Joe Reagan is the President and CEO of Greater Louisville Inc. (Louisville’s Metro Chamber of Commerce) the Southern Indiana and Greater Louisville region’s leading business organization. GLI leads business, community and economic development in Greater Louisville working to increase human capital, drive job creation and entrepreneurship, maximize global opportunities and strengthen the business leadership of their community.
A couple of years ago, my organization led a series of retreats, attended by community leaders from business, government, academia, healthcare, non-profits, the arts, religions as well as student leaders and others from every sector, designed to uncover the possibilities for the region (which we call “Permission Space”) in order to create ONE Dream(R) for the entire community. (See the short video here).
As part of this project, we invited all of these leaders to go through a personal process of identifying their Destiny (WHY they are here on earth), their Character (how they wish to BE while they are here) and their Calling (what they wish to DO while they are here). This helped to align their personal lives with the larger purpose of the community in which they live. Since that time, the power of the region’s ONE Dream(R) has helped to attract 250 new businesses and create 175,000 new jobs.
Joe Reagan is one of many who cherish their Destiny, Character and Calling Statements, using them to guide their lives. I asked Joe if he would permit me to share his in this blog, and he generously agreed.
He sees the main challenges facing the world to be “self-centered fear” and “poverty/despair”. The conditions that would prevail if these were reversed, in his view, would be “other-centered love” and “abundance/hope”
So he has chosen to live his life in service of bringing about those conditions. His Destiny Statement is:
“Helping to bring greater love, abundance and hope to the world.”
His Character Statement, which describes the way in which he lives his life, the kind of person he wants to be in relation with others and the world, is:
“To be a grateful, loving, contemplative witness.”
…and his Calling – how he will use his gifts and talents to serve the world – is:
“To serve through gifts of leadership, creativity and fortitude.”
Each morning, as Joe is commuting to meetings or to his office, he reflects on these three statements of his Destiny, Character and Calling, and commits in those quiet moments to enter his day with those intentions.
As I have written in The Spark, the Flame and the Torch, “When one stands in the presence of a person who has a deep inner awareness of why they are here (Destiny) how they will be (Character) and what they will do (Calling), you are standing in the presence of an inspiring person – inspiration radiates from within them.”
This is how Louisville created a dream powered by people who became inspired and who have created thousands of new jobs. This is how we can get our economies, cities and states and provinces back on their feet again.
Says Joe Reagan: “My Destiny, Character and Calling becomes a unifying force when it’s on the back of my business card and on my lips to God’s ears.”
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again … who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly.”
