I’m revitalizing the Purposeful Politics section of this blog. Now, I spent most of my childhood in the South where I learned early on that there were three subjects you didn’t talk about in public: sex, money, and politics. (You could talk about religion but only in church.) So, I know the risk of writing about politics as well, but I’m going to do it anyway. The main difference is I’m going to do my best to write about it from the Life On Purpose Perspective.

Also, today I’m starting a 10-part series (Yep – 10!) entitled, The Power of Engagement. This idea came to me while reading a Facebook post on the Bernie Activist page. One of the activists was sharing how he’d been inspired by Bernie to become involved in his local politics. Unfortunately, he was finding that corruption and manipulation seemed just as common at that level as at the national level. He wrote:

“Why is establishing our issues and debating them to a resolution need to involve manipulation of people ? Maybe I am naive. One thing the Bernie said was, we are going to try something radical and base our campaign on ‘Truth’. People cheered at the thought of it.”

To which I replied:

There are different ways to affect change in people’s views and therefore their actions. Coercion and manipulation are two ways common and up to now acceptable in politics. Then there is engagement. Engaging people into a possibility that will serve them and are win-win for others. I believe this is what Bernie Sanders has done for so many of us. It works, but it also threatens the status quo. Just imagine, if you can, the day in which enrolling people into new possibilities that serve the world is the norm in politics at all levels. What then becomes possible for us all?

So, I hope you will join me on this exploration on the power of engagement, not only in the world of politics but in every aspect of our lives. I believe it’s a key principle that will help us all create a life on purpose as well as a world on purpose. So, let’s get started.

The Power of Engagement Part 1 – Leading a Horse to Water

We’ve all heard the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”  I’d say most people even believe it to be true.  You really can’t make a horse drink, right? This next section is about proving to you that it isn’t true. You can lead a horse to water and you can “make” him drink.  All you need do is to first lead the horse by a salt lick and let him get his fill of salt.  When he’s thirsty enough, you won’t be able to keep him from drinking.

Engagement is about making people thirsty in a fair and ethical way.

We all have the gift of engagement — for example, the ability to engage ourselves and others into the possibility of living on purpose which will be the primary focus we’ll explore here.  Yet, for many of us, it’s not well differentiated and therefore we have only limited access to it. So, in this series of blog posts (taken from my, yet-to-be-published book, Path of Mastery, we’re going to create a distinction called “engagement,” and then you’ll have the opportunity to apply this distinction to your life.

In the process of making this distinction we’ll look at:

• What engagement isn’t that will then lead us to,
• What engagement is as a distinction, and
• The role it plays in mastering your life on purpose.

What Engagement Isn’t

Here are a few things that you might confuse as engagement and that we often see out in the world being used instead of engagement:

• Manipulation: to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage.
• Pressure: the burden of physical or mental distress
• Coercion: the use of force or intimidation to obtain compliance.
• Con an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence.

So, let me ask you.  Would you rather be manipulated, pressured, coerced, conned, or would you prefer to be engaged in life?

I know, a pretty easy question to answer, even before we’ve fully distinguished what we mean by engagement.

Engagement as a Distinction

Okay, remember, a coaching distinction is a verbal lens or perspective through which we can look at ourselves and the world and in the process see things about ourselves and the world that we might not see without the distinction.

So, what is engagement as a distinction?

Let’s start with some simple definitions:

• To attract and hold the attention of; engross
• To win over or attract
• To draw into; involve
• To require the use of; occupy
• To interlock or cause to interlock; mesh
• To involve oneself or become occupied; participate
• To become meshed or interlocked

So, in the context of living your life on purpose, being engaged means you’re ready, willing, and able to be engrossed and involved by your life, to participate in it. You are also able to attract and win over others to participate with you…and I might add, to do so without manipulation, pressure, coercion, or by conning anyone.

But let’s face it, sometimes we’re engaging and sometimes we’re not.  By distinguishing the components that make up the distinction, engagement, we can have more access to this natural, God-given talent that includes inspiration, attraction, passion and joy.

In this series, we’ll explore in depth a 5-part model that is intended to give us all access to the incredible gift and power of engagement. So, stay tuned.