leadu.ai/news

Leadership University’s ENOUGH Program

There is no universally correct ENOUGH.

There probably isn’t a universally correct amount of slack either.

That matters.

Because the moment we turn ENOUGH into a number, formula, or prescription,
we have recreated the very problem we were trying to escape.

Save this much.
Work this many hours.
Own this little.
Keep this much time open.
Want less.
Slow down.
Be satisfied.

Those may be useful answers for someone.

They cannot be the answer for everyone.

A year’s income might represent enormous financial slack for one person
and dangerous insufficiency for another.

Two unscheduled hours might be restorative in one situation
and completely inadequate in another.

A strongly held identity might provide coherence during one period of life
and become extraordinarily brittle when reality changes.

So perhaps ENOUGH isn’t an amount at all.

It is a relation.

A relation between what has us, what we have available, what matters,
and what changing reality requires.

And because reality changes, ENOUGH must change with it.

That makes ENOUGH less about contentment and more about awareness.

What is ENOUGH here?

Enough for what?
Under which conditions?
At what cost?
Against what uncertainty?
In service of what?
And who or what is determining the answer?

That last question may be the most important.

Because our answers are rarely ours alone.

Family has a vote.
Culture has a vote.
Economics has a vote.
Our motives have a vote.
Fear has a vote.
Pleasure has a vote.
The future has a vote.
Purpose has a vote.
And increasingly, algorithms and AI have a vote.

The developmental challenge isn’t eliminating those influences.

It is becoming sufficiently aware of their relationship
that none quietly becomes the entire government.

That is where Self × Situation becomes consequential.

The Self changes.
The Situation changes.
What has us changes.
What we have available changes.
And what reality requires changes.

It has to remain in relation with reality.

The same is true of slack.

Too little slack and the unexpected jolt can determine what happens next.

Too much slack may become withdrawal from something worth doing.

The question is not how much slack is best.

It is what fits now.

Perhaps this is why no coach, assessment, expert, AI, employer, culture,
or purpose framework can ultimately determine someone else’s ENOUGH.

They can provide evidence.
They can offer distinctions.
They can ask better questions.
They can help us notice what we cannot yet see.

But ENOUGH cannot be handed down as an answer.

Reality gets a vote.
Purpose gets a vote.
The person gets a vote.
None gets the vote alone.

That may be what it means to live ON PURPOSE
in a world where the answer keeps changing.

Want to learn more?

More thinking about humans, AI, purpose and what comes next by registering in the form below.