I recently moved into a new home. You notice a lot of things about a home once you buy it and move in that you never noticed before. There are cracks in the ceiling, leaky pipes, broken glass, and loose floorboards. Most of these things are not important, they are cosmetic. What does matter is the foundation. Is it solid? The people who previously owned this home did not spend time in their basement. It was obvious when we walked through the house before buying: the interior

Time. It is the great equalizer. We all only get 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week. Whether you are leading a country, like Angela Merkel the Chancellor of Germany, or leading a global business like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, we all are allotted the same number of hours in a day. 24. During those 24 hours a day and 7 days a week come the highs and lows, successes and failures, experiences and missed opportunities that make up a life. Our life. How we use our time matters. Yet,

I spend most of my days with busy executives at the height of their careers. Now in their mid 40s and 50s, these people are doing the work they had imagined. Successful, seasoned, strong-willed, often there is something more simmering under the surface. That something more, bubbling under the surface, is a question that perhaps they haven’t thought to ask before (and if they have, it has been a while). It’s a question about identity, about calling, and about purpose. Many of