Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to James Troe. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
James, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
A few years ago, I stood at a whiteboard before twelve business owners at a peer council meeting. I was unpacking the hedgehog concept from the Jim Collins book Good to Great. If you aren’t familiar with this book, Collins studied several companies that had sustained exceptional profitability over a long period, discovering what they all had in common. One of things the great companies shared was a simple formula that Collins dubbed a hedgehog because it’s both simple and effective, like the hedgehog’s strategy of curling into a ball to wart off attack.
For illustration purposes, Collins used a Venn diagram (three partially intersecting circles with a shared area in the middle). The common area in the middle was called the hedgehog. The first circle contained the words, “What you can be best in the world at.” The second circle, “What you are deeply passionate about.” The third, “What drives your economic engine” (or, in other words—what you can make the most money doing). Once the great companies fully understood these three circles, they built a strategy at the intersection and locked onto it with laser focus, refusing to be distracted by other shiny objects. In terms of long-term performance, the results were incredible.
So, I was standing at the whiteboard drawing this illustration for my fellow businessmen when something caused me to step back and say, “You know, I wonder if we should all have a personal hedgehog.” This simple statement sent one of the business owners, Tom, into a spin because the prior day he had agreed to take the position of treasurer on nonprofit board, simply because he’d been asked by someone he greatly admired and respected. But now, looking at the three circles, he realized that this position was not something he was particularly gifted at or passionate about.
After the meeting, Tom rushed to the house of the man who had asked him to be on the board and rescinded his yes. The man was a retired pastor, an old family friend. Tom showed him his yellow pad with the hedgehog diagram. “Pastor Milt,” he said, “I know I told you I’d take this position, but it’s not in my circles.” Pastor Milt studied the three-circled diagram for a moment, and said, “Then you shouldn’t do it.” Tom was immensely relieved. He thanked the pastor, picked up his yellow pad from the kitchen table, and made his way to the door. But before he could leave, he heard the pastor’s voice. “But I wonder, Tom, what you WILL DO for God that’s within your circles.”
The pastor’s comment haunted Tom until our next peer council meeting, where he asked me if I’d help the group walk through a process of establishing a personal hedgehog. After hearing Tom’s story about his emergency trip to the pastor’s house, the other group members nodded in agreement. I think most businessmen are haunted by what life will look like after business. At the time, most of us were within five or ten years of that next chapter, and everyone (including me) seemed excited to explore the topic.
Being a follower of Jesus, I studied my Bible to see if I could find the right words to fill the three circles of the Venn diagram for a personal hedgehog. Here’s what I came up with:
• Circle #1: Which body part am I? – In Romans 12, the Apostle Paul teaches that all believers form one body (in Christ), but we do not all have the same function. Then he names seven motivational gifts (prophecy, teaching, serving, leading, giving, encouraging, and mercy), and encourages us to take a sober look at ourselves and determine which one we possess. Interestingly, all seven of these gifts are things Christ-followers should demonstrate in some measure. In other words, we have no basis to say, “Since giving isn’t my gift, I won’t contribute to financial the needs of others” or “Since teaching isn’t my gift, I guess my kids will need to find their training elsewhere.” What Paul seems to say in Romans 12 is the same thing a college guidance counselor tells sophomores, “It’s time to choose a your major.” He’s encouraging us to carefully evaluate our greatest strength—the thing that you do as naturally as breathing but looks like magic to others—and place that gift on the altar in service to God.
• Circle #2: What is my calling – Calling is an old word that’s often replaced by words like job or career. But to have a calling, there must be a caller, and I believe the caller is God. There’s a verse in Ephesians that’s almost haunting: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Doesn’t that make you curious? What specifically is the work that God has called you to do?
• Circle #3: My doors of opportunity – Psalm 23 reminds us that the Lord is both our keeper (He makes us lie down in green pastures) and our bringer (He leads us beside still waters). Everyday doors are opening and closing around us. Which ones are God-ordained opportunities and which ones are distractions? When creating this curriculum, my thought was this: If a person understands their strongest gift (i.e., they’ve declared their major) and has a clear sense of their calling, their doors of opportunity will be much easier to evaluate.
I called my curriculum Sweet Spot (named after that small area on a golf club or a baseball bat that sends the ball soaring with the highest ratio of velocity for effort expended), and I began walking people through it. Helping them complete the first circle was fun and straightforward since there are so many tools available (like Strengthfinders and Standout) to help people discover their motivational gift. My role was helping them boil down their multi-page evaluation reports into a single sentence. For example, my statement is, “I am a hero’s journey storyteller.” That’s my greatest gift. It’s what I do as naturally as breathing but looks like magic to others. People’s stories fascinate me. When I meet someone for the first time, I find answers to three questions—Who are you? Where are you trying to go? What obstacles stand in your way? Complete strangers trust me quickly. My interest in their life makes them feel important, and the conversation frequently gives them perspective and traction. Relating my gift to Romans 12, I’d place it under the category of prophecy. I help people better understand themselves—where they are in their journey—and then, if possible, I try to provide insights on to how they might move forward, or I connect them to resources they might find helpful.
Helping people complete the second circle (What is my calling?) proved to be more difficult than helping them define their strength. In fact, many people dropped out at this point. They didn’t complete their homework. One of the guys in my peer council fell into this procrastination category, so I took him out to lunch and asked, “Why aren’t you doing your homework?” Here’s a paraphrased summary of what he told me:
“Defining my strength was fun and useful. Once I had my one-sentence summary, I could look at it and say, ‘That’s it! That’s my best gift; my design.’ But this calling piece is different. You say to have a calling is to have a caller, and that caller is God. So how do I know this process—all these questions you want me to answer—will connect me to the voice of God? You want us to use this three-circle diagram as a tool to give focus to our lives. That means we need a high level of certainty that what we write in those circles is accurate. So, I have two fears. One is that I won’t hear my calling accurately, and then I’ll move forward using wrong information as the basis for my decisions. My second fear is harder to confess. . . What if I do hear my calling accurately, but I don’t like it? What if it scares me to death, or I don’t want to do it? Wouldn’t it be better to not know?”
So, I continued delivering my curriculum with people either dropping out at the calling stage, or completing the second circle in such a generically safe way that it didn’t provide much help in narrowing their focus. But then, one day, something strange happened. . .
I was in the process of walking a man through my curriculum, and we were to meet at my house to go over lesson five (the calling lesson). He was to have his homework completed so we could go through it together. We sat down at my kitchen counter, and he handed me a stack of white paper, but every sheet was blank. I looked at him, confused, and he told me that the Lord had instructed him to give me the blank sheets. He even handed me a letter from God stating that only four lessons were necessary. It said I only needed to concern myself with helping people discover their gift/genius that He had given them. That’s exactly how it was worded “gift/genius” (in a minute, you’ll see how significant these words are). The letter also stated that God had something bigger for me, but I must first let go of my pride.
Imagine receiving a letter like this. Several thoughts danced through my head, but the loudest was: Why should I believe this letter is from God? After all, I had prayed for divine help in assembling this curriculum. This man seemed so confident, but he hadn’t even attempted to complete the homework. I tried to verbalize my objections, but he only said, “Hey, these aren’t my words. God told me to give them to you.” Do you see the irony here? All this time I’d been trying to convince people that they could hear from God to identify their calling, and now the one guy who seemed confident in his ability to hear God, word for word, was telling me that this portion of my curriculum was unnecessary. And, since the letter had also mentioned my pride, I was keenly aware of the source of my indignation, so I tried to receive this message humbly by thanking the man. However, I wasn’t ready to swallow it hook, line, and sinker (I’m sorry if that’s a strictly Minnesota fishing term).
Now the story gets even a little weirder. I think it was the next day that my neighbor came over to give me a book. The book’s title was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It was about breaking through whatever internal obstacles block your creativity. She thought I might like to read it because I was working on a novel. The book’s forward was written by Robert McKee. I didn’t know when (or if) I’d get around to reading he book, but that day when I perused the forward, my eyes widened at these words:
“If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. Genius is a Latin word; the Romans used it to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, which watches over us, guiding us to our calling?”
What are the odds of my neighbor handing me this book right after I received the a letter that was supposedly from God? What are the odds of me opening that book and reading the forward? (I almost never read a book that someone hands me, and I still haven’t read this one) What are the odds that both the letter and the book would use the word genius to denote the unique strength that’s buried within each of us. And finally, what are the odds of this forward-writer trying to convince me that a person’s genius will guide them to their calling? (i.e., the last three lessons of my curriculum were unnecessary.) I’ll let you make your own decision, but for me, this was too great a coincidence to not consider that God was speaking to me through the man sitting at my kitchen counter.
Since that day, I haven’t taken anyone through my curriculum. I’ve focused rather on how I use my own genius (a hero’s journey storyteller) for God. Earlier, I referenced Romans 12. This is where Paul instructs believers to take a sober look at themselves and define their gift. But the first verses of this chapter have taken on a new importance to me:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
What jumps out at me are the words living sacrifice. This concept brings me back to the Old Testament laws regarding animal sacrifices. The Jewish herdsman was to interrogate his flock every year and choose the perfect one-year-old male to lay on God’s altar. Think about what that means. The perfect one-year-old male is the animal you’d like to use for breeding. That animal represents the future of your herd. And yet, God instituted the practice of selecting that animal with sober judgement, and then having it killed. God is saying, “Give me your best, and trust me with your future.” It’s no accident that Paul uses this imagery at the beginning of Romans 12 before instructing each of us to define our genius. You see, once you put words to that thing—the strength that comes as naturally as breathing to you but looks like magic to others—you’ll realize that you’ve built your glory on that strength. It’s your personal pride and joy. But now God wants to direct it. He wants to use it for His glory, because if you belong to him, your genius does too (I believe that’s what the letter the man handed me meant when it told me to let go of my pride). So my daily focus is to place my storytelling skills on the altar and look for opportunties to use it for God’s glory.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I work as a marketing director. The best part of my job is telling our customer’s stories. I produce five-minute videos highlighting the problem the customer was trying to solve when they found us, the reason they chose us as the solution, and how the decision has worked out. We then embed these videos into our marketing emails. It’s been super effective.
About six years ago, I reduced my hours at work and began going to the office at 10:00 a.m. so I could use my morning time to write novels. I’ve self-published two novels: “A Kingdom’s Quest” and “Crushed”. Then, two years ago, I began working with a Pakistani woman who asked me to teach a Bible study to a group of women at a kiln village over there. My love for these people has grown immensely, and I’m now spending more and more of my morning hours helping the kiln villagers (indentured slaves) gain access to education.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Meditation – There’s a verse in the Bible that says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joint and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Miraculously, as I read God’s word, God’s word reads me. My goal is to become more and more like Jesus, and this practice has been the key to any transformation I’ve experienced. I still have a long way to go, but it’s been an amazing journey.
Perseverance – I don’t worry too much about what I can accomplish in a day, but I think constantly about what I want to accomplish during my lifetime, and I work daily toward those goals. In other words, I focus on the long game.
Authenticity – I spent too many of my early years trying to be who I wasn’t in an effort to impress people. It made me hollow inside. When I finally accepted God’s love for me as the final opinion of my identity, I was free to stop jumping through artificial hoops. That’s made a huge difference. Now I can just be myself.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
My number one obstacle is selfishness, so my number one goal is defeating selfishness. Someone once said that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. I am way too self-focused. I want the last chapters of my life to be about serving others, not myself.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
