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Joe Jaworski's journey

Were you born before 1960?

Then you will know of Leon Jaworski, the Polish immigrant's son who brought down a president. His tenacity as the Watergate special prosecutor led to Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974.

Leon Jaworski had a son, Joseph. He too became a distinguished trial lawyer in Texas. By the age of 40, he personified success. Married to his high school sweetheart, professionally esteemed, wealthy, he had, in his words, "a picture-book life."

But one evening in 1975, Joe Jaworski's world came crashing down. He had spent Thanksgiving weekend hunting at his father's ranch. When he arrived back at his home in Houston, his wife Fran sat him down.

"Joe," she said, "I want a divorce. There's somebody else that I love."

He packed his bags at once, and spent the night, devastated and despairing, at a Howard Johnson's on Interstate 10.

The crisis triggered a period of profound introspection. For the first time, he began to think deeply about what he wanted out of life.

So it was that Joe Jaworski found himself on a personal journey - a quest to discover his life purpose. It is described in his book, Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership (Berrett-Koehler, 1998).

We can all learn much from his candid account. How's this for starters?

There are no quick fixes

If I told you that it took Jaworski just a few months of focused effort to find his life purpose, you wouldn't believe me. Nor should you. Life isn't like that.

The first phase of Jaworski's exploring, which culminated in his quitting legal practice and founding the American Leadership Forum, took six years. The ALF phase has itself been succeeded by many others.

Jaworski understood the need for patience. And he understood that the important thing is to travel in, broadly speaking, the right direction, without getting hung up about specific destinations.

The journey is largely an inward one

Jaworski was in many ways a typical leader: highly energetic, outward-looking and action-oriented.

But he came to realize that the answers he was seeking could be found only by looking inwards. Contrary to old habits, he had to create space in his life for reflection.

Through reflective activities, he became increasingly attuned to the still quiet voice within that guided him on his quest.

The path is full of twists and turns

When Jaworski established the American Leadership Forum, he had a joyous sense of having found his destiny. But that didn't mean easy progress from then on.

Every two steps forward were followed by one step back. He often stumbled, and at times failed embarrassingly. But he persevered.

Dennis Augustine, another who, having achieved great success, found himself feeling more inadequate and insecure than ever, describes the path well:

"Progress never moves in a straight line. It's a spiral pathway, now going, now returning, holding on and letting go, winning and losing, giving and receiving." (Invisible Means of Support (Golden Gate, 1994)

We are not alone

When, despite our success, we are restless and dissatisfied, we often feel guilty. We bottle up our discontent as if it is a shameful secret.

Jaworski discovered, when he opened up to others, that his secret yearning for a more meaningful life was in fact widely shared. This is how he put it, years later:

"I found that most of the people in my generation who had achieved a great measure of success were feeling just as I was feeling: they had just about everything they wanted in terms of material goods, but were not really living.
"They were not truly free.
"They wanted to step out and make a difference, they wanted to contribute, but they were immobilized by fear and by the need to have more and more material goods.
"It was the need to 'have' instead of to 'be.'
"I discovered that people are not really afraid of dying; they’re afraid of not ever having lived, not ever having deeply considered their life’s higher purpose, and not ever having stepped into that purpose and at least tried to make a difference in this world."

Picture book or Disney World?

A picture-book life - who wouldn't want one?

That's what Joe Jaworski thought he had. Then Fran's bombshell shattered the illusion.

Years later, he looked back and saw that his picture-book life had in fact been "a Disney World sort of life - inauthentic, narrow, utterly predictable, and largely devoid of any real meaning."

As things turned out, the catastrophe of his marriage break-up was a blessing. It sent him off on his quest. Thereby he enriched his life by infusing it with meaning.

Now, that's success!

I loved this book.

Barbara Sher

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