What's the point? The answer lies within your capacity to listen, learn, and grow as a principled and pragmatic leader

What’s the Point? - In Sustainability, Politics, Entrepreneurship, Parenting, and Life? The answer lies within your capacity to listen, learn, and grow as a pragmatic and principled leader.

What’s the point? You may find yourself asking this question from time to time. In the current and chaotic geopolitical and economic environment, this question seems to just roll off the tongue, and leave a lot of hands flailing about in the sky, a wee bit too easily.

Really, what is the point, of anything? Sustainability, entrepreneurship, business ownership, personal growth and development, science, education, family and relationships, or this intricate and beautiful journey we call life?

Although it comes across as flippant in the moment, What’s the point? is a very real and much more consequential question than we realize. Within the business, government, research, and entrepreneurial endeavors I am involved with, many people are increasingly asking…

• Is Sustainability Dead? – What’s the point? of corporate ESG, climate resilience for infrastructure, the pursuit of decarbonization, constructing circular economies, or creating end-to-end sustainable supply chains?

  
  

• Is Capital Inherently Evil? – What’s the point? of money and investing when trillions in assets and liquidity are sidelined or intentionally funneled to unsustainable, inequitable, harmful, or outright destructive endeavors? Do you feel like your pushing two tons of gold bullion, uphill, during an epic rainfall event?   

  
  

• Is Democracy Even Real Anymore? – What’s the point? when attention seeking noisemakers and ego-laden demagogues seed misinformation, fuel fear, and manifest distrust  among the populous by incessantly beating the drum of rigged and stolen elections and placing blame on all others? Is the underlying foundation of democracy eroding under the weight of their egos, arrogance, and indifference? Or can and will the populous rediscover its stake in the grand experiment and redeploy an ethos of “common sense for the common good” with pragmatic and principled civic action?

  
  

• Should I Even Have Children and a Family? – What’s the point? For a diversity of reasons human fertility rates are declining around the world. Increased fear, anxiety, and concern over global conflict, climate crisis, economic instability, unsocial media, the rapid ascent of unregulated technologies, social and political ideological warfare, and asymmetric risks from all corners have more and more people questioning their moral conviction to bear children and raise a family.   

  
  

• Is Prosperity Worth Chasing? – What’s the point? when being a consumer and a citizen has been relegated to being controlled by big business, big government, and a billionaire-technocratic elite that have lost touch with reality? Pay the tax, absorb the tariff, and roll the dice on an inflationary environment, and everything will be okay! Right? Not really. With the cost of housing, food, clothing, and all discretionary goods skyrocketing, a vast majority of consumers are feeling the pinch. Today, the majority of Americans feel estranged from attaining the mythical ‘American Dream.’ We are entering an era of redefining prosperity based upon a new calculous of what’s important, of value, and essentially – “what is the point?” when it comes to quality of life, well-being, physical safety, and economic security. Are we entering an era where reason, logic, ancient wisdom, and pragmatism will re-emerge so that humanity can prioritize and optimize it use of planetary resources for the common good?

If any of these big questions resonate with you, or if you find that you’re asking what’s the point? on other pressing concerns, then it is time to reframe, redirect, and reengage your thoughts and actions to productively realign with your core values and the principles that guide your spirit, heart, and mind as a unified force.

Your personal “why,” that is, what fundamentally motivates your sense of directed purpose, is likely to change over time. Revisit the values, beliefs, spiritual, and moral convictions that feed your energy and drive your passion, intention, and behavior. When your mind is aligned with the encoded principles of your true self, the question “What’s the point?” becomes a lens to rediscovering your strength, courage, and grit to continue.

What is the point?

Get to the Root Cause – Hint, you need to look deep into your Source Code

I’m willing to bet that at some point of your career journey, or your pursuit of education and training, or within your personal relationships, the question, what is the point?, hit you like a powerful and unrelenting uppercut from Mike Tyson. Feeling dizzied and disoriented with your emotions running rampant and your arms flailing about, you may have even bellowed the words aloud for the Universe and for all to hear. What is the point? I can’t help but think about Charlie Brown indifferently saying his famous line, “Good Grief!”

Typically, the question arises out of a feeling of frustration, self-doubt, indifference, insecurity, or even (self) defeat. In my experience, the question also stems from ignorance, apathy, laziness, imposter syndrome, and low self-esteem. It is important to address and not passively dismiss the question, what’s the point? Should the question creep up in your mind (or more broadly within your organization), take the necessary time to understand its origins, and so that you may refocus your (or your team’s) attention productively. For in the self or organizational evaluation of the question, you are likely to reveal a deeper need (to be addressed) or understanding (to be acknowledged or reinforced) that can lead to greater personal (and organizational) grit and resilience.  

It’s advised to sit and reflect on the question and determine the root of why it is being asked. In most cases, the answers may surprise you. The question, what’s the point, is typically grounded in a visceral reaction or and external trigger, force or outcome that ignited the feeling to escalate. The external force is a symptom, but not always the underlying root cause for the question or the feeling. Rather, as one dives deeper into the anatomy of the question and associated feelings, more substantive and objective indicators are revealed.

For example, a frustrated social entrepreneur may feel discouraged that their enterprise has yet to attract the necessary capital for it to successfully launch and grow. The entrepreneur may feel, after months of disciplined investor meetings and product refinements, that they just are not having the financial or social impact they set out to achieve. Irritated, the entrepreneur may want to throw their hands up in frustration and shout aloud, what’s the point? Sound familiar? I certainly have been there too many times. But when one digs beneath the reaction and filters our the internal judgement and noise, one begins to understand that deeper feelings, often repressed feelings, are running the subconscious mind, and subsequently, daily decisions and behaviors.

Recently a colleague asked me why I write books and even went as far to ask, what’s the point? They said, “I mean with AI, data automation, digital libraries, and even online education, haven’t books – or the need to write them – become obsolete.”

I thought about the person asking the question, and then took my time to consider the merits of question some more. Truthfully, I have asked myself this question many times. Two weeks ago, I published my fourth book, Planet Pragmatism: The New Path to Prosperity. I’m incredibly proud of this latest book, as I am of my prior three books, each investigating sustainability and the promise of a better future through different lenses including personal accountability, the subject of trust, the underlying requirement for dignity when we talk about sustainability and respect for the human condition, and most recently, the need to redefine prosperity through a philosophy of planet pragmatism.

With four books published and you’d think I have a really snappy response for my colleague’s honest question. The reality is that each book is encoded by something deep within my soul, my being, and my mind (or spirit, heart, and mind) that wants to reveal itself. Call it my source code, a guiding light for my spirit and life, a promise for a better future, but not a guarantee of one. That is, unless I work really hard every day to bring those principles and values to life in all that I am and do. That is really hard work. Sometimes it manifests into a book – but I am always cognizant of the code that is running, and self-evaluating how to harness its full potential.

I don’t feel the need to defend book writing, encapsulating and sharing knowledge, or opening myself up to collegial review and constructive criticism. In my mind, all of this is the point and part of a process to continually challenge my principles, values, beliefs, assumptions and views on myself, and the world. We grow not by scrolling and liking, or by taking what a curated AI data-engine tells us as truth. We grow by being vulnerable, open to unmasking the source code that represents our hopes, desires, and dreams. And we lead when we empower, not discourage, others to poignantly pursue the trepid question, what’s the point?

What's comprises your personal Source Code aligning your spirit, heart, and mind?

Proactively Protect Your Source Code

When we truthfully reveal the underlying operating code of our mind (i.e., that which operates our spirit, heart, and mind operating systems in synch), we may discover that some of it is “bad code” that has become corrupted and needs to be rewritten. When we isolate the bad code and reoptimize our operating system – we can move forward with greater clarity, stronger conviction, and a more calm and confident demeanor. Success will follow. But it won’t be the success that was conceived by your ill-equipped mind and poorly coded operating system. Rather, the newfound success you will manifest will be pure, purposeful, and fully aligned with your principles.  

So where does the “bad code” that seeps into our brains, disrupts our (spirit, heart, and mind) operating systems, and sabotages our entrepreneurial dreams and lives come from? Well, it is stimulated, fed, and reinforced by all of those external influences in our lives since birth – from the birthing surgery room, to the first playroom, the first steps at the playground, to the first tests in the classroom, to those tough presentations and decisions in the boardroom, and even in those difficult moments when there is no one in the room except for you. Essentially, every person that has ever challenged your ego takes up space in your mind on what I will call the “carousel of opinion and judgement.” Whether we like it or not, more often than not this carousel encircles our daily behaviors and influences all of those spinning thoughts that can leave one feeling confused, or worse, incapacitated to act in an unobstructed and principled way.  

Every soul that has interacted with you – your father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, former teacher or coach, neighbor, random guy in the parking lot of the grocery store, annoying kid on the bus in fifth grade, bully at the track meet in nineth grade, dude that had a fit of road rage, former girlfriend, former husband, the financial planner that said your underprepared, your therapist, and even your spiritual guide – the list of events, people, opinions, and negative inputs that feed into your thought process on the daily is enormous. A vast majority of these influences are free riders of the “carousel of opinion and judgement.” They occupy precious space in your mind because you have not properly filtered them out and put them into the recycle bin. Make no mistake, those thoughts that ride the carousel are not the source code that defines your being. Rather, these external threats have accumulated in your memory cache, infected your code causing it to be corrupted, much like malware on a computer system.         

To adequately address the question, what’s the point?, one must be willing to filter through the welcomed riders and unwelcomed free riders on the carousel of opinion and judgement. I am willing to wager, that you have many great influences, experiences, and people with positive thoughts, attitudes, and judgements about you. Your mind, thoughts, and behaviors have and continually be shaped by this data pool of opinion, often which reinforces your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors as well. Just as it is important to recycle or delete the bad, you must be open to self-evaluate and occasionally filter out the good if you are to delve deeper into the source code that drives your soul, your ambition, and your truest sense of self and purpose.

I believe we all have this, and that our joy is stimulated the most when we are aligned with it. Some experiences and people will mirror our source code, evoking joy. But being human means that we will also have a great deal of negative intrusions that come in and out of our life, threatening to corrupt our source code, and lead to our misalignment of principles and values, or worse, result in a total system shut down.

What free riders are wreaking havoc within your Carousel of Opinion and Judgement?

Listen, Learn, Grow – Ultimately, Lead

The question, what’s the point? is not an esoteric or transcendental question. It is also not something that when it creeps up that you or your organization should take lightly, outright ignore, or swiftly sweep under the rug. The question originates from your source code, beckoning to be seen in the moment and calibrated so that you can navigate what comes next. The question is your source code asking for immediate attention – not to wallow in the “what if,” but to seek truth within what you already know to be true.

In our high speed tech driven and ego-focused world defined by talk first and louder, accumulate likes, and curate success at all cost that we are living in, it seems that fewer people are taking the necessary time to pause, reflect, listen and learn. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve attempted to offer a logical response to a social media post, only to have that response quickly denigrated by transactional noisemakers that only want their position to prevail. It always leaves me asking, what’s the point? Why post or try to create a conversation at all? Our psyches are not built for a continuous and unfiltered carousel of opinion and judgement. Unfortunately, many people don’t have the necessary tools or skills to protect their source code. Every mindless scroll, vacant voice of opinion, and previous ghost riding the carousel influence our subconscious sense of self.    

Unfortunately, for all of the good the advancement of technology has had for society, it has also provoked a dark side of human behavior, magnifying the ignorant, fickle, and overly boisterous noisemakers that infiltrate our thoughts and hijack the free-flow of the mind’s carousel into an incessant rhythm of self-doubt and subterfuge from seeking one’s truth.

To grow, we must tap into our source code, that is the underlying principles that define who we are and reframe and catalyze our why. To lead, we must relearn how to listen (not react) to the world around us. And to learn it is necessary to proactively weed out good and bad intrusions that impact our capacity to align our source code with from the overly judgmental, biased, and corrupted inner voices and beliefs that have accumulated and which unconsciously (and consciously) guide our (in)decisions.    

We need Pragmatic & Principled Leaders More than Ever

You are not alone. At some point the question, what's the point, collides with one's career and life journey. In this unpredictable, uncertain, and unforgiving global environment, lean into the question, what’s the point? The process and the answer will surprise you. You have greater insight, capacity, and capability than you are likely to give yourself credit for.

Rediscover your source code and allow your spirit, heart, and mind the opportunity to realign so that the principles that illuminate your soul can once again allow your true self to shine. For you are, as you always have been, a beacon of light, truth, understanding, and the promise of a better future.

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