FOREWORD

MANY, MANY BOOKS COME ACROSS MY READING TABLE each year, but it has been a long time since one of them impressed me so much as this one has. It is a wisdom guide to help us to look deeper, to honor the essential and sacred traditions of living communities, and to take this “one wild and precious life” seriously.

We are storytelling animals. As our hunter-gatherer ancestors sat around the fire carving arrows and eating berries, they told stories which in time were woven into the tapestry of daily life. These stories were the first encyclopedia of human knowledge. They explained where the world came from, why there are people, and why the gods put fire and death on earth. Stories told the people of a tribe who they were, where they had been, where they were going, and how to stay friendly with the spirits.

For over thirty years I have explored, researched, written about, and been invited to speak about how we shape our stories into more purposeful lives. Lately, more people have been asking if and how I am shaping my own story and what helps me sustain a purposeful journey day by day throughout the year.

I always find myself realizing that I could never live purposefully without my “tribe” — people who are on a shared path with me. By tribe, I mean people who truly “get me” and understand and reflect back to me my true story. They know how to pose a powerful question and are rarely reluctant to ask it. It is their curiosity that keeps me curious and alive.

To be a person is to have a story to tell. We become grounded in the present when we color in the outlines of the past and the future. Within each of us there is a tribe with a complete cycle of stories. It is impossible to create a meaningful life alone. In truth, we do little completely alone. We depend on a living community — a true north group — to accompany us each step of the way. We might see ourselves as self-sufficient, which I often do, but we ignore the essential, life-giving companionship upon which our very lives, livelihoods, and longevity depend.

Bill and Doug clearly show us how to create that living community. They ask us wise questions and show us the practices that lead us to our own answers. There is one question in particular that I find very compelling in my work as an executive coach: “What are you up to?” Bill and Doug believe, as I do, that each of us is up to something very special with our lives. They believe that each of us is born with a unique gift and a sacred duty to fulfill its promise.

This gift, for each of us, is the pathway to a meaningful life. It is the pathway to our livelihood — our life’s work. All of life is viewed as a quest to answer the core true north question, “What are you up to?”

Many of us at various points in our own lives are a little vague about what we’re up to. Maybe even utterly confused.

Poet Mary Oliver poses the question in another way: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Wild and precious? Do you reflect, as I do, that you may not be living up to your precious possibilities in life?

Doug and Bill have been living with this and similar questions for many years! Perhaps this is why they created their own True North Group over thirty years ago.

But this book is not about Doug and Bill; it’s about you. So, can we dig a little deeper? What is a “wild and precious life” to you? And how does it differ from your current life?

Let’s face it: just getting through life today with some semblance of success is a major feat. Many of us, however, spend less than 20 percent of our precious time engaged in what might be called meaningful activity — talking with friends about what matters, observing spiritual practices, helping others, or performing meaningful work. It doesn’t have to be that way. Our precious lives don’t have to be dominated by busyness.

We may find ourselves on different paths, but it’s essential that we are on different paths together. Isolation is fatal! It’s important that we don’t tackle life alone. The gift is free. But its expression requires support. And that’s the essence of a True North Group — to share the path in helping us claim our gift and heed our calling.

Still, it takes no small courage to be willing to seek company on our journey — to ask to be accompanied. For many years I belonged to a circle of a dozen men who called themselves the Junto. Patterned after Benjamin Franklin’s group of the same name, we met nine times a year to exchange stories from our journeys and to share our challenges and blessings.

The magic of the Junto was due to the simple discovery that everyone yearned to share his story. When we tell our stories to one another, we — at one and the same time — find the meaning of our lives and are healed from our isolation and loneliness. Many religious traditions honor this essential practice. Likewise, many indigenous peoples honor this practice, realizing that they cannot possibly do the work of living, surviving, and healing alone.

We can’t truly tell who we are unless someone is listening. Strange as it may seem, self-knowledge begins with self-revelation. We don’t know who we are until we hear ourselves speaking the story of our lives to someone we trust to listen with an open mind and heart.

In my coaching work, I have rarely encountered a person who was not able to uncover the power of their individual purpose in a True North–type group and, having made that discovery, to find the possibility of truly living up to their wild and precious possibilities. Bill and Doug have made an important contribution indeed to that discovery process.

Richard Leider
Best-selling author of The Power of Purpose and
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