Purpose at Our Core

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Purpose is the Foundation

Many years ago, I partnered with a good friend to start a career counseling business. Now, we were not one of the “job in a drawer” places where someone just flips through the Rolodex and says, “here’s your perfect job!” We actually worked with our clients to help identify where they would be happiest and where they would be at their element. Where they can be fulfilled and fit in. We were trying to do something of significance, because so often we ran across people who really had no clue who they were or what they were designed to do.

Purposeless Education

Case in point. One client comes in. She has gone through college, went to medical school and became a doctor. Went through residency. At the end of residency, decided she did not want to be a doctor. Went back to school and studied psychiatry. Went through residency again. Decided she did not want to be a psychiatrist. Now, 30 years old and all that time and money spent in school and programs – all that knowledge and training – and she had no idea what she wanted to be. Sitting in my office, tears and sobbing, she felt lost and that all was lost. She had no idea where to go, what to do, how to make a difference. She had no purpose.

We All Seek Purpose

She is not alone. Too many are in the same place. Not sure where to go or what to do. Many times, they made decisions on what to do or what job to take or career to pursue based on someone else’s dream. So they trudge along in a job they can’t stand, where they can’t wait for quitting time to come around or can’t wait until they hit retirement age and do something else. But even retiring doesn’t solve the problem. They still feel lost and without direction, they are just doing it from home instead of the office. There are even studies to suggest that retiring leads to an earlier death. I emphasized the suggest because it is far from conclusive. Anyway, we are lost for most of our lives without purpose.

Benefits of Purpose

Purpose gives us positive emotions that bolster us. We feel passion to drive us. We feel emotional connection. We feel satisfaction at having an impact. We feel fulfillment at adding value to someone else. Purpose does more than provide direction, it provides meaning and significance to our lives. As a result, working to fulfill our purpose can lead to more profitability personally and corporately in part because we will have a more positive attitude. That improved attitude will allow us to view the challenges of life in a different perspective. Mountains become molehills, nothing seems insurmountable. Sacrifice seems more temporary and more worthwhile. We feel and see victory.

Do you know your purpose? Do you really feel the significance of what you are doing, how it impacts others and adds value to them? If not, know that IT IS NEVER TOO LATE to discover it. At the same time, you don’t want to wait. Some wait too late and miss the opportunity to discover and live that purpose. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said,

Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

Some day may never come and the greatest tragedy of all isn’t taking a risk and losing it all, it’s going to the end of your life on earth with that song still in your heart.

If you know your purpose, truly feel the passion that drives you, I commend you and hope that you are pursuing it on a daily basis. Let me know how I can help you.

If you don’t know your purpose, make a commitment to start TODAY to begin the journey of discovery. Don’t be afraid to seek help finding it. Trusting a professional coach can help you accelerate the process and more accurately identify your purpose. You would not be alone in this; a large number of successful corporate executives use coaches for this and other reasons. However you do it, DON’T WAIT ANOTHER DAY! Take that first step. You can do this, it’s in you. Let the song out.

Action Plan

Sit down RIGHT NOW and do one of two things:
1. If you know your purpose, list the things you need to do DAILY to live it. Schedule time on your calendar to work it and commit yourself to the process.
2. If you don’t know your purpose, commit to do something TODAY to start the process of discovery. Not sure where to start or what to do, find a coach. Do it now.

Risky Business: The Power of WHY

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Why Powers Risk

WHY power makes us do things that others question. It has been almost three years now since I took this very risky venture on several fronts. I chose to work for myself instead of for someone else. I chose to change my primary business from technical training and development to cultivating leadership and personal growth. I chose to invest in being a Founding Partner in the John Maxwell Team and a certified leadership speaker/trainer/coach. I chose to pour my resources into developing that business. For a variety of reasons, it is still not a booming success but I know it is coming and continue to work towards that.

Why Powers Purpose?

The big question I usually get is WHY I chose to make the change to leadership development and fostering personal growth as opposed to sticking where I was with training and development consulting (I still do that by the way). I can only say that it is the answer to that very same WHY that drives me. Over the years I have worked for several companies, large and small, and through that with many client companies. A consistent issue I saw in many organizations is that there was plenty of management going on and very little leadership. And there is a difference, which I have talked about in an Ah-Ha! Moment of the Week video.

And what I saw from this was that most of the problems of the organization was due to that lack of leadership. I truly believe that

Everything Rises and Falls on Leadership

and that the level of effectiveness of leadership is what determines how a company succeeds and grows or withers and dies. Small businesses today especially need to embrace this because in this hard economy it becomes real easy to lose vision what you are trying to accomplish and how you are going to get there. You get lost in the trees of survival that you can no longer see the forest. Then, when things do clear you are totally unprepared to take advantage of the growth opportunities before you. I believe in small business and I believe in YOU and that’s the WHY that drives me every day! It’s why I became the TOP-LINE GUY to help you achieve BOTTOM-LINE RESULTS!

Action Plan

What’s your WHY? Is it specific? Just making money is not enough; just serving people is not enough. You need a WHY that will drive you through hard times. A WHY that will compel you to take risks, financial and otherwise. A WHY that will set the stage for you to swallow pride and independence enough to seek help to excel. A WHY that will drive you to learn what you need to learn and gather who you need to gather. A WHY that demands a legacy to go far beyond where you will ever take it.
Write that WHY down. Remind yourself of it every day. Let it infiltrate your organization in the vision, in the mission statement, in the customer service, in employee relations; in everything you do.
Not sure how to make all that happen? Not sure of your WHY? Seek a coach or partner who can help you identify it, define it, and live it. There’s a reason that highly successful organizations have coaches; because that’s how they became highly successful organizations.

Turn the Airplane Around – A Change to Your Path

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Change of Mindset

Driving to a meeting this morning I was listening, as I usually do, to “Automobile University”. If you haven’t done this, it’s a practice I highly recommend. Instead of listening to local radio and hearing the same song five times in an hour or tuning in (bleah!) talk radio or the news, try instead taking advantage of that really nice CD player you have and pop in motivational stories or information. I will alternately listen to audio with John Maxwell, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Les Brown, and the CD that comes in every issue of Success Magazine. This is especially great for those who don’t have the time to read constantly (that pretty much covers all of us). Positive, inspirational, motivational, and informative. Great way to start off!

Flight Path Change

Anyway, I was listening to Zig Ziglar tell an old familiar story, which I’ll retell from my perspective.

I boarded a plane at Orlando International Airport that was bound for Seattle, Washington with no stops. The plane took off and after being in the air for about a half hour, it was no longer heading directly for Seattle. The earth rotates, winds blow, all kinds of physical forces work against the plane heading straight for Seattle. Don’t know where we are going, but it ain’t Seattle.

So the pilot, wise man that he is, turns the plane around and heads back to Orlando, lands and starts all over again.

What?!

Of course he doesn’t! He and the co-pilot simply make navigational adjustments to re-direct the plane back towards Seattle in mid-flight. It would be silly and waste of time to head back and start all over again.

That’s the story of you and me. When we attempt to get somewhere in life and accomplish something a monkey wrench gets thrown into the works. It is inevitable that things will not go according to plan. Too many times, the way that a person will try to solve that problem is by tossing the whole plan out the window and making a new; starting all over again. It tends to be either/or; a change in the plan doesn’t enter our mind.

Change Your Plan

Stop! Think!

It’s not necessarily the whole plan, just parts of it. Sometimes even it’s not the plan at all, just outside forces that interfere and cause a problem. Instead of throwing out the whole plan, just make adjustments. Don’t change where you want to go, simply change the path you will follow to get there. Keep yourself directed, don’t lose sight of where you want to be! The rocky path in front of us can distract us, but you need tunnel vision so you don’t accept anything other than the goal you wish to accomplish.

Action Plan

Take a look at your goals and think about one that recently had a setback. Did you toss out the plan? Have you made a new one or abandoned the goal altogether?
Re-focus. Do you still want that goal? What can you do differently to get there? Is there something you can try that no one has tried before? This is especially good when conventional methods aren’t working.
Take the first step NOW! When we take an immediate action, no matter how small, we increase the likelihood of success.

Dream Your Way to Productivity

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Daily Productivity

Wave a stick around and you are bound to hit a pinata full of productivity tips somewhere on the web. Everyone has their special tips on how to make your day more productive as an entrepreneur or small business executive or simply as a worker bee. Some of them are quite good. I am especially a fan of Helen Raptoplous (also called Helen Rappy). She provides practical, easy to apply steps to manage your day more effectively and increase your productivity. When you can get more out of yourself in a day, whether working for yourself or someone else, you will be more be productive. You will achieve. You will get noticed. And you will be in demand as a result.

Dream to the Next Level

Dreams — http://www.dreamstime.com/future-look-stock-photography-imagefree90202

It’s been my experience that the ones who are most productive are driven; and they are almost always driven by a dream. They have a vision of who they want to be, what they want to do, how they want to add value to others.

When you feel that you have something special you can offer people in this world and it can make a difference in their lives and yours, you are more inclined to look for ways to be more effective about it.

No doubt about it, living your dream creates a new world with new possibilities and leads to to find out how to best share it with others.

That’s not to say that the dream alone is sufficient. You still must focus on daily growth, learning more about what you do and how you do it. You must learn to be intentionally productive. Many times we are “accidental achievers”; things get accomplished and we are not exactly sure how. What we want is to not only achieve our desired results, we want to know how we got there so we can repeat it.

Start that Dream

So, if the best way you can be highly productive is to work to realize your dream, then take a look at what you are doing today. Ask yourself these questions: