Your 3-Stage Purpose Discovery Process for Leadership Calling (No Mountaintop Moment Required)

The prophets of Baal danced and cut themselves from morning until evening, calling on their god to send fire. Nothing happened. Then Elijah prayed once, and fire flashed down from heaven, consuming not just the sacrifice but the wood, stones, dust, and even the water in the trench. The people fell face down: “The Lord—he is God!” (The entire story is told in 1 Kings 18).

It was the ultimate leadership moment. Dramatic. Undeniable. The kind of story that gets retold for millennia.

Yet when Elijah later needed direction for his own life, God didn't speak through windstorms, earthquakes, or fire. God spoke in a whisper so gentle that Elijah almost missed it (see 1 Kings 19).

Here's what I've learned after two decades of seeing military leadership in action, serving as a Navy chaplain, and mentoring leaders across sectors: if you're waiting for a dramatic revelation to discover your calling, you'll be waiting a long time. The leaders who find their most profound sense of purpose aren't the ones chasing mountaintop experiences. They’re the ones who've learned to pay attention in the valley.

The Dangerous Myth of Dramatic Calling

We're addicted to the extraordinary, restlessly pursuing the next grand adventure that will finally reveal our true purpose.

This addiction to the extraordinary has infected how we think about leadership calling and vocation discernment. We wait for the retreat that changes everything, the conference that provides crystal clarity, the crisis that forces our hand. We trust emotionally driven moments to guide major decisions.

But here's the problem: decisions made during heightened emotional states—whether positive or negative—consistently fail to account for long-term consequences and contextual complexities. Research in decision-making science confirms what military leadership training has taught for generations: effective leaders develop protocols that function under pressure while avoiding purely emotional responses.

A Marine Corps Sergeant Major I worked with taught young Marines to consider the “second- and third-order effects” of their decisions—thinking not only about the present moment but the future impact of their choices. This wisdom saved many from emotionally driven decisions they would regret.

While mountaintop experiences like retreats, conferences, and profound worship are meaningful, I don't trust emotionally driven moments to guide major decisions about leadership purpose. The whisper approach to discovering calling requires something different: sustained attention, patient listening, and the willingness to find meaning in the mundane.

The Heat That Reveals Who You Really Are

The most significant moments of clarity about our leadership calling occur during what I call “crucible seasons”—periods of intense pressure and difficulty that test everything we thought we knew about ourselves.

A crucible is a container that holds the intense heat and pressure necessary for raw materials to transform. Gold must be heated to 1,948 degrees Fahrenheit to separate the dross from the pure metal. A smelter scrapes away the impurities that rise to the top. Only then is gold purified. The pot must withstand the heat. If it doesn't, the hot gold flows out and remains unrefined.

The Marine Corps understands this principle at a cellular level. Basic training concludes with “The Crucible”—a 54-hour endurance challenge including sleep deprivation, limited food, 48 miles of hiking, and physically and mentally demanding events. Men and women who endure these long hours receive the honor of being called a United States Marine.

But here's what's crucial: The Crucible doesn't just test existing capabilities. It reveals capacities the recruits didn't know they possessed. The same is true for leadership calling. Your purpose isn't discovered on the mountaintop—it’s forged in the crucible of ordinary, sustained pressure.

Consider Rich, an executive director whose organization was being torn apart by a bitter conflict between two junior leaders. The arguments, passive-aggressive emails, and staff taking sides created an exhausting environment. Rich dreaded coming to work each day.

He had options. He could have fired both leaders and moved on. He could have ignored the situation and hoped it would resolve itself. He could have left for a “better opportunity” elsewhere—a classic mountaintop escape.

Instead, Rich stayed in the crucible. He began having difficult one-on-one conversations with each person. He learned to listen without taking sides and ask questions that revealed each perspective. The process was grueling, with no dramatic breakthroughs or weekend retreat that fixed everything.

Six months later, the conflict was resolved, and Rich had discovered an unexpected strength in helping people navigate relational difficulties. What felt like his worst professional season became the foundation for launching a mediation consultancy that has helped organizations resolve profoundly complex conflicts.

Rich's calling wasn't revealed on a mountaintop. It was forged in the ordinary grind of showing up day after day, doing the hard work of crisis leadership and stress management, and staying present to the discomfort rather than seeking escape.

The Three Stages of Transformation

Drawing on ancient Christian spiritual formation traditions and contemporary research in transformational psychology, I’ve identified three stages leaders typically move through as they discover their calling through ordinary faithfulness. Understanding these stages helps you recognize where you are and what's required to move forward.

Stage 1: Confrontation—Breaking Through the False Self

An essential first step in discovering leadership purpose is breaking through our ego, often through a severe test. This stage involves moving from self-reliance to reliance on something beyond ourselves.

In this stage, there's a fierce stripping away of what I call the “false self”—the identity we've constructed based on circumstances, other people’s opinions, and cultural expectations. This false self relies on external validation for its sense of security. It's resistant to the authentic purpose trying to emerge.

I once worked with a domineering leader who received brutally honest feedback about his leadership style. He chose to embrace rather than resist the confrontation, beginning the process of stripping away his false self—the leader who needed to dominate to feel secure—and revealing his true self.

Confrontation in spiritual leadership isn't punishment—it’s an invitation. It's the moment when reality breaks through our carefully constructed narratives and offers us the chance to become who we're truly meant to be.

Stage 2: Self-Soothing—Developing Internal Resources

Leaders in the self-soothing stage are developing the capacity to tolerate discomfort, regulate emotions, and draw on internal resources to manage stress. They're learning to detach from gratifying but false desires—the need for constant validation, the addiction to being right, the compulsion to control outcomes. They're developing what researchers call “emotional regulation” and “distress tolerance”—the ability to remain present and functional even when circumstances are uncomfortable.

This is where leadership under pressure becomes sustainable rather than merely survivable. Leaders learn to stay with the complex growth process rather than retreating to safe but stagnant familiarity. This stage is uncomfortable because it requires sitting with anxiety rather than immediately seeking relief through external sources.

Stage 3: Trust—Leading from Your True Self

Trust represents an intimate union—a maturing ability to self-reflect and self-soothe, combined with a growing capacity to live in a connected relationship with God and others. Leaders at this stage lead according to who God made them to be, without masks, in alignment with their core values, passions, and long-term goals.

When we lead from this place of trust, we spend most of our time operating from our strengths, abilities, and passions. We’ve proactively addressed our weaknesses through God's grace and strength. We lead with a profound sense of harmony that spreads into the lives of those impacted by our leadership.

Why the Ordinary Matters More Than the Extraordinary

Success results from living the ordinary extraordinarily well, not from the extraordinary experiences in our lives. We live in an attention culture that celebrates the dramatic and dismisses the mundane. But finding our purpose and growth in leadership happens in the cauldron of the ordinary, away from the spotlight.

The question isn't whether you’ll have mountaintop moments—you probably will. The question is whether you'll build the spiritual disciplines that allow you to hear God’s whisper in the valley, where most of life actually happens.

Crucible experiences create urgency naturally. There’s no place for complacency in the heat of a crucible. The same is true in discovering our calling. The ordinary pressures of sustained leadership—the difficult conversations, the persistent conflicts, the daily decisions that compound over time—create the conditions for genuine transformation.

Practical Disciplines for Discovering Calling in the Ordinary

How do we actually discover our leadership calling through the ordinary rather than waiting for the extraordinary? Here are disciplines that create space for gradual discovery:

Stay Present in Your Crucible

When you're in a difficult season, resist the urge to escape or make dramatic changes. Instead, ask: “What is this season trying to teach me? What capacities am I developing that I didn't know I had? How is this difficulty revealing my true priorities?”

The crucible isn't something to escape—it's where your calling gets forged. Leaders who learn to stay present in difficult situations develop capacities for stress management and decision-making that serve them for decades.

Seek Honest Feedback Consistently

Don't wait for annual reviews or crisis moments. Create a personal board of advisors—people who know you well and have permission to speak truth into your life. Ask them regularly: “Where do you see me come alive? Where do you see me struggling? What patterns do you notice in how I lead?”

Confrontations that lead to growth rarely come from mountaintop moments. It comes from trusted people who care enough to tell you the truth in ordinary conversations.

Establish Regular Reflection Practices

Set aside time weekly—not just when you're in crisis—to reflect on where you experienced energy, where you felt aligned with your values, and where you sensed you were making a meaningful contribution. Keep a journal tracking these patterns over months and years.

Purpose reveals itself through patterns, not single events. The discipline of regular reflection trains you to notice the whispers that the noise of daily life would otherwise drown out.

Embrace the Long Obedience

Eugene Peterson wrote about “a long obedience in the same direction”—the patient, sustained faithfulness that characterizes genuine spiritual formation. Discovering your leadership calling requires the same commitment.

Peterson warned against our cultural assumption that anything worthwhile can be acquired quickly and efficiently. That assumption is false. Finding your vocation is like any other hard thing in life: it takes time and consistent practice, not a single mountaintop moment.

The Whisper You're Missing

Your calling isn’t hiding on a distant mountaintop. It’s being revealed right now, in the ordinary moments of your everyday leadership—if you have the patience and presence to listen.

Discovering your leadership purpose requires disciplined spiritual exercises that prepare you for the long journey ahead. It requires the courage to stay present in crucible seasons rather than seeking escape. It requires the humility to recognize that your worst professional season might become the foundation for your most meaningful contribution.

When Elijah needed personal guidance about his calling and direction, God didn’t speak through windstorms, earthquakes, or fire. God spoke in a whisper.

What ordinary crucible are you in right now that might be forging your calling? What would change if you stopped waiting for the mountaintop and started paying attention to the whisper in the valley?

The fire from heaven makes a great story. But the whisper changes your life.