Kevin W. McCarthy

Professor of On-Purpose

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Do You Want More Balance in Your Life?

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Be sure to check out the free offer to download Kevin’s poem: A “Balanced” Life at the end of this post!

It seems that everyone wants more balance.

People want:

  • A higher checking account balance
  • A perfectly balanced body
  • A balanced diet

So doesn’t it make sense that one would ask, How do I find balance in my life? A balanced life flows logically and seems so attuned with the natural order. Life coaches, executive coaches, self-help gurus, counselors, and therapists galore teach the overwhelming benefits of having your life in balance. Being well intended doesn’t replace being well thought out about such a central concept of personal and leadership development.

Work–life balance is in high demand.

But do you have a true definition or image in your mind’s eye for what constitutes a proper work–life balance definition? Experience tells me that most people love the idea of work–life balance, and they’re seeking and investing in tips and techniques all too regularly but not getting the results they want. Let me save you some time!

Do not seek balance in your life. It will misdirect, confuse, and frustrate you. It doesn’t work, period. Instead, integrate your life with your purpose being the point of integration.

“So why, Kevin,” you may ask, “are you such a contrarian?” No, I didn’t wake up on the wrong side of the bed. I’ve studied, observed, and thought about this concept of living a balanced life for decades.

Balance is a physical concept that cannot adequately grasp or reconcile with spiritual realities.

Balance falls far short, yet it remains the popular culture ideal of enlightened living. In fact, it is hogwash!

A life in balance is a myth.

It is one of those feel good, happy distractions that just doesn’t work. People who are busy balancing their lives often miss it because they’re so busy thinking they have to have their life together before they can go forward. Not true! Another myth!

Doing life is learning life. Sitting on the sidelines waiting for the perfect moment of balance and harmonious happiness is wishful thinking, at best, and wasteful thinking most of the time.

Others will claim to be so busy, overworked, and stressed that they believe more balance will finally bring them the peace, comfort, and security they’re working so hard to achieve. Wrong! Today’s On-Purpose Minute points out the folly of that line of thinking.

In another On-Purpose Minute titled “Do You Want A Balanced Life?” I invite you to really consider what you are seeking. Below, you’ll find a link to download my poem titled A “Balanced” Life.

My hope is that you’ll find that striving for balance is a frustrating folly not worth the effort.

I’ve played the “balance your life game” in the past. No more!

Today when someone says “I want more balance in my life,” I actually hear an absurd statement. You might as well say, “I’m hoping to walk to the edge of the earth one day and be able to look over it to see what’s there.” No Virginia, the world is not flat.

The concept of balance in your life is equally flawed thinking despite being so broadly accepted.

So allow me to release you from the relentless pursuit of a vaporous standard that’s impossible to grasp yet seems so easily within reach. Why live in the unhealthy definition of stress, which is what pursuing a life of balance creates?

Instead of wanting more balance in your life, seek to integrate your life around your purpose, then live into your purpose, i.e. being on-purpose. This isn’t semantics; this is a seismic truth that provides order, focus, and clarity—and, thankfully, a healthy dose of “being out of balance.” You’ll learn to live with the joyful intensity where being “off balance” doesn’t matter and being true to yourself and more on-purpose does matter.

Replace your tiring, old concept of balance in life.

Change your “ideal” and you’ll transform your life for the better as you integrate your life rather than balance it.

To download my poem A “Balanced” Life, go to our shopping cart to get your free copy.

Have You Thanked a Business Owner Lately?

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The small business owner (aka solo owner, solopreneur, SOHO, or solo) is the unsung hero of modern society. Their pursuit of a dream is epic, daring, and brave. Small businesses dot the business landscape, and in the years to come more people will turn to starting a business for additional income or to replace a lost job or create one. Profit making is alive and we all benefit from the efforts of solopreneurs.

What does it mean to be in business? Being in business is a high and noble calling!

I love what the opportunity to start and run a business brings in terms of

  • creativity
  • production
  • value-adding
  • improved standards of living
  • funding of worthy causes

People who start businesses have my respect. Regardless of whether they’re starting a home-based business, a family business, or a high-growth/high-potential venture, they’re pursuing a dream with boldness.

Small business people are heroes. Every business starts as a small business. Business owners are to the Knowledge Age what the farmers were at the turn of the 20th Century: men and women who are willing to lay the mantle of responsibility on their shoulders and pull the greater load in hopes of a greater gain.

Business owners risk much in hopes of gaining much and giving more.

Certainly, profits and a better lifestyle are part of the anticipated gain. But there’s more. The measured ability to create and control one’s life, schedule, and vocational pursuits is the height of healthy individualism.

Truth be told, if you want to mature and grow into a better person—start a business! Government doesn’t build businesses, people do.

Find a need and fill it! That is the mantra of the business owner.

Like ants scouring a picnic ground for food, entrepreneurs search the marketplace for a business opportunity or find gaps of need in the market through inventive initiative. All types of businesses are launched—service, retail, professional, manufacturing, industrial, and, the hot item today, an internet-based business. Opportunity abounds!

Business owners do more than employ people.

Business owners create jobs when they manage their businesses prudently. Most of the business owners I know are generous with those in their charge.

For many, employment is simply another form of ministry.

I’m not talking charity here. No, we’re talking about

  • mentoring and development of others
  • providing opportunities
  • raising up leaders
  • entrusting managers
  • training the unskilled

Business owners see, find, and act on the good in others because it is simply good for business and, even better, for life.

Who’s typically volunteering? Look around and notice.

You’ll find small business owners serving on boards, volunteering for coaching, taking their lunch hours to serve the poor, being active in a church, driving Meals on Wheels, and more. These are the backbone of society. They’ve chosen a different path from their corporate counterparts who must manage vacation days, punch a clock, or otherwise account for their time to their employers in terms of ROI, not altruism.

So do this: Thank a business owner today for improving your community and life.

As you prepare to purchase gifts or engage services, make the special effort to support a local small business person. Investing your hard earned cash into a sale in their business recycles into your community in ways you may never fully grasp. Be thankful for them, for you know not their struggles and thhe hardships it takes to keep the doors open to be there for you when you need them.

———CLARITY_FOR_SOLOS_by_Adam_Dudley

Recommended Resource: CLARITY FOR SOLOS

My colleague and Winter Park neighbor, Adam Dudley, has written a book. I had a few sneak peeks along the way in the writing process and I really liked what I read. While our writing styles and perspectives are different, we share a heart for the plight of the solo owner.

Adam, a huge advocate of yoga, brings a rather chill, yet focused perspective to the realities of being a solo. He gets himself out of the way to care for your needs. Adam is a thoughtful coach who listens well, processes in your best interest, and then offers wise counsel. Below his peaceful nature, the wheels are spinning as he’s thinking about what you need to succeed.

CLARITY FOR SOLOS offers great advice for solo and small business owners who are confused, stuck, or unsure about what to do next. It’s available on Amazon.com. Click the image to preview it.

Do You Feel Like a Failure?

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Do you feel like a failure? How are you choosing to frame “failure”?

Unemployment, slow business, foreclosures, and underemployment are just some of the struggles pressing into the hearts and minds of many today. As debt stares you in the face and the opportunities apparently diminish, the personal repercussions can cause us to lose hope and begin to see our lives as failing.

This situational depression can weigh on one’s spirit to the point of discouragement and negativity if we paint ourselves as failures.

What if your perspective, not your current circumstance, is the problem?

Today’s On-Purpose Minute invites us to stop looking outward and begin looking inward and upward for a fresh approach that holds the key to grasping the present situation and life beyond.

Thomas Alva Edison, the great inventor, saw “failure” as information. (See the video clip “I Haven’t Failed” by my actor friend, Frank Attwood, who portrays Edison.) How many times have you tried and “failed” only to discover you were one step closer to success?

Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, in the movie Apollo 13 is attributed with saying “Failure is not an option,” in the face of saving the crew in space. When failure isn’t an option, then what are the options?

  • Learning
  • Growth
  • Preparation
  • Creativity
  • Exploration
  • Work-arounds

Fresh and exciting options must open up!

When we play scared, we play not to win.

The best we can do is hold steady or lose ground. A shaky self-defeating cycle is set up that once it is in motion can gain momentum and overwhelm us.

Learning to play with reasoned abandon may sound like an oxymoron, but it isn’t. It means that we’re disconnected specifically to the end result, but we’re highly focused on the matters at hand. This frees us to play for the sheer joy and moment, yet aware that what we’re doing in the moment matters. Athletes call it being in “the zone.” It is preparation and hard work intersecting with opportunity.

Truthfully, you’re apt “to choke” the first few encounters, but in time you’ll grow through the experience and be on the way to success. That’s how failures become successes.

Confused About Finding Your Life Purpose?

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Knowing one’s purpose in life seems like it should be a relatively easy endeavor.

Yet for far too many of us the search for meaning continues to elude our best intentions and pursuit. Having been at this work of helping individuals and organizations define purpose since the 1980s, there are common statements I hear. These misstatements create misdirection. They tend to cause repeating and nonresolving patterns that kill time but don’t give a deep sense of satisfaction.

1. “I don’t know what to do with my life.” This statement is a clear indication to me that this person isn’t looking for purpose. They’re looking for “what to do” not “who to be.” Mission is being thought about, not purpose, per se. Knowing one’s purpose would be informative and helpful to answer the question. In short, if you’re looking for the wrong thing then it is unlikely you’ll find what you need even if you actually find it. You won’t be able to recognize it.

The greatest offender of this is the book The Purpose Driven Life by Pastor Rick Warren. The book is a great devotional, but it is really more a message of missions. The more accurate name for the book would have been The Mission Driven Life because the book is helping people figure out what to do with their lives much more than it is helping people knowing why they exist.

2. “I don’t know where to start.” The absence of a process or method is very typical of purpose seekers. They’re susceptible to anything or anyone who uses the word purpose because they have no basis for understanding it.

3. “I feel like there is a calling upon my life, but I can’t put my finger on my purpose.” Purpose and calling are often confused. Calling is a high and noble expression of purpose. Purpose is deeper and actually apart from or exclusive from calling. Purpose stands on its own, whereas calling needs purpose to give it “spiritual juice.”

4. “I feel like I’ve missed my chance at my purpose.” Wrong! Purpose doesn’t pass us by like a bus. We are our purpose. It is always with us. We were born with it, we live with it, we die with it, and we take it into eternity with us. Purpose is our spirit so we can’t separate ourselves from it, but we can ignore or deny it.

The On-Purpose Approach found in The On-Purpose Person provides both the methods and standards for discerning and defining your purpose, vision(s), mission(s), and values. We offer one-on-one personal purpose coaching as well.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel about life purpose.

For over 20 years we’ve helped thousands of people write their 2-word purpose statement and develop the life and career plans they need to excel. As I reference in the video, we just need you to be the “you” who you were designed to be and become. We’ll help you.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

P.S. A big thank you to Justin Ramb, CEO/Chief Creative Officer of BIG EYE Agency. He invited me to participate in their BIG Thinkers series and produced this video. They did wonderful work. Thank you!

Psst! Here’s a tip. Check out www.onpurpose.me to discover how you can know your purpose.

Do Good Manners Matter?

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Ladies and Gentlemen, your manners distinguish you for better or for worse.

Good manners reflect a degree of one’s upbringing, experience, and socioeconomic standing. Good manners, like good grammar in speech, are subtle cultural refinements.

Above all, good manners are voluntary, a choice we make as to how we choose to be and to present ourselves. Ideally, manners come out of a sincere respect and politeness for others as opposed to simply being put on and off to impress others.

A kind soul without proper manners but a sincere graciousness and goodness is far more appealing to me than a formal phony with all the right manners.

Right manners do not always translate into good manners.

Lately, I’ve been pondering both my language and carriage with a measure of concern. Our present culture is so accustomed to using and hearing profanity that we’ve lost our sense of what is truly profane. Gone with the wind are the days when Rhett Butler saying to Scarlett O’Hara, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” was a scandalous controversy for use of profanity.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines profane as to treat (something sacred) with abuse, irreverence, or contempt. Ouch! I don’t know about you but that isn’t the kind of person I want to be known as being.

Mores change over time and generations.

I get that. Today, however, the liberal and insensitive use of profanity—I mean really profane and derisive language directed at people—is a dangerous objectification of one another. This speaks to a deeper pain or rift in society.

Admittedly, I’m no Puritan as I’m apt to drop cuss words from time to time. When I’m real with myself, I don’t like it when I do it. Cussing is typically lazy, dumbed-down language coming from the lesser me rather than the greater me. It tears me down and, worse, brings others with me—not what we leaders want to do.

Yep, both my manner and manners matter.

I’m working to be the best Kevin I can be. Will you join me in cleaning up your language? When you do, you’re also becoming a better leader of your life by becoming a lady or a gentleman.

As I dream about The On-Purpose Planet, where every person is on-purpose, I imagine a more gracious and kinder world. Being On-Purpose is about looking into one’s own heart as well as the hearts of others. As we search our own hearts and find ourselves wanting, it is only fair that offering such understanding and acceptance of others is not for the outer person but the inner soul. Right manners can be learned.

Harshness of heart, however, speaks to a deeper problem.

Jesus told the crowd that would stone the woman, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” That sticks with me. I am too quick to pick up stones. Fortunately, as I age, I’m learning to drop them faster than ever.Humility

The mark of a true leader is a courageously generous spirit who is capable of honoring the worth and dignity of paupers, kings, and everyone in between. Privilege is a gift containing humility that must be opened and embraced. It also helps to send a thank you to those who provided the opportunity.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

In this classic (April, 20 2010) On-Purpose Minute, you’ll catch me at the Ritz-Carlton on Grand Cayman Island. After the video watch the quick 270-degree sweep of this beautiful resort. Special thanks to Daniel, the concierge, who suggested where to shoot the video and escorted me there. Truly a gentleman!

On-Purpose Proverb: Humility is knowing oneself relative to God.

What Is Trust? Can I TRUST You?

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What is trust?

TRUST = Truth, Respect, Understanding, Sincerity, Time

Can I TRUST you? is a question living at the heart of every relationship.

Trust is a precious and valuable state of being.

Trust in business and in sales is an essential and valuable character quality that pays dividends.

Squander your trust and you ruin your business. Build trust and you grow your business.

Standard poodle apricot Hamlet
What is trust? Hamlet (above) isn’t your shining example of being trustworthy. Because of trust issues, it costs him freedom and fun.

By way of a negative example, meet our dog, Hamlet (shown a few years ago before he died). Here was a great family dog—but a shining example of the cost of lost trust. His intelligence regularly surprised us. His one great flaw, however, was being off leash.

Within the home and fenced backyard, Hamlet would come when called (about half the time). Off the leash, however, at the dog park or when he escaped, Hamlet was a standard poodle gone wild. He would wander for hours, generally, circling the house in large walkabouts through the neighborhood.

Disobedience has a price.

He rarely got to go to the dog park to play with other dogs. When it was time to leave, he wouldn’t. He was too fast to catch and too smart to be caught. He would seemingly taunt us to catch him by coming within feet of our reach only to dash away. As a result of this distrust, Hamlet lost out on all sorts of privileges and benefits that a more trustworthy pooch would earn.

Hopefully, today’s On-Purpose Business Minute gives you “paws” for thought on what lack of trust could be costing you in terms of sales, customer relationships, employee turnover, and other challenges potentially undermining your business profits.

Are your relationships, options, and opportunities limited because of trust issues?

———

I’m a member of Trust Across America, a membership-based organization making the strong case for trust and integrity as business imperatives. Check out the website and join me.

Do You Have a Compelling Why?

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“The compelling why” is not the same as your “why” — your true reason for being.

The concept of a compelling why is really just an important mission that captures our heart and spurs us on with unfolding energy, vigor, and determination. But missions eventually end. At that point, does it mean our reason for being ends too? Of course not!

On-Purpose Peace FE cover
Find What You’ve Been Looking For. Click the Book Cover to Learn More.

Getting on the bandwagon for a good cause is worthy.

But what if there’s more to life than a compelling why?

In today’s On-Purpose Minute, consider the importance of knowing your simple why and the profound manner in which it can inform your life, keep you from costly distractions or dangerous detours, and help you make much better decisions across the board.

Your why can be thought of as the pilot flame. A meaningful cause or a “compelling why” brings added fuel and focus to a fire already burning within you.

Think of your simple why as your purpose in life.

Purpose answers the big question, Why do I exist? When you know the answer to this question, everything else in life has context and meaning. This is a powerful and healthier place to be in your life and decision-making.

At On-Purpose Partners, we help clients write their why in 2-word purpose statements. From decades of experience we know that when this core question is answered short and sweet, life and business improves—period.

A “compelling why” is often batted about by motivational speakers, sales trainers, and leaders to engage people in their cause or vision of the future.

Getting swept up in the moment or the movement regardless of whether it is a charitable cause, a sports team, or a political candidate is exciting and worthwhile. Most of us are drawn to a compelling why and jump on board because it is a good fit or it aligns with our purpose.

Examples of a “compelling why”—really a meaningful mission—are below:

  • A single mom working two jobs to provide a college education for her children
  • Mothers who from their loss of a loved one start MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to educate and advocate against drunk driving and drivers
  • Volunteers who work to stop human trafficking, hunger, oppression, or other social needs

Worthy causes touch each person’s soul differently. Have you ever considered why one cause is meaningful and engaging to you … while others are not, yet someone else is on fire and passionate about the same cause? Personal experience and preference certainly play into the attraction, but there’s more below the surface.

Your why lives below the surface.

This is the On-Purpose Principle at work where the purpose of the person and the purpose of the organization have high alignment. Therefore, you’re more inclined to be engaged or compelled to participate with the preciousness of your time, talent, and resources.

Would you like help in discovering your 2-word Personal Purpose Statement?

Go to ONPURPOSE.me. On-Purpose.me logoThis online app will guide you through a process of selecting a purpose statement, plus you’ll receive a 10-email course that’s practical to being on-purpose.

Is Fear Avoidable?

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My research with over 850 small business owners reveals that 32% of the respondents say fear is their greatest obstacle to success.

So what is it with fear?

Can we avoid fear? How do we overcome fear? Is fear really, as the old acronym goes, False Evidence Appearing Real?

In this On-Purpose Business Minute, let’s address the question Is Fear Avoidable? After watching the video, read The 7 Most Common Fears Business Owners Face and what to do to conquer them.

The 7 Most Common Fears Business Owners Face

  1. Fear of rejection
  2. Fear of success
  3. Fear of failure
  4. Fear of exposure for who I really am
  5. Fear of looking stupid or incompetent
  6. Fear of what they will think of me
  7. Fear of making money and exploitation

Overcome your fears using the “For PETE’s Sake” Approach described in The On-Purpose Business Minute:

  • Perception
  • Emotion
  • TrainingFIT 4 LEADING
  • Experience

Many fears are unnatural but very real to us.

Generally, for every fear you have, someone probably makes a living from it. So what is it they have that you don’t? Oh, For PETE’s Sake, they don’t have a thing on you. They simply have an abundance of improved Perception, Emotion, Training, and Experience. Your fear is their joy! How remarkable is that?

Dig into this topic more by reading FIT 4 Leading. This is the least known of my books and part of the On-Purpose Leadership Series. At only $10 plus shipping this small but powerful book provides you with strategies to be a better leader of your life for the rest of your life. Use the link to the book to find a free, introductory webcast at our shopping cart or visit the website.