How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Fulfilled Life with Dan Barber

Ever wondered how discovering your true purpose could lead to a more fulfilling life? In this episode, we dive into this topic with Dan Barber, who shares his inspiring journey from a rebellious youth to a successful author, coach, and counselor. We explore insights from his book, Vantage Point: Five Perspectives to Live a Better Story, and discuss how these perspectives can help you turn your experiences into personal and professional growth.

For business leaders seeking deeper satisfaction and impact, Dan provides practical strategies for crafting a meaningful life plan, visualizing your legacy, and maintaining disciplined routines. Tune in for actionable advice on finding your purpose and living a more fulfilled life. For more insights and to connect with Dan Barber, visit his revamped website.

Books Mentioned:

• Vantage Point: Five Perspectives to Live a Better Story by Dan Barber
• Hero on a Mission by Donald Miller
• Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
• A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller
• Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

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Chapters

• 0:00 introduce to Dan Barber
• 1:33 Discovering Purpose Through Multiple Perspectives
• 10:45 The Power of Intentional Living and Self-Reflection
• 16:09 Exploring Purpose and Personal Growth
• 23:33 Living With Intention and Purpose

Transcript

Dr. William Attaway: 0:00

I'm so excited today to have Dan Barber on the podcast. Dan is an author, a coach, an entrepreneur, a husband, a father and a grandpa. With decades of business, pastoral and private practice counseling experience. He brings practical wisdom to the everyday challenges that we all face. He lives in Coldwater, Ontario, with his wife, Kathy, and his latest book is Vantage Point Five Perspectives to Live a Better Story. One of life's greatest tragedies is living it without knowing why. And if you, like so many, are not satisfied with your current circumstances and are convinced there must be more to life, but you're unsure how to discover it, then Vantage Point is for you, Dan, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

Dan Barber: 0:51

Thank you, William. It's a pleasure of mine. It's so great to see you again and to connect this way. I've been looking forward to our conversation.

Intro / Outro: 1:01

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway: 1:18

I would love to start, Dan, with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners. I hit a few of the hot points, but I'd love for you to share kind of how this thing got started, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader.

Dan Barber: 1:32

I guess when you think about story and I love that metaphor my leadership story really begins with my personal story and I was raised in a Christian home and kind of did the traditional things, went to church regularly, you know, and participated in the life of the church. I had a pretty normal upbringing, had loving parents and a couple of sisters and everything was pretty normal. But around the time I was 13, 14 years old, I really kind of lived out the prodigal son story and that's where my life really shifted for a number of years, for about the next seven or eight years, and that created a lot of stress for everyone around me. I made some terrible choices. I went down a terrible path, a self-destructive path. Most of my pain was self-induced through bad choices at that period of time. That's kind of the backdrop to what motivated me to write the book, because I was living a terrible story that inflicted a lot of pain not just on myself but pretty much everyone around me. And later in life I finally realized that there was more to life than my selfish desires and actually God had a plan for me that I finally kind of tried to embrace.

Dan Barber: 3:08

Um and so, through God's grace, um, on my 19th birthday. Out of complete desperation, all alone in my bedroom, I just fell on my bed face down, crying to the Lord. I can't do this anymore. I want to surrender my life to you and I like to say that just turned everything around. But the next year was probably the hardest year of my life, um life for a lot of reasons. But eventually I decided to go to Bible college, which, as a high school dropout, most people thought that was a pipe dream. And I did that and eventually graduated and met my wife there and we've been married almost 35 years. And eventually I went to graduate school, did my counseling studies there, got an MDiv there and that's what eventually led me to counseling and pastoral ministry and now coaching. So that's kind of the 30,000 foot level of my story in a nutshell. And now, like you say, I'm 58. I've been married 35 years. I have two awesome kids and three grandchildren, and a fourth on the way which is just becoming public. So I guess it's out there now.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:24

Congratulations, that's exciting.

Dan Barber: 4:26

It is exciting, and I just couldn't be more grateful for the family and the life I have now.

Dr. William Attaway: 4:35

Dan, one of the things in our previous conversation that we talked about was the power of understanding that your experiences are not wasted. I don't believe there's any such thing as a wasted experience, right, and one of the things I love about your story is that you are committed to not just holding back all those experiences that you've had in your life, holding them back behind the wall, you know. Instead, you're like no, I want to be a conduit of what I've learned through those experiences for the benefit of other people, and I think your book is just the latest expression of that. You know the inspiration you've talked about comes out of your own story for this, but how did you come up with the five perspectives that you talk about in the book?

Dan Barber: 5:23

Well, if you, if you remember the the Bourne series, jason born series jason born the original trilogy which to me is still the best of all the of that.

Dan Barber: 5:33

Of those movies. Um, I think the original came out in 2002 and I went and saw it. I loved it. I just was drawn into that movie for everything about it, like the action, the black ops, the scenery, even the martial arts and the car chases through Paris, everything about it. I just loved the storyline.

Dan Barber: 5:59

But in that movie Matt Damon, who plays Jason Bourne, he's actually asking some pretty important questions. The storyline I hope this isn't going to shock anybody. Maybe they haven't seen the movie. They should know the storyline by now but he has amnesia. He forgets who he is, doesn't know who he is, tries to start to figure out who he is, but then he doesn't like who he is and wants to become a different person. So he's asking some important questions like who am I? What am I doing here? Why are other people dictating my life for me, you know, instead of me being in control of my life, in a sense? And so he's asking questions in the movie that I think almost every one of us asks at one point or another. So that was so compelling and from that point on I watched that movie. Well, my wife says way too many times, but I have pages and pages of notes I just wrote watching that movie. Over years I just kept watching and writing notes, and writing notes.

Dan Barber: 7:06

And then the actual title of my book came out of the scene in the second movie, the born supremacy. If you know the scene where he's tracking cia to berlin, they're all set up in a office tower somewhere and he's on the opposite rooftop looking at them through a rifle scope and he's calling into Pamela Landy and saying, hey, I want to come in and I want Nikki to bring me in. She knows me from Paris. And she says, ok, well, what if I can't find her? And he says, well, it's easy, she's standing right next to you, right? Well, he had the advantage, right? I mean, it's such a great scene, like it just sends chills through, you know, when you see it for the first time.

Dan Barber: 7:51

And he had the advantage, he was in complete control of that situation and that's where I got the title from. So this vantage point. So how do you get the vantage point? And? And so I just came up with these five perspectives, uh, which is kind of like uh, probably many of your listeners probably done like a 360 review at some point, you know where you're getting input from different levels, right From your bosses, from your co-workers, or your reports or you know whatever.

Dan Barber: 8:13

So kind of this 360 evaluation of yourself, and that's what these five perspectives can bring to the reader. So looking back, looking around, looking within, looking above and looking ahead are all directional, but when you take them all together, they give you clues. Each perspective can bring you some clues as to who you really are and even why you're here, and that's the ultimate reason for writing the book. I wrote it for a typical client of mine who's just asking those questions who am I? Why am I here? What do I want to accomplish with the life? I've got left right? So that's kind of so. The born series really inspired the book, and then I just put off writing it for about 20 years, to be honest with you right. So you know, life is busy and I, in fact, I wrote another book a number of years ago called Unplanned Parenthood, because, even though I love my kids, I got married with the promise we wouldn't have kids. I didn't want kids at all, but my daughter Megan came along six years into our marriage, and so I wrote the book called Unplanned Parenthood, and my kids each wrote a chapter in it. It was kind of a project, you know, like I just wanted to do it.

Dan Barber: 9:36

A few people said, hey, you should write a parenting book, so I wrote it. I think it was Dan Miller said if three people ask you for the same thing, you probably have a product. So I said if three people ask you for the same thing, you probably have a product. So so I said, okay, I'll write it. So but it was actually, to be honest, a way of delaying writing this book, like, okay, I'll write the parenting book, because this vantage point I knew was going to be a tougher challenge to to get through it and it was, um, it was a lot more work, uh. But finally the season of my life came where I knew I could do it and I knew it was the right time for me to do it. So it took me about a year and a half, I guess, to write it and then it came out last fall. So a long journey for Vantage Point to come out. Even though I've had notes on it for a couple of decades, it really took 20 years for it to come to fruition.

Dr. William Attaway: 10:29

I would imagine that this five perspective way of looking at things and way of looking at your life is something that you have been using with clients for a while, though, and I imagine so many of these ideas came out of your work both in counseling and now with coaching. Do you find that people struggle with one perspective or two more than the others, or is that different based on the person?

Dan Barber: 10:56

I think it's very personal. I suspect and I think I mentioned this in the book, probably in the introduction I think people are going to gravitate to a particular perspective based on their own personality or their own life experiences. So if you're a nostalgic kind of person, looking back might be your favorite thing to do. But for some people looking back that's painful, that's challenging and I don't want to go there. So not everyone's going to want to do that as as readily as as others might. Um, if you're kind of entrepreneurial, if you're always looking for opportunities, then you might enjoy the looking around perspective, because that's what you do. You just naturally do that. Um, so I don't. I think some perspectives are going to be more challenging than others for the reader, depending on your life experience, where you're at in life and all of that.

Dan Barber: 12:00

I've had some great conversations with 20 somethings around the book and I think for them, looking ahead as beyond just how do I get through the next semester or how do I find a job, like looking ahead for me means thinking to the end of my life and then reverse engineering that a little bit. So that's hard for you know, when I was 20 something I didn't do that I was lucky to get through the week. So so again, it all depends on where you're at in life, which perspectives you're going to gravitate towards, and then there might be one or two that that really kind of press you a little bit more. So I guess the good thing about the book is I did order them in a particular way, but you could jump in any perspective you want and start there if you want to. You don't have to start looking back, which is the first perspective I share. But if you don't want to start there, then start somewhere else. But I certainly would encourage the reader to take all five in, you know, without kind of avoiding one or two.

Dr. William Attaway: 14:38

You know, when I'm writing, I have a certain person in mind. I have a certain avatar, if you will, of exactly who I'm writing to, typically a client that I've worked with, or a group of clients that I'm thinking okay, how can I write this in such a way that it's going to help them deal with whatever it is that they're struggling with that this book is intended to address? Who is your book focused on If, if you have to think about this, you know, hey, who's the avatar?

Dan Barber: 15:06

Yeah, for me it's been. A typical client of mine is usually someone in their 40s or 50s probably had a measure of success in their life, and they're at this stage where I don't call it a midlife crisis I don't use that phrase at all but it's more like to me midlife is midlife opportunities. So they're kind of at this fork in the road because they know they want to make some changes. They have the freedom to make some changes, but they're not sure what the changes are or should be. So that's who I was writing to when I wrote this book, which is the majority of my clients.

Dan Barber: 15:52

As I said earlier, though, I've had some fascinating conversations with a 20-something demographic, and so for them to consider these perspectives on the front end of life more than kind of midlife or even later has been wonderful to see them, you know, engaging in that. But, to answer your question, the 40, 50 something person who's looking to make a change, that's kind of that's who I had in mind as I was writing, for sure. Yeah, that's who I had in mind as I was writing, for sure, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 16:24

You know, we're both people of faith and we've talked about this, both coming from a pastoral background, and some of the folks listening may say well, that's not really who I am, that's not where I am at this point in my life. Would they gain and glean anything?

Dan Barber: 16:41

from this book, coming from a different perspective, faith-wise? Well, I sure hope so. I do believe so, right? I mean I wrote the book assuming the reader's not a Christian or a person of faith. I didn't assume that at all. So I do share a lot of my story in the book, which does have a faith component. Hopefully it doesn't come off as preachy or in your face or anything.

Dan Barber: 17:06

And I didn't share my story just so people would be entertained by my story. It's really to encourage the reader to think about their story. That's what really matters to the reader. So I think a person who has no faith affiliation at all maybe agnostic, however they want to label themselves can certainly gain a lot from reading the book. It's the perspective of looking up where I encourage the reader just to hang with me. You know like, ok, maybe you're not a Christian, you don't resonate with some of those ideas and those themes that I've highlighted or brought to the surface, but would you just hang with me for a chapter? Have I gained enough of your trust so you could just read it anyway, even if you think it's a fairy tale, because I just asked some questions? And so I encourage the reader just to simply ask and consider some basic questions Like what if? Questions Like what if God really does exist.

Dan Barber: 18:11

I think most of us are willing to at least entertain that. So what if God does exist? Well, what if God really created you? And what if God created you with a specific purpose in mind? That is very compelling to me. I mean, that's what gets me up in the morning, right? So I just want to stir that in the reader. They may come away reading my book and say, yeah, I don't know this God thing. I'm not really sure, but maybe I've planted a seed for them just to explore it some more. I've planted a seed for them just to explore it some more. I would be thrilled if there was an atheist or an agnostic or whoever who just read my book and said you know what Dan's asking some? I should consider those questions for myself. Like, just be honest about those questions. That's all I'm really encouraging the reader to do. Sorry, I think I cut you off there.

Dr. William Attaway: 19:05

No, I think that's so good and I would affirm what you're saying about the questions. I teach often that you're never going to get the right answers unless you ask the right questions, and what I loved about your book is that you prompt so many of the right questions. You're bringing people face-to-face, in the mirror, with the questions that we need to ask in order to find the right answers based on how we are wired and the purpose that we feel wired and called to step into. I love the right questions and your book really zeroes in on that.

Dan Barber: 19:37

Thank you. I appreciate that. Being a coach I mean that's what I mostly ask questions, I don't really offer advice a whole lot, that's that's. That's a different discipline, but and nothing wrong with that, it's just that's the uniqueness about a coaching. A life coach is not someone who dispenses advice per se. It's just asking some questions to get you to think and draw out your own answers to those questions. So I hope I do that in the book. I'm always trying to get better at doing that as a coach. That's never ending, always trying to be better at that. But it's really about the reader's story. What story are they living and what story do they want to live? I find that so exciting just to think about.

Dan Barber: 20:25

I'm not sure there's a much more important question to be honest with you, even from a faith perspective. Once you've kind of resolved the faith question, what else is there to know other than being obedient? Those are important things. What's it mean to be a Christ follower? Those are legitimate considerations. But in terms of questions, how do I want to spend my days? Like that's really important.

Dan Barber: 20:52

And the older you get, the more you think about that. That's right, you know, like I know people say all the time. But I think about the first 20 years of my life Like wow, a whole lot happened in 20 years. Seems like a lifetime of stuff. But now 20 years that's a blink, right Like that just seems to fly by. So perspective changes as you get older, that's for sure. But all the more reason to be asking those questions about what do I do with my life, because I don't want to waste it. There's a great line. I came across this song I'll really date myself, but it was from an old Randy Stonehill song from the 70s. It came out of the Jesus music movement. I really liked him a lot as an artist and in one of songs he says I don't want my life to end not ever knowing why it began so good when I heard that, that brought tears to my eyes.

Dan Barber: 21:50

Like man, like that is so good, that's on point right. Like, yeah, that's that's just what. That's what I get excited about and want my clients to, to get clarity on on, you know because, I think it's really important.

Dr. William Attaway: 22:06

So let me let me talk about you for a minute. You know you have a thriving practice. You know as, as a coach, you have served in so many different capacities and run different businesses, but the one thing that seems consistent in your journey is growth that you are committed to and pursuing intentional growth every day. How do you stay on top of your game? How do you level up with the new?

Dan Barber: 22:44

leadership skills that your business, your clients, everybody in your life is going to need you to have a year from now, five years from now. Well, the simplest way I can say this and I struggle to say it this way because my wife says I'm never satisfied. So, in the sense where I'm always wanting to get better at something, but I'm always wanting to learn. Even my mortgage broker called me the other day because we have to renew our mortgage in a few months. She's like I like talking to you, because you like learning stuff, she'll send me videos. She goes. I love when, because I know you're going to watch it and you're going to give me feedback and stuff.

Dan Barber: 23:24

I just like learning how to do things. So obviously, leaders are learners. We know that you have to be learning all the time and I do that part. I try to be as disciplined as I can be in terms of I want to model my life in a way that would inspire my clients. I can't live outside of that. There's got to be some congruency in how I live my life if I'm going to lead others, even a client, one-on-one.

Dan Barber: 23:58

I'm not saying I have it all together. I'm a mess, I'm not perfect. I blow it sometimes, I can get off track, but I'd certainly try to instill some disciplines that set me up for success on a daily basis. But, to be honest, I've gone through the steps, like the perspectives. I work through those. I've developed a life plan for myself.

Dan Barber: 24:27

I talk about my eulogy. In the books I've I've read, I've written my eulogy. Um, some people think that's morbid. I I think that's okay, like I I think, if you don't like eulogy, like, think about your 90th birthday or something and say what do you, what do you want people to say about you when you're 90? And so I've reverse engineered that as best I can. If I want to be remembered this way, then how do I have to live my life? So that starts with my wife and my kids and my grandkids and those concentric circles, my clients and my church community, my friends, centric circles, my clients and my church community, my friends, that's, that's um, that becomes kind of the focus of how or why I do what I'm doing on a daily basis.

Dr. William Attaway: 25:13

It sounds a whole lot like what Stephen Covey wrote about when he said begin with the end in mind right, yeah. You know, defining and clarifying where it is you want to be, and then saying how do I build a bridge from where I am to where I want to be? And then doing that intentionally and doing it daily, and that's what I hear when you describe that.

Dan Barber: 25:34

Yeah, I like the word intentional. I think that's so critical. I think a lot of people just wake up and go to sleep and wake up and go to sleep without thinking it through, and I think I used to live like that and that got me in a whole lot of trouble. I want to be intentional, I want to know. That's why I know, you know, this morning, I knew what I was going to do this morning a week ago, because I do the same thing every Wednesday morning.

Dan Barber: 26:02

I get up, I have my black coffee, my pre-workout drink, and then I go work out for 90 minutes and I have my quiet time and then I, I'm an introvert, I have to ease into the day and I don't hit the ground running like some people do. So I, that's how I plan my day and that's that's how I. You know that discipline, you know, serves me well most of the time. So, um, but it's being intentional is, it's being very intentional, and that's that's what I talk to my clients about and that's, you know, and that goes in all kinds of directions. Right, we can talk about core values, and you know, and assessments, and you know we get very specific on where they're at and where they want to be.

Dan Barber: 26:44

But yeah, I love the word intentional. If you're not intentional, you could just be like Jason Bourne, whose life was just being dictated by somebody else, like if you're not. I know there's a faith component to this statement, but if you're not in control of your choices or your life, then who is Someone is? So I think being intentional is critical.

Dr. William Attaway: 27:12

I see a bunch of books behind you, like I have behind me. You're a reader and I find this to be a consistent thing that really high-capacity leaders are continual learners, that really high-capacity leaders are continual learners. Is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders listening, hey, if you haven't read this, this one makes a difference.

Dan Barber: 27:35

Yeah, I'm with you, I love reading. I never used to. I didn't read a book until I went to college. So that should inspire a lot of people. I mean, if I can go to college and graduate, then anybody can. But yeah, I do like to read. Man, there's so many great resources out there, right?

Dan Barber: 27:53

One of my favorite authors is Donald Miller, because he kind of introduced me to the whole metaphor of story, right, and that resonates with me an awful lot, which is why I incorporated it into my book and I referenced him in the book a couple of times. But one of his books I really like is Hero on a Mission. That may not be his most popular, but I mean he's well known for Blue Light Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and Searching for. God Knows what I mean. Every book he's written, I wish I wrote it somehow. And a million miles in a thousand years, searching for God knows what I mean. Every book he's written, I wish I wrote it somehow. But Hero on a Mission is a great one. He talks about the different roles that we play, and so that one's been very helpful for me.

Dr. William Attaway: 28:41

That's great, you know. This has been fascinating, dan, and I really can't recommend your book more highly. I believe that it can make a real difference in people's lives. So we'll have a link to that in the show notes, of course, but Vantage Point is one that I believe will be one I recommend often.

Dan Barber: 29:01

Well, I appreciate that, I really do.

Dr. William Attaway: 29:03

I know people are going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you. What is the best way for people to do that?

Dan Barber: 29:14

They can go to my website, which is basically a blog site, so I post on a weekly basis there and so it's danbarbercoaching. com. They can check it out. I've just revamped it so hopefully all the parts are working on it. I think it is, but they can read through some of the stuff I've written and they can sign up if they want to get a. They can get it in their email every week if they choose.

Dan Barber: 29:42

If they really want to connect with me more on a professional level, they can go to my site and they can schedule a call with me, and that's just a free call. I mean, I just love talking with people and there's no obligation to the conversation. But we can talk for 30, 40 minutes and just I want to hear their story and if they're stuck, if they're struggling with something, then you know maybe I can help. But those are a couple of ways and of course they can grab the book if they want, just to give it a read. But those are some of the best ways to reach out to me. Love it, yeah, yeah.

Dr. William Attaway: 30:21

Dan, thank you for your time today and sharing so generously from your story, and thank you for writing this book, because I really do believe it's going to make a difference in a lot of people's lives.

Dan Barber: 30:32

Thank you, william. I so appreciate our time together today. I've been looking forward to it. I appreciate you having me on your podcast and just for this conversation. It's always good for me to have you know to talk like this with you, and so I appreciate the opportunity and I appreciate what you're doing through your podcast. I know you're reaching a bunch of people and I've been listening to ever since I was introduced to you. I've been listening to your podcast, so I love the content that you're putting out there. So thank you for that.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:05

Thanks for joining me for this episode today. As we wrap up, I'd love for you to do two things. First, subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you find value here, I'd love it if you would rate it and review it. That really does make a difference in helping other people to discover this podcast. Second, if you don't have a copy of my newest book, catalytic Leadership, I'd love to put a copy in your hands. If you go to catalyticleadershipbookcom, you can get a copy for free. Just pay the shipping so I can get it to you and we'll get one right out.

Dr. William Attaway: 31:41

My goal is to put this into the hands of as many leaders as possible. This book captures principles that I've learned in 20 plus years of coaching leaders in the entrepreneurial space, in business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to keep up with what I'm currently learning and thinking about. And if you're ready to take a next step with a coach to help you intentionally grow and thrive as a leader, I'd be honored to help you. Just go to catalyticleadershipnet to book a call with me. Stay tuned for our next episode next week. Until then, as always, leaders choose to be catalytic.

Intro / Outro: 32:25

Thanks for listening to Catalytic Leadership with Dr William Attaway. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. Want more? Go to catalyticleadershipnet.