What is Fulfillment-Based Thinking?

By Bill Lamond

Human beings live and die with the questions, "Who am I?" "What am I doing here?" "What should I be doing with my life?" Though many religions and philosophies attempt to answer these questions -- and thousands of books have been written about them -- people, for the most part, return to the earth from which they came without having answered these questions to their personal satisfaction.

Though I would not be presumptuous enough to take on these questions from a philosophical or theological perspective, I can answer them from a coaching perspective. The discipline of personal coaching, a rather recent development outside of athletics, seeks to create viable pathways and results for people to have the most enjoyment, success, and confidence in their endeavors. Therefore, I can tell you that there is a practical way to answer these lifelong questions that has real power to give you more enjoyment, success, and confidence.

Fifteen years ago, I created fulfillment-based thinking as the next generation of thinking out from possibility-based thinking. Most all the human potential courses and trainings now available are focused on creating more possibility. The "granddaddy" of these trainings was the old est Training, - now retired - that promised to open participants from the condition of resignation in which they lived to a new condition of pure possibility. A whole generation of thinking cut its teeth on this idea and "possibility," the central buzzword, has now become a standard feature in our language. This, of course, is very good.

Unfortunately, you can create billions of possibilities and still not achieve any of them. This was one of the conditions that clients I saw when I was a practicing psychotherapist lived with. It was the cause of enormous suffering. They could create endless possibilities but they didn't necessarily have way to fulfill them gracefully and satisfactorily. I began a deep search in myself to discover 1. Of the infinite possibilities available, how can you recognize the exact possibilities that are for your own personal fulfillment? 2. Is there a way to pursue them that doesn't wear you out and kill you off in the process? (We are a workaholic culture, after all.)

A complication arose, as I was thinking this through. I recognized that most people live with the idea that something is intrinsically broken in them that can never be fixed (purely a cultural belief). It is very hard to imagine being fulfilled when you start from the idea that you are broken. So, I had to start from a completely different place.

I love the idea that Jesus promulgated that God creates perfectly and imbues everything with exactly what it needs to express and fulfill itself. He said the birds of the air and the lilies of the field have, in essence, everything they need to live a good life and are, in fact, magnificent. They also know instinctively how to be what they are and don't worry about getting it right. He couldn't imagine that human beings are less perfectly imbued. In other words, we are born equipped by God (that's the word I like, but you can use "Universe," "Life," "Spirit," "Unified Field" or "Nature") with all the essential requirements for living a magnificent life.

As I thought about this over a period of many months, the idea of natural genius was born in me. It began to be obvious to me that each person is born with a gift or talent or unique ability that is a ticket into a fulfilling life. It's just as obvious that God doesn't create "losers." I've never seen a baby who is a loser. It takes careful training and systematic starvation of the life energy of a child to make a loser.

I created the term "natural genius" to describe the central, pleasurable, self-rewarding behavior that each of us was born knowing how to do that is as unique to each one of us as our fingerprints. You cannot create is a person's natural genius. It is already in them. You can only recognize it.

Natural Genius explains the endless diversity of ways that people express, within the larger desire they have for happiness and personal fulfillment. Having had the joy of helping hundreds and hundreds of people uncover and recognize their natural genius, I can only say that the power unleashed when people recognize their natural genius is awe-inspiring. I have seen people jump with joy, laugh or cry out loud, and say things like "My grandma always knew this about me, but I wouldn't listen to her" or "This is what I live for that I think I can only do on my time off." For many people, rediscovering or recognizing their natural genius produces an almost orgasmic burst of joyful energy. It also opens the door to more aliveness and creativity and makes life make sense. It is like finally remembering what you were made for.

I have also seen some people weep with the memory of how this gift was ruthlessly suppressed because their family did not value it. For example, I've been with women whose natural genius has to do with power or other "masculine" qualities whose families taught them it wasn't right for girls to act the way they were acting. I've been with men whose natural genius is highly emotional or "feminine" in our cultural view who received constant condemnation for expressing it.

Here are two examples you may find useful. Several years ago, I worked with a young woman who had lived for many years with eating disorders. When we looked into her natural genius, she discovered that her natural genius is "being wild and free." The minute she realized it, she said, "All my life, my mother and my teachers told me to sit still, to act like a lady, to calm down and stop acting like a boy. I just couldn't do it, no matter how hard I tried." Once she recognized her natural genius and learned how to use it, she took off like a rocket. The "curse" of her exuberance was now the fuel she used to start having the time of her life. Within a year, all her eating disorders disappeared. She met a wonderful man and married him. When we last spoke, I asked her why she thought her eating disorders cleared up. She said, "The disorders were my attempt to keep rigid control of myself, to stop acting like a boy, and to do what girls should do. Now I know being wild and free is what I should do. I don't have to control it. I love it! It's the source of my passion and my joy."

I coached the husband of a woman who was one of the first people to whom I taught fulfillment-based thinking. He was a pleasant enough man, but dead in his tracks. He moved slowly, thought everything over till it ground to a halt, and had very little emotional vitality. I worked with him to get his natural genius and he was astounded when he discovered that it was "loving." He couldn't get over it. He told me he came from a highly intellectual family that eschewed emotional displays of any kind. Over the years he trained himself not to feel too much because he didn't want to be embarrassed in front of his family. His father especially thought that emotion was for women and sissies. Though he married a vivacious, heartfelt woman, he would not allow himself to express his love for her too much -- the very thing that he should have been brilliant at.

The Spirit of Life that creates us isn't interested in the least in the gender-role definitions that cultures arbitrarily set up and use to confine people. Your natural genius is, at heart, a gift of your personal spirit, not a cultural talent or learned skill. It is an expression of who you really are before the culture you live in tells you who you should be. If you have a natural genius that is outside of what your culture expects from you, you may experience a sense of not belonging or being on the outside. Ironically, if you discover your natural genius and learn to use it powerfully and gracefully, the very culture that disapproved of you in the beginning, may hail you as a one-of-a-kind, a genius, a visionary or an innovator and make an exception for you. The secret is to learn to use your natural genius with power, grace and style.

Frankly, it is nearly impossible to lead a fulfilling life when you have no understanding of the central assets that are native to you. Though they try, no religion, philosophy or social system can tell you who you are. As I mentioned earlier, your natural genius - your natural spirit - is as unique as your fingerprints. You have to recognize it in yourself, honor it, and learn to use it to fulfill the promise of your life. When you do, that is fulfillment-based thinking.

Learn more about Bill Lamond and how to discover your own Natural Genius.

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