115. Pursue Purpose Patiently

Hey Friend,

Have you ever paused to think about how patience intertwines with our pursuit of purpose? This week, I'm excited to share a personal story that beautifully illustrates this connection—the inspiring journey of my brother, from a toddler imitating drummers on a church pew to becoming a skilled musician and producer.

In this episode titled "Pursue Purpose Patiently," we explore the essential role of gradual growth and persistent practice. It's about appreciating each step, no matter how small, on the path to achieving our dreams. This isn’t just a story about musical success; it's a broader lesson on the power of embracing each phase of our personal and professional growth.

Join me as I reflect on my own evolution from teaching Sunday school to family members to hosting a radio show. These moments, though seemingly minor, are the building blocks of our purpose. We’ll discuss how honoring your own pace, avoiding comparisons, and valuing each season of life can reveal unexpected opportunities and hidden treasures.

Let's embrace our uniqueness and allow our purpose to unfold naturally, always remembering that you are powerful, significant, and loved. Your journey is uniquely yours—let’s celebrate it together!

Love Always,

PBJ

P.S. Join us for the FREE WEBINAR: Disrupting Burnout in your Team.  Get registered today at https://disruptingburnout.team 

Chapters

• 0:00 Pursuing Purpose Patiently
• 11:34 Uncovering Purpose Through Patience
• 22:59 Embracing the Journey of Purpose

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Friend, after all of that hoopla and excitement from last weekend, your girl has been down for the count, but that's okay, we're getting better. But also, it's given me some time to really think about some things that I want to share with you today. I want to talk to you about pursuing purpose patiently. To talk to you about pursuing purpose patiently. Hey, if you're new here, I'm Dr Patrice Buckner Jackson, but you can call me PBJ, and this is the Disrupting Burnout Podcast, where we give you the strategies for pouring out purpose without living with burnout. You ready for this? Let's get started, friends. All right, friend, listen, your girl has been down for the count, but we're feeling better. We're getting our energy back, our voices back, for the most part. So if there's some little cracks or whatever this week, just show me a little grace. But I am feeling so much, so much better and it was just an opportunity for my body to rest, honestly, to rest and recover. So we're good. But listen, you know, as I'm sitting, I'm thinking about you and I'm thinking about this conversation we have every week, and I thought about episode 114 last week and how I discussed with you the experience of honoring the moment, and I thought about all the things that led up to that moment, and not just for me, but I started thinking about other people that I know. So today I want to talk to you about my brother. I haven't shared with you all much about my brother, my little brother, my big little brother, I guess, because he's bigger than me, taller than me, but my brother is two years younger than me, so of course, I was a baby when he was born, so we basically grown up together. I've spent the most time with him and as I thought about moments that lead up to moments like I shared with you last week, I thought about him and how I had the opportunity to watch his brilliance purpose, to watch his purpose evolve and come forward. My brother is a musician. He is a producer of music. A musician, he is a producer of music. He is marvelous with his hands, from working on cars to playing instruments. He is gifted with his hands and I thought about as a baby.

Speaker 1: 2:59

I remember my brother being just big enough to sit on a church pew without somebody holding him, and I remember watching him as he watched the drummer like he would sit there and he would watch the drummer and as he had his eyes locked on the drummer in church. His little fingers would be trying to do what the drummer was doing. He had no drumsticks, he had no drum set at that point. He was just sitting on the pew between me and my mom, but his little fingers were his drumsticks and the church pew was his drum set and he watched that drummer and he would mimic what that drummer was doing and if you looked at his little face you couldn't tell him that he was not playing on a full drum set. Well, I remember when my brother graduated from college beating on the church pew to sitting beside the drummer. He didn't go straight from the cradle to a drum set. He went from sitting beside my mom playing drums with his little fingers on the pew and not to mention her pots and pans at home, but he went from that to sitting beside the drummer. But he went from that to sitting beside the drummer and as he sat, first of all, what a position of honor for him. He had watched that musician so long and to be big enough and mature enough he had to be about four or five at this time, but to be big enough to sit with the musicians and he would still watch everything the musician did and he would mimic it on his little chair. He would have a little folding chair right beside the drummer, and whatever the drummer did, he would do as well. And not to mention that our dad is a drummer as well. So he watched his dad play drums. Whoever the drummer was, he wanted to sit beside the drummer, and he would sit beside the drummer and drum on his little chair while the drummer was playing music. And before you knew it, by the time he was probably I don't know seven or eight, maybe younger he was the drummer and he was sitting on that drum set as soon as his little legs were long enough to touch that bass pedal and I don't even know if they were long enough or not, I mean, when he first started, we could barely see him behind the drum set, but he was playing what he had practiced all of those years before, even before he was tall enough to handle the drum set.

Speaker 1: 5:48

Hey friend, if you are a leader of a team and you are witnessing increased turnover, absenteeism and even cynicism among your faculty and your staff members, if you know that your team is struggling with burnout, I want to invite you to a special webinar just for you. This is for the leaders. I want to give you some strategies for your team, not just for yourself. We're doing this on Wednesday, july 10th, at 12 noon, eastern Listen. This is a lunch and learn. You bring your own lunch, but I'm bringing new research. I'm telling you why the surface solutions fall short. I'm giving you the innovative strategies to tackle burnout beyond the conventional methods. Friend, we're going to restore purpose and productivity within your team. If you know you need this, go to disruptingburnoutteam. Again, it's in the show notes disruptingburnoutteam. Get signed up for the free webinar. I want to help you, help your people. Meet me there.

Speaker 1: 7:01

So he went from playing drums in church to playing drums in his middle school band, playing drums in his high school band, not to mention all of the tinkering with cars and different things that he has done throughout his life. But it didn't stop there. Sometime in his young adulthood, my brother decided well, if I can play drums, then I can play bass guitar. So he started playing bass guitar. If I can play bass guitar, then I can play a keyboard. So he started playing keyboard and on top of that, he learned how to mix and produce music. Here's what I'm trying to tell you His purpose was never drummer. That is a passion. Remember. The purpose is the who, who you are. The passions are the ways that you express that. Who in the earth he expressed that who? Not just through being a phenomenal drummer, not just through expressing himself through building and creating cars. I don't know how him and my daddy do that, but they can take scraps and build a car that actually works. But he continues to express this purpose through playing bass guitar, through playing the keyboard, through mixing and producing music.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Here's what I understand concerning my brother's brilliance, his purpose. He is a manipulator of sound, sound. My brother can use sound to create an atmosphere, to create emotions. He is gifted with his hands. He is gifted with his hands, but his purpose is creation. He can create sound, he can create a song. He can mix and produce something that just sounds like noise and make it into something beautiful. He does the same thing when he is building cars from scraps. He can use his hands to take all of these different pieces, put them together and make it a masterpiece.

Speaker 1: 9:26

He's an artist. He's an artist, and so I need you to understand that this purpose didn't come forth as a two-year-old who was using his little fingers to play drums on a church pew. It didn't come forth just as playing with mama's pots and pans. It didn't just come to this climax as he moved to the actual drum set. It wasn't all of his purpose when he was leading the drum line for middle school and high school bands. It didn't just end the day. He decided I'm going to play the bass now, or I'm going to play the keyboard now, or I'm going to start mixing and producing music. And it doesn't stop now. Even in his business now he doesn't just mix and produce music, but he creates systems for churches and other organizations. So if you don't have audio or visual equipment, I'm sure I'm not saying this right, but he will go into a space and he will create a system where people can have an audio and visual experience in that space. So, whether it's the sound, whether it's the screens or all of it, he has a family business where he goes in to build these components or build a system with all of these components for a building or an organization.

Speaker 1: 11:00

He is a creator, he's an artist. He can bring pieces together to create a masterpiece and that's what he will continue to do. His purpose is still evolving. He hasn't arrived. There's still more that he will accomplish. There's still more for him to do. But, friend, you must pursue purpose patiently, because every step matters. Every step matters.

Speaker 1: 11:34

Last week, I was sharing with you all I'm going to slow down so I can keep my voice. All right, let's try this again. Last week, I was sharing with you all how receiving that award on an international stage and we were in Atlanta but there were people from the UK and Canada and other countries there but receiving that award on an international stage didn't start with a stage. It didn't start with a fancy microphone. It didn't start with do you want a handheld microphone or do you want a lapel microphone. It didn't start with webinars or podcasts.

Speaker 1: 12:22

It started with teaching Sunday school to my brother and my sister. It started with my mom saying you read the lesson and you teach it to them. Oh, and now that you're teaching them at home, I want you to come and I want you to teach that lesson at the church. It doesn't matter if there's two people, you teach it like it's 10,000. Doesn't matter if it's only one other person, you still teach it like the church is full. And it continued to evolve into.

Speaker 1: 12:55

I told you, when I was 12 years old I gave my first you can call it a speech, a message, whatever you want to call it in church and it was about the fruit of the spirit called temperance and I remember my uncle coaching me through it because I was so nervous. But I was 12 years old and it was a church full of people and it was my first church, I guess, official message, speech, whatever you want to call it and from there it continued to evolve and it wasn't even just steady oh, you're a speaker now. It wasn't even like that. I just kept doing the next thing that I was supposed to do, whatever I was called upon to do at church, whatever I was called upon to do at school. And I'll be honest, at that point I didn't even see myself as a speaker.

Speaker 1: 13:47

At that point I had trouble reading aloud in class without stuttering. I didn't even want a teacher to call on me because I hated reading out loud. I did not see what I'm walking in today, even though there were people who spoke over my life to say, hey, you're going to speak to thousands, you're going to speak to tens of thousands or you're going to be called to the nations. You're going to speak all over the world. I was like, okay, I hear you, friend, but I'm not trying to do that. That sounds good, but I'm not trying to do that Like that sounds good, but I'm not trying to do that. I couldn't see it. I didn't see it coming forth, I didn't see it happening. But I kept taking one step in front of the other and I honestly don't really remember the time where I started to fall in love with speaking. But I can tell you it just started coming up through my work, naturally.

Speaker 1: 14:47

So, working in higher education, we have orientation sessions where we're welcoming new students or when we're speaking to the parents. We have training sessions where we're training our student leaders, different groups of student leaders. We have professional development that we do for our teams, where we are preparing our colleagues and our peers to do different things, and I just found myself being called on, and sometimes volunteering, to do that work and I found that I loved it. I love thinking about how to share a concept with people in a way that's so clear that they can understand it, where it doesn't have to be technical and complicated. I enjoyed engaging an audience in a way that people felt like we were just talking one-on-one and it was just me and them in a room. I enjoyed being there in a room full of energy, with people who are excited, or even with people who don't even want to be there, and I enjoyed the opportunity to engage them to the place where, when they walked in, they could care less and when they leave, they're excited. And I found myself being called on more and more to do that. But I just thought, oh, this is just my job, this is what I do.

Speaker 1: 16:11

And while that was happening in my job, it was also happening outside of work, in church and in our community. More and more people began to call on me. Even when I think about it, at one point, y'all, I had a whole radio show. I wasn't even thinking, it wasn't even a thought in my head. Like girl, you, a speaker, like you, I wasn't even thinking I had a whole radio show. I don't even remember. I'm trying to think of how that came forward. I think what happened is I spoke in a church and the radio personality was in the audience and after I spoke in that church, she offered me an opportunity to have my own show on a local radio station, and I don't remember how long I did it maybe a year or so but I had my own radio show where I was teaching Bible study lessons on a local radio station. All of this was happening, but I was not connecting the dots. I wasn't seeing it as oh, it's because I'm a speaker. I was just doing what felt right to my heart.

Speaker 1: 17:25

We live in a day and an age where we feel driven to accomplish the thing so quickly and we feel like purpose is a destination and we're so driven to get to this particular place. I see it in my future, I see it happening for me, so I'm going to drive myself to get there. But, friend, I'm here to tell you the journey is where the treasure is. You must pursue purpose patiently. When you fast forward yourself to get to a certain place, you really miss the lessons, the ideas, the conditioning, the practice. Everything that you need in order to sustain the place that you're going is going to be found in the journey.

Speaker 1: 18:21

I appreciate when I speak to younger professionals today. So Generation Z, younger professionals today. So Generation Z, holler, if you hear me, I love talking to y'all because you are not pursuing professionalism to your own detriment. You all have seen what work has done to us who have come before you, and you've decided that you're not going to allow work to be your driving force to the detriment of your own health. But at the same time, I also see this competition where you feel like you have to have a certain level of living or life in order to be successful, where you are so exposed through social media to other people's vacations and their homes and their cars and their lives that you feel pushed or driven that you must have those things in order to be successful. And I'm here to tell you, in pursuit of success, you can miss the treasure, you can miss the journey, you can miss the pieces that are most significant.

Speaker 1: 19:36

I was speaking to my friend, christelle, this week and I was telling her how, even in the midst of everything God is doing in my life and I'm so grateful and it's so phenomenal I'm here to tell you that the most powerful moments that I've had speaking, I believe and I still feel happened in a small church in Portal, with about 20 people in the room, maybe less. Some of the most powerful moments where I felt like God was using me has manifested in a room of 15, 20 people, sometimes five people, if it was like a Saturday morning prayer. And now I'm standing before hundreds, sometimes thousands, and it's wonderful and it's beautiful. But I'm like man, y'all ain't seen nothing yet. Because I've been training for this, I've been conditioned for this, I've been in the wilderness, I've been in the obscure. I'm still in a place where not a lot of people know me, and I'm good with that, even if my name is never far known. I don't need you to know my name, I just need you to hear what's coming out of me. That's going to help you, right. So I want to encourage you to pursue purpose patiently, allow and honor your journey.

Speaker 1: 21:08

I went from speaking in church to my little radio show, to you know, being called to speak outside of my church, to speaking more at work, to after hitting burnout. I was encouraged to come and speak with an international leadership agency, from there to creating my own business and my own podcast, to doing what you see now. But this didn't just pop up overnight, it didn't just happen, it didn't just come out of nowhere. But I'm here to tell you that the journey led me here and I'm still on the journey. Friend, I'm not done yet. I haven't arrived.

Speaker 1: 21:59

There's so much more, and not in this pursuit of empty success. But I always want to. I've told you this before, but my goal in life is to die empty. When it's my time to close my eyes and go see Jesus, I want to be able to say Lord, I did it all. Everything that you assigned to my life, everything that you gave me to pour out into the earth, I poured it all out. I left it all on the table. I put it all out there. I don't want to go to heaven full, I want to go to heaven empty. That's my goal. So it's not empty success that I'm pursuing. It is well done that I'm pursuing. I long to hear him say well done, pursue, purpose patiently.

Speaker 1: 22:59

Friend, your journey is not just necessary, but it's full of treasure and everything in that journey you need. So breathe, allow yourself to walk, change your pace, get out of the grind, get out of the hustle, step out of comparison, allow yourself to honor your own journey and before you know it, you're going to find yourself in a place and space that you couldn't even imagine. It's going to be exceedingly, abundantly above all that you could ask or think. But it's because you honored one step at a time. All right, friend, I'm going to let you go because this voice is still recovering, but I had to come and share this with you today.

Speaker 1: 23:52

All right, as always, you are powerful, you are significant and you are loved. Friend, you are brilliant, you are full of purpose. Allow purpose to evolve. Honor the season you are in and know that there is no empty season. Nothing will be wasted, nothing will be lost, but all of it is necessary for you to pour out the brilliance that was created in you. As always, friend, you are loved. You are brilliant. Love always, pbj. Thanks for watching.