying, sitting, whatever actually gets you back to yourself, that most of us quietly cut first when the week gets tight, as if it were the least important thing on the list. It's usually the most important thing on the list. It's just the only one nobody's checking on but you.
And it's not only the ten minutes. It's the day off that's actually off. Phone down, calendar closed, no half-checking-in to prove you're still dedicated. If you're at the gym, be at the gym. If you're playing pickleball, play pickleball. If you're at dinner with your family, be at dinner with your family, not halfway back at the office in your head. Most of us are terrible at this. We take the day, but we never really leave, so we come back just as tired as when we left. A day off that isn't actually off doesn't refill anything. And if nothing gets refilled, nothing grows. The cost isn't the day. It's whatever you needed that day to give you, and never got.
You're the one thing everything else runs through. Feed it, or watch everything downstream of you match what you're putting in.
THIS WEEK'S FIELD TOOL
Ask yourself one question: how am I pouring into my root right now?
Write the honest answer down. If the answer is nothing, that's not a failure. It's just information.
Pick one small thing to pour in this week, and do it. Don't announce it. Don't explain it.
Notice what's different in you the next time someone needs you.
— Jason