At the core of the success of James Clear and his book, Atomic Habits are fundamental questions about life. What can an emerging leader learn from the journey of one of the most prolific writers and thought leaders in the world? What can the STC leadership community extract from the life and work of James Clear?

A lot of our teachings are centered around you as an individual.

This is intentional because living On Purpose is contingent on your choices.

We can’t make them for you.

God won’t make them for you.

It’s on you, however, when we consider design it’s important for us to take the time to understand the bigger picture, the design behind the design, if we are to truly appreciate how our design decisions should be approached.

We need each other. We’re a community!

here are times when we have to go right through ‘Death Valley.’ Not every path in our lives winds and curves on familiar, well traveled roads.

Aside from a few football stadiums, we don’t have many places named ‘Death Valley’ in our modern societies. For the transformational leader, death valley may be an experience more than a longitude, latitude location. Here are some examples of a death valley experience.

I’m certain there’s been at least one time, but likely many times in your life where you’ve had a thought cross your mind about doing something extraordinary. A hint towards a suggested program or plan of action for you to take that just seemed absurd for you to even consider, let alone, start organizing yourself to take action.

For whatever reason our dreaming tends to emphasize what we’re doing or where we’re going.

It’s rare to hear someone sharing details about a dream that entails who they are and why they’re doing whatever it is they're doing.

DRIFT prefers we spend most of our time thinking about the “what & wheres” of life, because in the grand scheme of things these details matter the least.

Think about that for a moment. The importance of what and where are secondary to other considerations like the “who & why.”

At any given time, we’re either striving or stewarding. 

Striving is so embedded in our society’s preferred way of life that it doesn’t even feel like a problem to say we’re striving.

“Striving? Of course I’m striving.. I want to be great!”

This is the battle cry of so many leaders in life today.

Simultaneously we’re seeing burnout, languishing, anxiety, depression and even a 3% increase in people taking their own life. 

We have to be very careful with our relationship with “striving.”

Joanna is the leader and visionary behind Magnolia, the home and lifestyle collective that is valued at over $50 million. Beyond the success as an entrepreneur and leader, Joanna is a dreamer. While the Magnolia empire pioneered by Joanna Gaines has steered to a destination that can be difficult to relate to, the journey along the way is full of a plethora of relatable experiences ALL dreamers must go through. Dive into this months content to unpack the commonalities of the dreamers journey wherever you are in your own journey.

This month in the Academy we’re looking into the pursuit of mastery. Our culture is enamored with retirement. We save and invest, some even count down the days until retirement. Yet, at the same time studies are showing that retirement as defined in our culture actually has a negative effect on well-being (higher depression rates, increased aimlessness and languishing).

As we close out 2022, let’s take a good hard look at the lens in which we view our pursuits!

On September 16 in Belgrade, Serbia, Jordan Burroughs became the only United States wrestler to win seven world or Olympic Championships. With the win, Burroughs became the most decorated American wrestler in history. Six world titles and one Olympic gold medal. As champion of the 79 kilo division, he surpassed John Smith as the most decorated American wrestler in history.