Signals From Your Primal Core

“At your birth a seed is planted. That seed is your uniqueness. It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential. It has a natural, assertive energy to it. Your Life’s Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work. You have a destiny to fulfill. The stronger you feel and maintain it—as a force, a voice, or in whatever form—the greater your chance for fulfilling his Life’s Task and achieving mastery.” — Robert Greene,?Mastery

Today I found unexpected inspiration during a coaching call, in which my coach brought up the concept of a Life Task.?

This is neither a new concept nor idea.? But it’s very elegantly articulated by author Robert Greene, in his book — Mastery.

He asserts that — to do the best work of our lives, we should search for "signals in our primal core".

And where do these signals come from?? From our early childhood — when we would do things largely uninfluenced by notions of what is good or bad, socially acceptable or now, and how profitable the work would be.

As I thought about my childhood, a string of activities came flooding into my mind…

• I remember using Lego blocks to build functional things — like a stationary holder, a toolbox, a bookstand, a photo frame, and more.
• I recall coding in middle school... before programming earned any mainstream interest.? I built (in the days of local area networks) a piece of software that resembled Wordpress; and hosted a BBS pre-Internet.
• I used to spend hours in stationery shops, examining stationery design, and thinking of how to create better writing tools and other stationery.

After I described these activities and more, my coach summed it up for me…

You enjoy building something useful. ?

And indeed.? It resonated.? I enjoy building useful things.? I enjoyed building novel things, and toying with new ideas.

And that was it.?

It's fascinating to reflect on how I've lived my entire life thus far — knowing this inwardly… as Robert Greene said, in my primal core… But never really expressed my love in the form of these three words — “building something useful”.

I've known it.? I've lived by it.? But I've never synthesized it in this manner.? And today’s exercise was incredibly clarifying for me.?

I spent some time this evening, listing all the ‘signals from my primal core’…

... All the things I enjoyed doing.? And I didn’t restrict the list to activities in my childhood.? I looked at what activities I was naturally drawn to — during my two-year sabbatical in relative seclusion in Australia.

I now have a list that includes things like — going on expeditions, on a mission to a new land, and a new environment to accomplish something.? I enjoy working on a crisis.? I enjoy being in an environment of absolute chaos and disorder, and I enjoy bringing order to them.?

So today’s work — is coming up with that list.? And tomorrow — Part Two — I examine that list to determine what might be… my Life Task.