Chapter 11: Working with the Logical Levels 189
As you become older and approach different life stages, you quite naturally
start to question what you’re doing with your life. Sometimes a trigger inspires
action and lights up your passion. A friend and logistics manager in industry,
Alan, travelled to Kenya on holiday and saw at first-hand the educational
needs of the country. Thus began a powerful one-man campaign that took
over his life and led him to create an international charity taking educational
materials into Africa, thanks to his personal passion to make a difference. On
speaking to him about it, he often says ‘I don’t know why me. It’s mad, but I
just know I have to do this.’ His purpose was stronger than his identity.
Here are some purpose questions to ask yourself when you want to check
whether you’re steering your life in the right direction:✓ For what reason are you here?
✓ What would you like your contribution to be to others?
✓ What are your personal strengths that you can add to the wider world?
✓ How would you like to be remembered when you die?
In his book, The Elephant and the Flea, management guru Charles Handy con-
veys the passion that comes from a sense of mission and underlying purpose.
He talks of entrepreneurs he’s written about and his wife, the portrait photog-
rapher Elizabeth Handy, as people who leap beyond the logical and stick with
their dream:Passion is what drove them, a passionate belief in what they are doing, a
passion that sustained them through the tough times, that seemed to justify
their life. Passion is a much stronger word than mission or purpose, and I
realise that as I speak that I am also talking to myself.When you’re operating in a purposeful way, notice how you’re unstoppable –
you’re then in the best place to gain true alignment at all the logical levels.Figuring Out Other People’s Levels:
Language and Logical Levels
The intonation in people’s language – the way they speak – can tell you at
what level they’re operating. Take the simple phrase, ‘I can’t do it here’ and
listen to where the stress (shown in italics below) is placed:‘I can’t do it here’ = statement about identity.
‘I can’t do it here’ = statement about belief.‘I can’t do it here’ = statement about capability.