Identifying Purpose For Improved Well-being

Victoria:

Welcome to an Agency Health Works podcast. And today we are joined by Dan Deeble and Dan I’m so excited to have you. As soon as I had talked to you, or the first time we interacted through a company exercise, I knew I wanted to have you on today. So, first I’d like to just speak a little bit about your background that I read and then please jump in and correct me if I got anything wrong. The reason I want to talk about it a little bit is because I really feel that your background is so varied and unique and has so many elements to it that I just felt that what we will talk about today, you have so many perspectives on it. So I know right now, and the way we met is that you are currently the owner of Loss Ball Consulting and that a big bulk of what you do is where you’re finding opportunities and key moments to teach people about communication and ways to lead themselves and improve their life in the workplace and also in their home and out in their community.

Victoria:

And I also saw that you had some background in working in sports marketing, which I think anything with sports has a teamwork element and people can relate to that and also deal with the ups and downs of that. So I thought you would have a unique perspective there. I also was fascinated to see that you had almost 20 years as a background being a lead pastor. And I know in that particular capacity, that one, you’re a great communicator, but also, you’re dealing with a different culture where you’ve got honesty, honor. And it’s also a nonprofit. It’s about people giving of themselves on weekends out in the community. And I loved that aspect. And then the final thing that fascinated me, which I had mentioned to you previously, is that you also had a background in doing work with McDonald’s. And I have always felt that when folks have been involved in food and beverage, they really see the whole world, they learn about people. So welcome. Thank you for coming. And I can’t wait to pick your brain today.

Dan:

Oh, Victoria, what a pleasure to be with you and love what you all do at HMC. And this has been so fun to work with your team. So thanks for this opportunity.

Victoria:

Yeah. Thanks for coming. So, one thing you mentioned about working with HMC Agency, one of the things we focus on, which makes us different than a lot of companies that deal in wellness and disease management and behavioral health is we like to connect them all. We really have focused on for many years, way before it became sort of popular in the healthcare industry. We have focused on the body and mind connection, and we kind of have the same, which is checkup from the neck up. And I really feel like that until people’s mental health and their state of mind is positive or on the road to wellness that the body will follow once that happens. They’re so connected. So would love to start with you today about asking a little bit about purpose, because I feel like mental health wise purpose plays a big role in how we’re feeling about ourselves and how we can get there. So just was wondering if we could start in that area?

Dan:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that integration is just fascinating, isn’t it? How our minds and bodies all kind of go together. And if one part feels off, the other part is both responds, but also is impacted. And purpose is one of those things that really is kind of squishy. It’s one of those, how do I know if I have it? What really is it? It’s not this concrete, tangible thing and yet, wow, your body can demonstrate if you have it, your sleep patterns can demonstrate if you have it, your stress level can demonstrate, your boss can oftentimes tell whether you have it, your significant other. And so it is such this powerful thing that yet can kind of be a little squirrely to nail down in terms of what really is it.

Victoria:

Yeah, definitely. I think you really put the right emphasis where you’re saying it’s not so concrete because it is, like you said, it’s different for each person. So I think I would just start off asking you in your mind, how do you define purpose?

Dan:

Well, I love this quote from Dr. Strecker, Vic Strecker, he’s kind of one of the fathers of research. And let me just say, there’s tons of research out here. Harvard Business Review, University of Michigan. I mean, there’s really a wealth of information. So Dr. Strecker, he would just simply put it this way, “Applying your best self to what matters most. Applying your best self to what matters most.” There was a white point paper, a research paper from the Templeton Foundation and they said, “Here’s what we’ve discovered in our research on purpose. It really needs to include three things. It needs to be goal oriented. You know what you’re striving for. It needs to have meaning and now, it needs to be meaningful to you, but then here’s the third piece, it has to extend beyond you.

Dan:

So do you have to be goal oriented about it? It has to offer this sense of meaning of fulfillment, but it can’t be about you at the end of the day. If it is about you, then you’ll end up being self-absorbed and no one will like you, no one will want to be on your team. Right. But if it’s transcendent of you, then all of a sudden that opens up something that I like to say will get you up in the morning and sometimes keep you up at night because it anchors you, fires you up. You can’t not go do it.

Victoria:

Well, that is the goal that we all want to reach. So, I’m also wondering what does purpose look like when someone has it? I know that’s a big question, but I’m just thinking if you’ve had any personal examples or experiences or people that come to mind when I ask that question? I would love you to share it with us.

Dan:

Yeah. And the stories, when you start looking for it, the stories are everywhere. I have a friend, Nathan, who I just recently heard him tell this story. He said, “I was going to school for something else.” And so he was working night shifts and going to school. He had kind of his dream for what he wanted to do. But meanwhile, he was testing concrete in a lab like super early in the morning. Wake up, get there, he’d be the only one in the lab site. And after a while, he just began to despise his job. He’s like, “No one even knows I’m here. This isn’t what I want to be doing. And this is ridiculous. I’m just testing, I guess you’d call it a concrete solution in a lab.” But then he stepped back and he just said, “All right, I need to find purpose in this job or else this isn’t going to last very long.”

Dan:

So he starts thinking, “Okay, I exist. I want to make this world a better place and I want to be happier in my job.” So he began to kind of like work it backwards. He goes, “Okay, if I don’t do this job, then the field techs actually would have to do it. That would take more time away from their family. That would take more time away from their job. And if I don’t do my job, then the engineers are going to be impacted in this way and that way and the other way. If I don’t do my job, then the senior leadership they’re going to have this issue and that issue and this issue.” And then he goes, “You know, if I don’t do my job, then how will they know that the concrete is safe when they’re building infrastructure on a highway or an overpass or a high rise building or whatever?” He goes, actually I’m saving lives.”

Dan:

And then he literally brought it down to this. He goes, “I’m the heartbeat of the company.”

Victoria:

It’s true.

Dan:

It is absolutely true. And he had to practice intentionality. He had to have ownership over it, but he had to get there. And so all of a sudden from, “Why am I doing this? Nobody even cares,” to, “No, I’m the linchpin of this whole thing. I’m the heartbeat of the company.” That’ll change how you sleep at night, that’ll change your heart rhythms, your relationships when you have that kind of purpose.

Victoria:

Yeah. Because it definitely, it’s what you said when you went through all the steps and the realizations he had, what’s amazing is he realized, this goes into every aspect of our business. Everybody I work with, the product we produce, people out in society, they’re going to use those bridges and roads and infrastructure to fulfill their lives. So that’s such a great story. I’m so glad you shared it.

Victoria:

What’s interesting is one piece I would think with that story brings me to what I feel like the first time I ever heard about purpose and learning to lead yourself. I remember my first instinct was, but you know, isn’t purpose just for leaders, for people that are maybe in a higher position professionally, or, they’re a supervisor. Isn’t it that those folks need to be the ones being trained as leaders. So I think a lot of people will think that. So I wanted to ask you, what do you think is his purpose just for leaders or is there a way that it really is for everybody?

Dan:

Well, I believe purposes is a human element. That is part of our humanity. You could argue, is it something, excuse me, is it something that we’re given or something that we discover, or is it something that we find or generate? But I do know this, it will require us to be intentional. It will require us to take ownership of our lives. And I believe it’s for every single one of us. You know, Victoria, there’s research out there that depending how you approach your job, one particular research was in a hospital setting. And there were cleaning services that were in there. Every hospital has folks that are going in and doing such important work from a sanitation, to make sure everything’s clean. And now in this heightened area that we have, well, here’s what they found that those on the teams of the cleaning services, they could say to themselves, “Well,” and again, this is in their words, not mine, but “I’m just on the janitorial crew.”

Dan:

And you hear that word just, that negative. That’s pejorative. That’s them minimizing their impact. Just like my friend, Nathan, “I just test concrete solution.” And we can all do that, no matter what our job versus, and here’s what they found. Those that had the same job in the same hospital, but said, “I’m a part of the healing process.” Think about that. Think about how vastly different an approach that is. And again, this is not about the hierarchy of what job you have. This is, to your question, everyone can have purpose. So here’s what they found. Those that said and approached their job going, “I’m on the team. I’m a part of the human process in patients’ lives.” They actually spend more time with patients. They interacted with the doctors and the nurses and the medical staff. It sounds far more meaning and job satisfaction and fulfillment in what they were doing, revolutionized the whole approach. I believe it’s available to every single one of us if we go after it.

Victoria:

I so believe in what you just said, because I actually recently had a surgery and I felt like I had a great surgeon and the nursing staff was great. But ironically, when I checked out of the hospital and people were asking me about it, I said, “The folks that came in and took care of me in the room in terms of changing bedding, bringing me the food, just checking if my water was full.” I said, To me, those were my real heroes because that’s what really mattered to me and doing my recovery so I could go home sooner.” So, the other folks were great, but it’s kind of like they did the surgery and then they were kind of gone. And it was really these folks that nurtured me back. So, that was a really great example.

Victoria:

I really am glad that you thought of that. I also wanted to just ask, if you could give us from your sports background, I’m sure you could probably like pick out, pick a cherry from there. Because I just know from coming from a sport’s family, with my father, being a coach for many years, my brothers being athletes, I just know that there was always great lessons that you learned in life from sports that you could apply in all aspects going forward. And I really feel like that with purpose that’s something that is definitely found through experience and teamwork and sports.

Dan:

Yeah. And first of all, I want to say, I’m glad that you’re better.

Victoria:

Thank you.

Dan:

that. And glad that purpose was a big part of that. Yeah. You know, I have a client and he’s a friend. His name is Jack and he is a just raving fan about purposes, just what he lives and dreams and eats and breathes. Well, he grew up playing a lot of baseball and actually got signed with the Milwaukee Brewers and ended up playing with Hall of Famer, Bob Boone. And he’s of Bob Boone’s era. So you’re a baseball fan and of a certain age at least, that name and the Boone family is, they’re big time stuff. Well, with my friend Jack and Bob they’d have these conversations, particularly around spring training, that’s the off season, but then everyone goes away after of the season.

Dan:

Then they come back to get back in shape during spring training, before the season begins. And they began to notice, there were basically two types of players. There was the player that came back fit, in shape and ready to go. They were play ready as it were. And then there were the other folks and they came back out of shape, winded and needed a lot of time to kind of get their game face back on. And what was interesting to them is, money wasn’t the distinguisher. It wasn’t “That old that guy’s on a big time contract and this guy is not.” It was something different. And for Jack actually, that’s what, one of the things that first started him on this, there’s something to purpose journey. Because he and Bob would begin to talk about what’s driving them. What is causing that guy to hit the weight room in January or December and another guy that’s just sitting on the couch for three months before he reports in to spring training.

Dan:

And the difference for them was his purpose. And yeah, I played a couple of years of college ball and those things. And I just say that’s absolutely true. I remember growing up and I had to have purpose in every single practice. So I would literally imagine baseball scouts and that’s the folks that go travel around and look for talented ballplayers and hope to sign them to big league contracts. I didn’t have, Victoria, many major league scouts looking at me, so for full disclosure, but I would imagine that they would, and I’d literally would picture them out in left field beyond the fence with their radar guns and their notebooks. And I could be practicing just with one of the guys, could be the whole team, but I was always thinking about… Now we’re getting to a different kind of mental health situation but they’re going out. That was a little weird. But I had to imagine it. I had to build in a sense of purpose into every single practice, every single drill.

Victoria:

Yeah. Well, boy can dream and also whether they were really scouts or not, the great thing is that you were trying to approach the day, the practice and the games as if there were, and that would mean you were at your peak performance irregardless if that trajected you to a professional career or not. So that, to me, that’s what I was sort of wanting to illustrate is that just by acting with that sense of purpose, that puts people at the best level they’re able to be at. And talking about that, you triggered another thought for me when you said “College or in school.” And I think we had mentioned this maybe in an earlier conversation we had, but my parents were educators and then they retired early and did a food and beverage industry.

Victoria:

One thing I also remember too with teachers, from seeing it firsthand and also sisters, brothers that are also in that profession is that people in my estimation don’t typically go into teaching because they’re like, “I’m going to make a lot of money. That’s the job I want to have.” There’s different reasons they go into it. But there’s also with teaching, especially during COVID and just the way things have changed in our life in terms of testing and metrics that sometimes teaching is hard and it’s hard to deal sometimes with the students and their different needs. There can be that burnout factor or that factor of sometimes where teachers might be questioning the decision of going into it and what can they do to sort of feel more passionate about their purpose as they did when they first entered the field. And so I was wondering if you had any thoughts on, if you have any experiences where an educator or a teacher had a situation that helped them sort of reassess what they’re doing or have it impact the way they were going to be interacting with their students.

Dan:

Oh yeah. I have chills as I hear you say that, because I’m thinking about my daughters. They had a second grade teacher. They’re now bordering into the adolescent stage so we’re in a different place, but there was a story that came out on the news just about her, and her name is Konda [Mock 00:19:14] and Konda, you could just tell purpose. She was our daughter’s favorite teacher because this was more about having a well behaved classroom. This is more than just even the state and testing scores. There was something beyond that for her. And that really came to light during COVID and the shutdown where she went, every single one of her, let’s say 20 or 25 students homes and read them books in the driveway, all masked up, socially distanced, sitting apart and she would go and sit and read with these kids from all sorts of different backgrounds, socioeconomic, et cetera. She would go to them and sit with them. Now that is a teacher who’s thinking.

Dan:

I mean, think about all the challenges for an educator in this season. They’re having to learn new systems, new paradigms of education. They’re completely stripped of everything that they’re comfortable with. Nothing is working. And let me just say for our educators, hearing them over Zoom calls, hearing them as my daughters are on their computers and all those things, thank you. I mean, wow. What they have had to overcome. And for a teacher, like Konda Mock, something’s driving her beyond that because she had to overcome a lot things just to get to zero, just to get to ground zero of what does it mean to teach. But she’s propelled to go get in the car, track down these kids and sit with them. That’s powerful. And you don’t do those things without a sense of, again, if we go back to what are the three things that make for purpose? Well, one, you have to be goal oriented, two, you have to have meaning in what you do. And three, it can’t be about you. It has to be about others and about something beyond you.

Victoria:

Wow. That’s such a great story and such a perfect illustration and a reminder of what those three things are. You what Dan, that also leads me to, we’ve talked a little bit about purpose and some real life examples that you’ve experienced, but I also am wondering, we were just talking about how the benefits of purpose are not always monetary. As an example with a teacher and in some of the other things we’ve talked about, but I’m also wondering what are some of the other benefits about having purpose? How does that affect like our relationships? Anything, does it have an effect on our physical health? I know at HMC, we have some information experience with that, but I wanted to ask you your experience with that first.

Dan:

Yeah. I mean, at a headline level, you’ll be happier in your life. You’ll be more fulfilled. Your relationships will thrive at every level. And then if you drill down, the research shows that your ability for resilience, if you have purpose, your stress is lower. You’re less prone to depression or depression will be reduced as you find your purpose. And this is really interesting to me, that you’ll be four times more likely to welcome somebody that’s different than you. So your inclusivity of others, your hospitality towards others goes up with purpose, and then you get. Yeah, isn’t that amazing?

Victoria:

We need it nowadays, too. That’s so wonderful.

Dan:

Oh, absolutely. Brain function, you know what they’re able to now see what lights up in your brain? Well, with purpose, you’ll live less from that what you could call the basement part of your brain that floods when you’re threatened by some nature, when you want to go to fight or freeze or flight or any of those things, it actually with purpose, you live more from the prefrontal cortex, which is the executive part of your brain, where you’re able to practice with more discernment, deliberation, et cetera.

Dan:

And then here’s what’s cool. We mentioned resilience. So the University of Michigan did this really interesting study. They took three different test groups and they all gave them heavy backpacks. Group one, they didn’t tell him what was in the backpack. Group two, they told them it was just a pile of rocks. Group three, they said, “Okay, you know what you have in your backpack?” They said, “No.” He said, “You have a world saving device.” And we can imagine in the time of COVID-

Victoria:

No pressure, no pressure.

Dan:

No pressure. Exactly. It’s the device that not only will like cure all of COVID, but make everyone get along all at the same time. I mean, who knows what they told them? But, and then they said, you’re going to walk a 14 1/2% incline for a long duration. And then they’re going to test to see if they could guess what the actual incline was. So can you imagine that? One group has been, and it’s all the same weight, the backpack. One group has no idea and they weren’t told. Another group was just told that it’s just rocks, walk up this hill. And the other group was told they had lifesaving equipment in that backpack. So you can see where this is going. You have your control group, but the group that thought it was just a pack of rocks. And when they were walking up a 14 1/2% incline, they actually thought it was 42%.

Victoria:

Wow. Talk about perception. Yeah.

Dan:

Yeah. Perception, resilience, and all that. Now the group that realized, or was told that they had life saving equipment in that backpack, they actually thought it was 31%. No, it was more than the incline itself, which speaks to another really important point. Having purpose does not mean that your life necessarily gets easier. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that your life is happier as we might define happy. And this is maybe one of those challenges with our American roots, the DNA of all of us, it’s the pursuit of happiness that might kind of get a little bit confusing here because yes, you’ll have more meaning. Yes, you’ll be more fulfilled, but your purpose might mean that you have to sacrifice some things. It might actually lead to suffering because you’re willing to give it all for that purpose. So throughout the centuries, martyrs know that. Guess who else knows that?

Victoria:

Parents.

Dan:

Yeah. At the time of this recording, we’ve got Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday. Moms, parents, surrogates, guardians, they know this. Adoptive parents, parents who care for children in the foster care system, they know this very, very well. They know that they’re going to have to sacrifice a lot in order to fulfill and pursue their purpose. I think that’s an important thing for us to realize, will you be healthier? Yes. Will you experience greater fulfillment? But there is a cost that comes to. You know, Martin Luther King Jr., he said, “A man or a person who does not have something for which he is willing to die is not fit to live.” And that’s heavy and-

Victoria:

Those words are true.

Dan:

They’re true. They are, they are true. Viktor Frankl, the concentration camp survivor who went on to write about purpose because he realized in the concentration camps, there is a difference. Those who were just about themselves and had no purpose or those who were about something higher, more transcendent, and he’s quoting a different philosopher when he says, “If people have a why then they can deal with just about any how or what. And so that, whew, that’s big stuff.

Victoria:

Yeah. Very, very heavy and food for thought. So, Dan, before we close out today, one of the things I wanted to ask you, we’re talking all about purpose. We’ve talked about, you were talking about how it affects the brain and the research they’ve done. And I know at the HMC side, we look at our particular members that have gone through our wellness programs, who are managing chronic diseases, who have had support with behavioral health and lifestyle issues. And, we definitely have seen that folks that have purpose, whether it’s dealing with the coach, setting goals and being able to meet them, or just setting them, just the infancy of trying to start purpose that they know that they’re two and a half times more likely to be free of stroke once they embark on that process. We know that 22% are also less likely to engage in risk of the stroke. And then ultimately those folks are also 52% less to actually have a stroke. So talking about how it affected your mind to me was just natural of how this was going to translate into improved health outcomes.

Dan:

Wow.

Victoria:

And that leads me to asking you kind of, one of my final questions is, we’re talking all about purpose, illustrations of it, things to help change our mindset, or just prompt us to try to go down that path and discover our purpose. So it’s natural for me to ask and I’m sure our listeners are thinking, how do we find it?

Dan:

Hmm. Yeah. Well, I think it’s an ongoing journey and pursuit, and it’s a lifetime thing and it morphs and it evolves, but let me maybe just, Victoria, offer a few questions we can ask ourselves to get us started. And the first is, take the story of my friend, Nathan, from the very beginning. I think in anything that we are doing there is a purpose to be found there. That it can be goal-oriented, that can be meaningful and extend beyond ourselves. I bet if you take your job, no matter what your job is, and if you fully kind of peel the why behind the why, you’ll get to that, “I’m the heartbeat of the company.”

Dan:

There is the purpose here. But here’s a few questions to consider. Number one, what just ticks you off about the world? We’re deep in your knower. You go, “That’s not right. That is not right. What’s happening to this person, to these people, what’s happening in this?” It could be an issue of justice. It could be an issue of beauty. It could be anything where you just go, “I just know that there is this discontent that I’m feeling about something.” And that’s one way to get at it. Some problem that needs to be solved.

Dan:

Secondly, what are you great at? And what gives you joy? What do you just love doing that brings you to life and just pay attention to your life and pay attention to the things in your job that give you energy about that. The third question would be what’s in your story and what’s your life experience? But there are foundations through, and here’s a really important thing to say. There are things that have happened in your life to you. There are things that you have done, both good and bad. Things you regret, even trauma that you have experienced and everything in between. There’s been great things and for many, there’s been very traumatic things. If we are faithful to do the work of healing and pay attention to that long story of our lives, we’ll see that actually, we are being prepared to give ourselves away to something as a result.

Victoria:

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. And especially trying to balance, and I almost think of it as, rather than balance, almost like trying to think of it like an orchestra where there’s different, it’s fluid, it’s changing and there’s different pieces of it. And as you said, when folks are as part of their life experience in the past and now, and then when they go forward, there are going to be positive and negatives. And the ones that are really negative to bottle those down is not going to help find your purpose to get support, evaluate, figure out how to basically reconcile them or start the healing. That’s going to perpetuate them more to purpose.

Victoria:

A lot of what we’ve been talking about, it is personal, but a lot of it focuses on work. And I was thinking that one of the things when I had experienced with you, I had mentioned to you that, although it was very helpful for me, some ways in the work environment, I realized that the way that impacted me most and why I wanted to have you on today is that it also made me realize that you don’t have to have total fulfillment at work. It’s nice if you do. It’s nice if you can find that and integrate it into your work. But also to me, I felt like in my own personal life, fulfillment beyond work was really important and that it could be more holistic where work is just one piece of that, a part of my purpose. But then the other part is people, friends, and family, and my community, and then also surrounding myself with positive people. So that was helpful for me.

Victoria:

I guess the final thing that will go into that I wanted to ask you, and I’m hoping that even after today, you’ll come back and we can talk a little bit more about this. What about for our listeners or folks, and even, I’ve experienced this so much myself in my life. What if we can’t find it? What if we feel like I can’t find it, what can I do?

Dan:

Yeah. And I think that’s where imagination helps. I think that’s where a different kind of reflection on our own lives as they currently are, again, Nathan, and in his ability to see right where he was, where the purpose was to be found. And if you can’t quite find it, I mean, literally without creating some sort of a disassociative mental thing. Think about scouts watching from the stands. But I really do believe that purpose is something that to be human means that we have, and we can discover, and we need to go after.

Dan:

You know, Victoria, that’s actually why I named my company Lost Ball Consulting. I grew up playing whiffle ball in the backyard for hours on summer days and nothing would give me greater joy. And we would lose all sorts of balls over the right sense when we crushed balls and do our home run shots. But then we’d also lose that one ball that we have left for the day. We’d lose it over the cranky neighbor’s fence, or it gets stuck up in the third story gutter, or in the thorn of Kujo’s clutches. And what do you do then? Because, the game has to go on. Well, you have to humble yourself, go knock on the door or you have to be courageous and climb over the fence. Or you have to distract Kujo or you got to use teamwork and ingenuity to get up to that third story gutter. You got to be tenacious. And all I know is that it could be sundown or the dinner bell could be ringing, but I’m not coming in until I find that ball. And it’s that kind of intentionality, that kind of tenacity, ingenuity, and also teamwork.

Dan:

Here’s another way that you can help find that purpose in your life is to ask somebody you trust and say, what do you see in me? What gets me really fired up? What puts a smile on my face? Because sometimes we could be blind to them because we’re so close to them. So that’s maybe what I would leave you with is, and our listeners with today is invite a trusted friend in to help reflect back to you what those things are already in you.

Victoria:

Wow. You know, Dan, I think that is a great place to conclude because I do agree here. It’s hard to recognize sometimes those things we feel passionate about or it takes someone who we care about, that we trust, but they can give us insight. And sometimes I can’t find insight. Well you can, just remember sometimes getting insight inside yourself comes from outside. So that’s a great way to leave as a great first starting step for people who feel like that they would like a little guidance with that self discovery. So Dan, thank you so much for all these interesting conversations and I hope you’ll agree to come back and talk to us again.

Dan:

Absolutely, Victoria. This was a blast. Thanks for the opportunity.

Victoria:

And I want to remind our listeners, please stay tuned for future Agency Health Works podcasts, and also go to www.hmchealthworks.com. Stay healthy, happy, and safe folks.