The Next Edit - Issue # 38
Do you know the through lines of your life?
🧠 Big Idea
When I first left corporate life, I thought I needed to “find my purpose.”
That phrase alone is exhausting.
It sounds like something you discover on a mountaintop.
Instead, when I started looking, what I found was something quieter.
Patterns.
When I looked back over 35 years, across different companies, industries, and titles, I noticed something uncomfortable.
I kept doing the same thing.
Not the same job.
The same function.
I was always translating complexity for people.
Always building clarity out of chaos.
Always helping leaders think through transitions.
Always connecting dots that others could not see yet.
Even when I changed roles, the pattern stayed.
That was and is my through line.
It just needed a new container.
Most people approach retirement asking, “What should I do now?”
The better question is, “What have I always been doing?”
Because your mission is rarely invented at 62.
It has been repeating itself for decades.
✏️ Try This
Take a blank page and sketch a simple timeline of your life.
Mark:
Big events
Career shifts
Moves
Successes/Failures
Periods when you felt deeply energized
Periods when you felt drained
Now look at the energized moments.
Ask yourself:
What was I actually doing in those seasons?
Not your title.
Your behavior.
Were you building?
Teaching?
Advising?
Fixing broken systems?
Mentoring?
Starting things?
Advocating?
Then ask:
Who benefited from me in those moments?
Look for repetition.
Common through lines I see in high achievers:
Builder
Connector
Translator
Protector
Catalyst
Notice these are verbs.
Not titles.
Not income brackets.
Not business cards.
Verbs.
Mission lives in verbs.
If the same verbs show up again and again, you are looking at your through line.
📚 Read This
The Purpose Code by Jordan Grumet.
Learn about finding your “small p” purpose.
✍️ The Final Edit
Retirement is not about becoming someone else.
It is about removing the role and keeping the essence of who you are and have always been.
When you identify the through lines of your life, you stop panicking about purpose.
You realize you have been practicing it all along.
The question is not who you will become.
It is how you will express what has always been true about you.
See you in “the next edit”
Andrea
Love that ..."the essence of who you are and have always been". Thank you!
Andrea! This is so poignant.