IDEAS AND CONCEPTS

We have defined life calling as confidence in a higher purpose that draws and guides in all aspects of your life…and then living your life consistent with that purpose.  As we have studied individuals at different stages in their lives, we have observed that this sense of a higher purpose varies in these individuals based on age.  As a result, we believe that life calling is a pheomenon that constantly occurs througout a person's life, and that the person's understanding of that purpose in life grows as life events impact them.

This growth of life calling across a lifetime has become a top priority in our research at Life Discovery.  We believe that the more clearly we can understand the nature of life calling at different stages in life, the more effective our applications will be to help people live within their calling in these stages.  For a more in-depth discussion of where we are currently at in our thinking about life calling across a lifetime, including the protomodel that has emereged to guide our reserach, visit our Life Discovery eLibrary and look for the article:

Millard, B. (2014). "Development of a Sense of Life Calling Across a Lifetime." Manuscript in preparation.

Intrinsic motivation is a mystical force within a person that leads people to pursue paths, roles and actions in life that result in great internal satisfaction.  We refer to it as a mystical force because it cannot be explained by a purely logical contstruct.  That's why we consider intrinsic motivations to take place more within the spiritual domain of people. We define "spiritual" as an inexplicapble dynamic in humans that coordinates and mediates the body, mind, heart and soul in a person.

A natural question arises from this view of intrinsic motivation.  When does it begin to become a complelling force with a person?  This question is one that Life Discovery plans to beging researching in the near future.  For a more in-depth description of what we are considering related to the emergence of intrinsic motivation, visit our Life Discovery eLibrary and look for the article:

Millard, B. (2017). "The Emergence of Intrinsic Motivation." A Whitepaper Conceptual Proposal.

A number of years ago, Dr. Jim Laub and Dr. Bill Millard were asked to provide a university with a broad definition of “leadership.” They are Professors of Leadership and have studied the subject for quite some time. Yet they found themselves working on this assignment for quite a while before they were satisfied. They finally arrived at this definition: “Taking action to effect change by mobilizing others to accomplish a shared vision.” You probably already detected that they were attempting to craft a definition that did not immediately restrict the definition's application to established positions of formal leadership. They believe that leadership occurs at many levels and can be effective on all of these levels if it is properly understood.

Our current thinking is that there are three broad levels at which leadership can take place in some form: categories of leadership: personal leadership, influential leadership, and positional leadership.  For a more in-depth explanation these three levels, visit our Life Discovery eLibrary and look for the article:

Millard, B. (2012). "The Three Levels of Leadership." Life Purpose Explorations. Summer, 2012.