Purpose Before Plan

A Practice in Qigong Leadership

One of the hardest things for a leader to admit isn't that a strategy failed.

It's recognizing when the strategy has quietly become more important than the purpose it was meant to serve.

I've done this.

More than once.

Recently, while working on the long-term sustainability of L-EAF Lab, I found myself convinced that one path forward involved building grant-writing capability inside our organization.

On paper, it made perfect sense.

Many of our partners rely on grant funding.

If we could help them secure funding, we could help bring more immersive learning experiences into the world.

The strategy aligned with the mission.

Or so I thought.

Then something interesting happened.

The energy inside the Lab changed.

Not dramatically.

No one revolted.

No one argued.

But something felt different.

Conversations became heavier.

Progress slowed.

The excitement that normally fuels our work became harder to find.

The traditional leadership response might have been to ask:

"How do I get more buy-in?"

With Qigong Leadership I ask a different question.

"What is the energy trying to tell me?"

That single question changed everything.

The problem wasn't the mission.

The problem wasn't the people.

The problem wasn't even the strategy.

The problem was that I had become attached to one particular strategy.

Once I let go of the attachment, new possibilities appeared almost immediately.

Instead of teaching educators to become grant writers, what if we leaned into grant-writing experiences?

What if we leveraged our exiting partnerships with organizations already passionate about funding?

What if sustainability became something our ecosystem produced together instead of something our Lab had to become?

Nothing about our purpose changed.

Only the direction of the energy.

That's Qigong.

Not forcing movement.

Not stopping movement.

Simply finding the direction where the energy already wants to flow.