Category: Purpose Quest

The Three Branches of Purposeful Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 2)

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Leadership, Personal Excellence, purpose, Purpose Quest, purposeful leadership, Purposefulness, Team Excellence, Teams2 Comments

In the first article of this series, published last month, we explored the two keywords of the concept of purposeful leadership: purposefulness and leadership. As I mentioned earlier, I allow the series to unfold as in the process of finding purposefulness. Being purposeful means creating a positive impact on the people and environment one encounters (De Silva, 2024). As I reflected on this series, the idea of writing about the three branches of purposeful leadership emerged.

I use the metaphor of ‘branches’ rather than categories, boxes, or containers because I see the three core areas of purposeful leadership growing in unison, but at different speeds and proportions, much like the branches of a tree. The bigger branches grow stronger but perhaps more slowly, while the smaller branches grow faster but are not as strong. However, all branches, big or small, have a purpose in the growth of the tree.

Continue reading “The Three Branches of Purposeful Leadership (Purposeful Leadership – Part 2)” →

Taking a Break – Is it Purposeful Behaviour?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Ecology, Economics, family, happiness, Life, Love, Personal Excellence, psychology, Purpose Quest, Relationships, SpiritualLeave a comment
Image Credits: Humanperformancepsychology.com

I decided to take a break from social media, blogging, tweeting and newsletter writing during October. This is partly to allow my mind to settle down and rest after the extensive online work done in the past 6 months from April to September. It is also due to my calendar getting filled with corporate sessions for clients in UAE, Africa, Solomon Islands. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.  

On the personal side, it was my second daughter’s wedding which gave us a lot of joy and I needed to release myself from work for this important life event.  We also had two other wedding anniversaries and four birthdays in the family during the month. It looks like October (my birth month) is becoming a month of family celebrations and this perhaps would be the month I take time off from work in the years to come. 

Continue reading “Taking a Break – Is it Purposeful Behaviour?” →

How Is The Pandemic Serving Us?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn belief, Conflict, Ecology, happiness, Knowing, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, Struggles, success, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credits: Wired.com

In the one before the last blog post (two Wednesdays ago) in the ‘Purpose Quest’ series, I attempted to list down questions that came up during my various interactions with various audience over the last 6 months of the pandemic. I started attempting to write about how I responded to those question and the insights I had regarding the first two questions related to goals, in last Wednesdays blog post. Let me attempt to respond to the third questions;

What is the purpose of the pandemic? How is it serving us?

Continue reading “How Is The Pandemic Serving Us?” →

Goals! What Goals?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn belief, Ecology, happiness, Knowing, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, Struggles, success, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credits: Saba.com

In the last blog post in the ‘Purpose Quest’ series, I attempted to list down questions that came up during my various interactions with various audience over the last 6 months of the pandemic. I will attempt to write about how I responded to those question and the insights I had, in the next few blog posts. So let’s begin with the first two questions. Both of them are related to goals;

My goals have become irrelevant due to the pandemic? What do I do now?

Why do I need to have goals when they can become irrelevant due to uncontrollable situation?

Continue reading “Goals! What Goals?” →

Questions about Purpose

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn belief, Conflict, Ecology, happiness, Knowing, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, Struggles, success, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credits: thamarathorpe.com

The last six month opened up amazing opportunities for me to reflect on the notion of purpose. These opportunities arose during conversations with family, team and clients in trying to make sense of the pandemic. These opportunities arose during webinars conducted to help people with their concerns, anxieties, stress and other psychological challenges. These opportunities arose from the 150 plus participants from 15 countries taking part in the four ‘Mastery of Self’ through NLP, online certificate courses over the past few months.

In this blog post I will attempt to list down the questions that came up. Some of these questions were already asked earlier, some of these are modifications to the old questions and some of these are new questions.

My goals have become irrelevant due to the pandemic? What do I do now?

Why do I need to have goals when they can become irrelevant due to uncontrollable situation?

What is the purpose of the pandemic? How is it serving us?

Is our purpose changed due to changing realities?

I am struggling more due to the pandemic. Is it helping me to find purpose?

Am I struggling more during the pandemic because I try to live purposefully?

Do our values change with situations? Arn’t they supposed to be fixed?

Isn’t values an important component of our purpose?

My purpose is clashing with the purpose of some of my family. It is prominent now because I spend a lot of time with them. How do it deal with them?

Are religious people more purposeful than non-religious people?

Does spirituality become more important than religion for purposeful people?

Does the notion of Purposeful living taken a new meaning with the pandemic?

Are world leaders being purposeful in the way they are handling the pandemic?

I will reframe from answering these questions to provide you the opportunity to reflect and answer these questions. I am not sure what that process will do. I will be delighted to hear from you the answers that came up and how these questions and answers served you.

I wish you purposeful living.

The Pandemic and Temporal Aspect of Purposefulness

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Ecology, Environment, family, happiness, Health Care, hope, Life, Love, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Relationships, societal, Spiritual, success, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credit: Nationalpost.com

In the last 8 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted eight important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical (health), financial, environmental and societal. Let’s explore the ninth pillar, the ‘temporal’ aspect in this blog post. As in the past eight blog posts let me attempt to describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

The word ‘Temporal’ has two broad applications; relating to worldly as opposed to spiritual affairs (secular) and relating to time. I use the word in relation to the use of time. The temporal aspect of purposeful relates to the use of limited time. The purposeful person attempts to utilise most of the time for purposeful activity, which requires letting go of non-purposeful activity.

The last eight weekly blog posts in the ‘purposeful quest’ series illustrated how my time was allocated to purposeful activity in spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical (health), financial, ecological and temporal areas. These activities took most of my waking time and there was rarely any time remaining for non-purposeful activity during the approximately 16 hours of waking time.

The sense I make from this reflection is that the pandemic gave me so much opportunities to be purposeful, that it left me with almost no time for non-purposeful activities. This way of life has kept me occupied in meaningful and energising activity, giving me inner success, happiness and peace. My purpose is to inspire others to live a purposeful life and I hope this series of blog posts will inspire you too to live a purposeful life and find Success happiness and peace.

The Pandemic and Societal Aspect of Purposefulness

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Ecology, family, Health Care, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, societal, Spiritual, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credits: shethe people.tv

In the last 7 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted six important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, physical (health), financial and environmental. Let’s explore the eight pillar, the societal aspect in this blog post. As in the past seven blog posts let me attempt to describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

With lockdowns being imposed, offices closed, and people starting to work from home, my clients either took the assigned transformational work online or postponed them. This gave me the illusion that there will be a lot of free time. Since I was in Dhaka, while engaging with the foreign ministry and the high commission to arrange repatriation flights, I joined my friend I was staying with to distribute dry rations to people who were financially affected due to lockdowns. In addition I arranged some help for some relatives and friends who were looking for financial assistance and guidance.

To help with the psychological challenges faced by many, my team in Dhaka helped me to produce some videos with mental tips to deal with challenges and anxiety releasing meditation. While using social media to get these to people who needed it we started conducting free webinars to help people deal with the present and gear up for the future. After returning to Sri Lanka I had the opportunity to join my team to conduct psychological first aid for the medical staff of the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH), the command center fighting the pandemic in Sri Lanka.

I believe most of the above opportunities were provided to me to help be purposeful during the pandemic. My purpose to inspire others to live a purposeful life and these opportunities helped me share the idea of ‘purposefulness’ and show how it can help to make sense of the pandemic, deal with anxiety & stress and adjust their way of life to respond positively. While all these were related to giving, my time without any financial benefit, I enjoyed the happiness of giving, learning & building relationships in the process. I feel purposeful.

The Pandemic and the Environment

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Ecology, Environment, Health Care, Knowing, learning, Life, Personal Excellence, purpose, Purpose Quest, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credit: business west.co.uk

In the last 6 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted six important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational, health and money. Let’s explore the seventh pillar, the ecological aspect in this blog post. As in the past six blog posts let me attempt to describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

With lockdowns being imposed, offices closed, and people starting to work from home vehicles movement reduced drastically. With airports restricting flights there were less flights in the sky. With demand for non-essential products reducing factories were operating at lower capacity reducing environmental damage. All this made the air cleaner, water cleaner, skies bluer and grass greener.

Unlike in the earlier six aspects, there was not much for me to do, the earth was healing itself. I had to only participate by using the freshness for my well being and helping others to use this Knowladge to make sense of the positive aspects of the pandemic. Therefore I used the webinars I was conducting and conversations I was having with people to show these benefits and to use this opportunity to adjust lifestyles, so that even after the pandemic, we live in a manner that is beneficial to the environment.

With life coming back to normal in Sri Lanka, I am concerned to see that the amount vehicles on the road have gone back to pre-pandemic levels. Our airways are still clean as the flights are still restricted, but with the envisaged opening up of the skies end of this month, the air pollution levels are likely to start increasing again. Work from home is getting lesser, and in person activities are increasing. I am attempting to keep at least half of my learning experience delivered online even when things are back to normal. I need the other half to interact with people as we cant be totally devoid of human interactions to help them in their learning, growth and transformation.

So lets continue to communicate and role model to help people at least adjust to a mid-way level between total lockdowns and total free movement with their free will so that we can bring this planet to liveable conditions. If not nature will hit back with a bigger pandemic and will keep doing it more regularly to save the planet.

The Pandemic & Money

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Cash Flow, learning, Life, Personal Excellence, purpose, Purpose Quest, Releasing, Spiritual, Struggles, Team Excellence, Values, World affairsLeave a comment
Image Credits: gfmag.com

In the last 5 blog posts in the ‘purpose quest series’, we explored how the pandemic impacted five important pillars for purposeful living; spiritual, mental, emotional, relational and health. Let’s explore the sixth pillar, the financial aspect in this blog post. The financial pillar consist of four aspects earnings, expenses, savings and investments. As in the past five blog posts let me describe my personal experience during the pandemic. 

With the announcement of the pandemic, cases starting to rise and lockdowns getting implemented, many of my clients decided to postpone sessions that were scheduled. In addition some of the industries my clients were in, specially the apparel industry was having orders getting cancelled, resulting in impending reduction in their cashflows. In the past too, some companies first eliminated people development budgets when such challenges arose. All this made me realise that I need to focus on planning my finances. Continue reading “The Pandemic & Money” →

Pandemic and Relationships

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, EQ, family, Leadership, Personal Excellence, psychology, Purpose Quest, Relationships, Spiritual, Team Excellence, ValuesLeave a comment
Image Credits: Americaamplified.org

When lockdowns happened in mid-march I got standard in Dhaka without flights to return home. Therefore my experience is quite different to those who were with families and had to spend a lot of time with them while working or not working from home. However since returning home about 2 months ago I have been largely working from home that gives me the experience to reflect on that reality as well.

Being away from home with the uncertainty of when I will return home increased the concern towards me by mother, wife and daughters at home as well as my siblings and other relatives from various part of the world. The 10 weeks in Dhaka resulted in more communications with all my close family and other relatives more than ever before. Conversations among relatives resulted in each one inquiring from others about how they are affected by the pandemic, the impact on livelihood etc. Therefore there was concerned among each other for each other, much more than usual. Continue reading “Pandemic and Relationships” →

Dealing With Negative Energy in Motion (e-motion)

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn energy, EQ, Purpose Quest2 Comments

We can make sense of emotions as e-motions or energy in motion. If the energy in motion in your being is positive it would create positive emotions and if the energy is negative, it creates negative emotions.

Image Credits: Livescience.com

Positive energy gets created with positive thoughts, memories, habits, actions, learnings, relationships, sounds, visions, soothing environments, fragrances and tastes etc. The reverse is also true.

When I realised that getting back home from Dhaka was going to be difficult, that my customers would postpone work assigned to me, having to be self-confined indoors to be safe from the virus and not been able to be with my family when they needed me created negative emotions.

In addition to the anxiety of not being in control of the unknown as well as physical comfort & safety, a part of these negative energy was generated when memories of the 2009 recession where I was struggling financially came back to my mind. Another part of these negative energy was generated when a negative habit of sleeping late and waking late, which I had eliminate some time ago returned. Thankfully I was equipped with tools of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to erase bad memories and giving up bad habits. Continue reading “Dealing With Negative Energy in Motion (e-motion)” →

Did the Pandemic Stimulate you Intellectually?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Ecology, EQ, Health Care, IQ, Knowing, learning, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, Values, World affairsLeave a comment

When the world started changing due to the pandemic it had a big impact on my focus on my intellectual development process. This blog post tells my story and I hope this will help you to reflect on how the pandemic affected your intellectual development.

Image Credit: medspace.com

Let’s start with the question, what is the meaning of intellectual? While different people may make sense of the word ‘intellectual’ in different ways, based on their thinking, to me intellectual is the quality of my thinking and understanding aspects I am concerned with. The stronger my intellectuality becomes,  I tend to understand aspects I am concerned with and the related complexities in a deeper manner. The shift in priorities brought about by the pandemics resulted in some interesting changes to my intellectual development processes.

Continue reading “Did the Pandemic Stimulate you Intellectually?” →

Spirituality and the Pandemic

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn family, Life, Personal Excellence, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, World affairsLeave a comment

spiriruality and the pandemic
Image Credit: Jewishboston.com

When the world started changing due to the pandemic it had a big impact on my spirituality. This blog post is to tell my story and I hope this will help you to reflect on how the pandemic affected your spirituality.

Let’s start with the question, what is spirituality? While different people may make sense of spirituality in different ways, based on their beliefs, to me spirituality is the quality of my engagement with the energy that nourishes my soul. The stronger my spirituality becomes,  I get more concerned with the well being of other living beings and my peace of mind and less concerned with  material things. The shift in priorities allows me to embrace my spirituality in a more profound way”

Continue reading “Spirituality and the Pandemic” →

Find Purpose & Let Money Find You

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Cash Flow, Health Care, Life, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, ValuesLeave a comment

Relationships & moneyAfter having arrived in Dhaka with a packed schedule of coaching, facilitation and consulting assignments for multiple clients on the 14th of March, I suddenly found myself having to make some decisions on how best to respond to the universe who decided that we need to change the way we operate.

With some companies postponing  the scheduled sessions, free time was opening up. What do I do with this time? It takes time to sell the time and right now most of my clients were fire fighting, figuring out what they need to do. Therefore I decided to be available to them. Continue reading “Find Purpose & Let Money Find You” →

Loving is Purposeful Growth

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Ecology, family, Life, Love, Personal Excellence, purpose, Purpose Quest, Relationships, SpiritualLeave a comment
Image Credits: Dreamtime.com

The notion of Love is perhaps one of the most complex.

I like to define ‘love’ as the act of helping someone to grow to their fullest potential, even if it is inconvenient to me. Growing to our fullest potential starts with baby steps.

The potential of a seed is the fruit. The seed needs watering before it turn in to a plant. The plant needs water, air, sunlight and fertiliser to become the tree. The tree needs continuous nurturing to become the fruit. Converting the seed to a fruit requires help that is inconvenient to the nurturer. Continue reading “Loving is Purposeful Growth” →

Releasing Anxiety

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn family, Health Care, Knowing, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Releasing, Spiritual, World affairsLeave a comment
anxity releasing
Image credits: lightworkerhealing.com
Last week I wrote about how we can become an Abundance Magnet as a part of the weekly ‘Purpose Quest’ series I commenced two weeks ago. Today I focus on an aspect of the story that I wrote last week, releasing anxiety’. Anxiety was arising due to my  inability to return home  to Sri Lanka and impending drop in revenue when the reality of the pandemic was getting clearer.  This blog post is dedicated to illustrate how I released such emotions using Releasing Techniques that I was learning and teaching since October last year. When we have an emotion, we either repress it, express it or escape from it. Initially I repressed it by telling myself that this will pass soon, flights will be arranged for me to return and clients will continue their work. My sleep that night was not comfortable as something from within was nudging me to take this more seriously. So how did I respond to this call? Continue reading “Releasing Anxiety” →

Is Your Purpose Searching for You?

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Ecology, Knowing, Leadership, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, World affairsLeave a comment
purpose quest-1

This series of ‘Purpose Quest’ will be illustrated with narratives of how we search for purpose. The question is, Are we searching for ‘purpose’ or is ‘purpose’ searching for us?

On the 14th of March, when I boarded the Sri Lankan airlines flight UL 189 to Dhaka I did not realise that I will have to stay in Dhaka for 10 weeks due to flight restrictions. The WHO had declared Covid-19 as a pandemic a few days ago. My mother was encouraging me to stay back without going as I had just recovered from a cough. I was hearing how passengers coming in to Sri Lanka from Europe were being taken to quarantine centres.  Was the universe trying to inform me and help me make a purposeful choice?

Continue reading “Is Your Purpose Searching for You?” →

Variety is the Spice of Life

On By Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, Ecology, Economics, family, Health Care, Inspirational Speechs, Leadership, Learnings that Matter, Personal Excellence, Pictures that Speaks, psychology, purpose, Purpose Quest, Quoates for Reflection, Relationships, Songs for Growth, Soul Nourishing Poems, Spiritual, Team ExcellenceLeave a comment

Soul Nourishing Poems

Over the past two months I switched to a daily blog from the monthly blog I used to write. This was prompted by the pandemic and lockdowns that provided me the opportunity to spend more time indoors and online.

Learnings that Matter

I initially started with online learning videos and soul nourishing poems to share my life work for those needed to learn and those looking for inspiration while being at home.

Quotes for Reflection

Thereafter I introduced quotes for reflection and yesterday I added motivational speeches. Some of this work is from others who have inspired me, some from my colleagues and some my own presentations.

Inspirational Speeches

As I was reflecting on the purposefulness of my life yesterday, my mind went on to the online work I am doing. Something from within prompted me to expand my contribution to have one type of blog everyday of the week.

Songs for Growth

That prompted me to think of other types of work that inspired. Music and Art were two other areas that came to my mind and therefore I decided to experiment with ‘Songs for Growth’ and ‘Pictures the Speak’.

Pictures that speak

I needed one more. What is the seventh category? And then, ‘Purpose’ which is the core philosophy of my life, that I have been writing for the past 4 years, but have not focused too much on over the past 2 months popped in to my mind. Yes I miss writing those ‘purposeful living’ blogs. So the seventh category became ‘Purpose’ Quest’.

purpose quest-1

I invite you to join me in exploring the wonders of life through these seven categories. I welcome comments, feedback , life experiences, ideas and questions from you so that we can create ripples that makes this world a better place.