Reader,

Last week, I introduced you to the four parts of our spiritual anatomy and suggested this:

I often find it helpful to define these parts by personifying them.

• Your heart is the part of you that's a Loving Companion
• Your soul is the part of you that's a Visionary Guide
• Your mind is the part of you that's a Strategic Overseer
• Your strength is the part of you that's a Driven Warrior

When each of these parts is connected and working properly, you live and love and lead from the fullness of your God given design. Unfortunately, we tend to live dominantly from one of those parts and take on our second strongest part as a sidekick while the other parts remain detached or dysfunctional.

I'll use myself as an example. I'm a Soul-dominant person. As an entrepreneur, I spend a lot of time in my head, ideating, dreaming, and envisioning what could be. I’m very futuristic, which means I’m often not really here, where my feet are planted. I’m “out there,” dreaming about what could be.

My second strongest part is my Strength. It’s the part of me that rolls up its sleeves and goes to work.

So, how does that play out in my life in terms of how I operate? Using the Plumline framework that I described above, I'm what you would call a Visionary Warrior. Here's how I get there:

• My dominant type contributes the adjective: Visionary
• My sidekick (aka second strongest type) contributes the noun: Warrior

If you've spent much time with me, you'll immediately recognize that this spiritual archetype is my way of being in the world. But I wasn't born like that. And you weren't born with your spiritual archetype, either. We learned these ways of being based on whatever we experienced in life, whatever we had to face. As a result of these experiences, we often have some parts that are over-functioning while others aren't really functioning at all.

The benefit of this model is that it helps you learn which aspects of your spiritual makeup need to grow. Because the good news is that we don't have to stay like this. There are specific ways we can grow and connect each of these parts if we’re willing to do the work—and that work is critical.

Do you know why?

It’s because Visionary Warriors aren’t very good at putting their daughters to bed. You need your Loving Companion to be able to show up for that part of life.

Perhaps you've heard the phrase, “You brought a knife to a gunfight.” That’s not nearly as fatal as when you are having a conversation with your wife and bring your Mind to a Heart conversation.

And the Loving Companion doesn’t need to lead the board meeting. You need a Strategic Overseer doing that.

If we are going to live with no regrets, we must work to connect all of our parts.

You are loved.

I am for you.

You've got this.

Jake