{"id":52162,"date":"2018-07-26T15:28:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-26T15:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/?p=52162"},"modified":"2018-07-26T15:29:05","modified_gmt":"2018-07-26T15:29:05","slug":"the-temple-in-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/2018\/07\/26\/the-temple-in-the-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"The Temple in the Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Start with WHY<\/em>. If you\u2019ve kept current with leadership content on the web in the last decade then you might know that this is Simon Sinek\u2019s thing, making him famous after a 2009 TED talk that went viral<\/p>\n

The talk itself looks slightly retro if you watch it again now \u2013 looking like it was filmed on a smartphone, his only prop was an Office Depot flipchart and his mike failed half way through so a techie had to come to his rescue with another – it even had a lead!<\/p>\n

A tad old school, then, but the message was engaging and enduring. Start with your \u2018Why?\u2019 – understand your primary purpose and let that be your guiding light. His famous marketing example was Apple – they don\u2019t just tell people that they flog computers, they get people emotionally involved by telling them they want to CHANGE THE WORLD<\/em>! Computer flogging comes later.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a place in GTD\u00ae for thinking about your \u2018Why?\u2019, but first I wanted to share the unusual story of someone who didn\u2019t need GTD, yet whose life illustrates the value of having a life purpose.<\/p>\n

Sewdass Sadhu was born in 1901 in Benares, India. When he was still young his family migrated to the Caribbean island of Trinidad as indentured labourers, invited by the British to cut the sugar cane that sweetened cups of tea all across the Empire.<\/p>\n

Later in his life, Sewdass, a devout Hindu, became inspired by his pilgrimages back to India and decided to create a place of worship in Trinidad like those he\u2019d seen on the banks of the Ganges, so he started building a temple near his home, overlooking the sea.<\/p>\n

After several years his temple was complete but then it came to the attention of the dastardly Tate & Lyle sugar company who owned the land. They demanded he remove it, and when Sewdass refused he was thrown in jail for two weeks by the colonial authorities, who also demolished his temple for good measure, before he could get out.<\/p>\n

Was he deterred? Of course not. This wouldn\u2019t be much of an inspirational tale otherwise…<\/p>\n

Sewdass decided to build his temple in a place where they couldn\u2019t touch him. Realising that Britannia didn\u2019t literally<\/em> rule the waves, he set to building it in the sea <\/em>by collecting discarded bricks from a quarry a few miles away, carrying them in buckets on his bike handlebars, and piling them up on the shore.<\/p>\n

This crazy labour of love went on every day for the next 17 years<\/em> until – despite regular setbacks involving large waves – he\u2019d build a causeway 500 feet out into the sea with his temple on the end. He enjoyed his very well-earned twilight years there in peace until he died in 1971.<\/p>\n

Sewdass led a simple life. He didn\u2019t need GTD. His life purpose was praising his Gods – the Hindus have a few, after all – and he had a simple daily task. There was little complexity in between. He had a tough commute on his bike, to be fair, but he didn\u2019t have to juggle projects, meetings, emails and competing demands all day once he got to work. He didn\u2019t have to constantly figure out which activities mattered most to his strategic direction and prioritise them over others. He just picked up some bricks and started pedalling.<\/p>\n

For the rest of us, the GTD \u2018Horizons of Focus\u2019 model<\/a> helps to capture and track that 21st<\/sup> century complexity. It has a place to define your life purpose, for sure, at its highest horizon, but also more horizons to capture and track the multiple dimensions of modern life – the diverse personal and professional areas of focus, the medium term goals and the longer term vision.<\/p>\n

At a simple level you can use this model to focus and expand your thinking about where you\u2019re trying to get to and remind yourself regularly for course correction and perspective. You can also take a deeper dive into it by coming to our Level 2 Projects & Priorities seminar<\/a> \u2013 we\u2019d love to have you. Either way, it\u2019s important to be aware of higher levels of perspective than just the daily slog, and especially that driving purpose. Getting out of bed every day to face the commute, the emails, the stress and the sacrifice demands it. It\u2019s not brick-carrying but it\u2019s bloody hard work.<\/p>\n

Sewdass Sadhu had his life purpose. What\u2019s yours? What gets you onto your bike every day and keeps you pedalling?<\/p>\n

(To see the actual Temple in the Sea, check out this short YouTube video<\/a>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Start with WHY. If you\u2019ve kept current with leadership content on the web in the last decade then you might know that this is Simon Sinek\u2019s thing, making him famous after a 2009 TED talk that went viral The talk itself looks slightly retro if you watch it again now \u2013 looking like it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":52163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_eb_attr":"","gtp_columnspro_styling":"{}","gtp_paragraph_styling":"{}","gtp_heading_styling":"{}","gtp_spacer_styling":"{}","gtp_video_styling":"{}","gtp_group_styling":"{}","gtp_cover_styling":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[313,319,300,323,312],"tags":[36,1068,3095,139,53,212,80],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52162"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.next-action.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=52162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}