Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

Blog

Is a Startup Business a Smart Career Move?

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Are you unemployed, underemployed, or just plain finding that your corporate job is slowly sucking the life out of you? Are you gasping with this suffocating sense of being stuck with just enough air to breathe, yet barely enough to thrive? Is some combination of your income, lifestyle, family relationships, and health suffering because of dissatisfaction and frustration with your present work situation?

Start Small. Keep Your Overhead Low. Work Hard. Pray Unceasingly.

Starting a business isn’t just for people with business degrees and experience. Motivation, hard work, and a willingness to learn serve any budding entrepreneur.

Plan ahead for starting your business off right. In time, you’ll ease into the transition. Sometimes it is thrust upon us from necessity. Regardless of whether it is a retirement, layoff, job elimination, or simply what you want to do, starting a business is a smart move.

Here’s my list of 10 compelling reasons for starting a business:

  1. Escape the rat race. Get out of that corporate job and transition to more meaningful and enjoyable work.
  2. Personal expression. A business can be a creative outlet for a hobby or passion.
  3. Independence. Set your own hours, decide who you want to target as your customers, and don’t have a boss.
  4. Retiring to work. Retirement looms in a few years so growing a business represents a smooth transition and new sense of work identity.
  5. I need the income. Your small business may provide extra income to cover the bills for braces, college, and vacations. As it grows it can replace your current salary and become full time.
  6. Tax breaks. A small business is a vehicle for deducting some existing expenses from your tax return. Consult your CPA, but when the business picks up a fair share of the bills, it can ease the household budget.
  7. Ambition. A small business can become a big business! Put your ambition to work.
  8. Change the world. A business can be the means for you to truly change the world with your business idea, invention, or service.
  9. Plan B Security. A sour economy can be a ripe time to start a business. In such times it may be the means to provide for one’s family and self in the event of a job loss or cutback. Security matters.
  10. I can do better. Many businesses have begun because the founders knew they could do better than their employers or what was offered on the market. I’ve seen women-owned businesses blossom simply because the founder wanted equal pay in parity with men and to do better for her family.

Do you need to be the next Elon Musk of PayPal, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Steve Jobs of Apple, or Bill Gates of Microsoft?

Not really … but what if you could be? Are you ready to trust your dream? Starting a business may be one of your smartest moves yet.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

Are You Making Half-Hearted Attempts?

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What are the “benefits” of making a half-hearted attempt? There are none! It is merely an action of hedging one’s bets, a means for buying time, a time-filler, or an occupation until something better comes along.

Therein lies the problem! We’ll trade our precious lives hoping that luck will strike us with something better coming along or working out in our favor. This blind optimism is often professed as faith. In truth, it is sophomoric (wise fool) with roots in victimhood—a sure path to discouragement, disillusionment, and heartbreak. Why be half-hearted?

The alternative? Be strategic. Discern what matters and why. Trials and errors will still have their way with you; however, you’ll have a context of understanding whereby your lessons will be absorbed more readily and more fully learned. Be in growth mode. Resist the gravity of decay and lead your life from your heart—the strength of who you are. Exercise your purpose!

Yes, at first, it will probably be slow-going and awkward. But you can learn to live your life strategically, wisely, and in alignment with God’s design. Practice it and soon you’ll master the art of living by design instead of haphazardly.

If you find yourself living half-heartedly, then get a clue! Now is your time to become more strategic. Grab this free, wonderful, and simple-to-use tool called The Discovery Guide Preview that includes forms for “Want Lists and Tournaments” to help you become more clear about what matters most to you. Discover the margin and places in your life where focus and clarity will move you into a posture toward whole-heartedness. You’ll be far more prepared to commit fully into being you and to live by design—being on-purpose!

More resources:

The On-Purpose Person: Making Your Life Make Sense is a great starting point to begin the process of becoming who you are truly meant to be and become. (Kindle and Hardcover available.)

On a very limited basis, I am available for one-on-one coaching to walk with you through The On-Purpose Process. Contact me to learn more.

How Is Your 2020 Foresight?

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This On-Purpose Minute originally aired on January 5, 2010, at the turn of a new decade. Today in October 2015, let’s do a follow-up check-up on how life is looking (up?) for you. The lessons from this OP Minute still remain — except 2020 is less than 5 years away!

Short-term vision or thinking often distracts us from focusing on what really matters most to us. What would it be worth to you to clarify what is most meaningful to you? Would you invest 60 minutes of your life today to set a more clear course for the next 5 to 10 years? It seems so minor an investment for so much to gain, yet we’re often “too busy” with the non-important to define what truly matters.

Give yourself a strategic advantage by knowing what matters most. Download The Discovery 6a00e551c6499c883401116842213b970c.jpg.jpgGuide, my free tool designed to help create want lists and tournaments. It is superior to typical goal setting tools because it helps you gain laser focus. Improve your time management and your personal life improves. It isn’t too late to plan today for your 2020.

Original post in 2010!

A new year brings a rebirth of possibilities. What then does a new decade bring? Let’s look ahead to 2020 to plan what can be. Too often I find myself looking a day, a week, or even a few months, but too rarely ten years ahead. The calendar change to 2010 offers a natural opportunity to peer into the future and plan what could be.

Looking for some guidance? At On-Purpose Partners we have coaches trained in the On-Purpose® Process who can help you. Whether you need an hour or a defined program to help you, know that we’re here. Explore here.

Relieving Anxiety, Stress and Worry

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(From the keen mind and gentle spirit of my friend and colleague Mel Kaufmann, who gives me permission to share his thinking with you so you can be even more on-purpose.)

Relieving Anxiety, Stress and Worry

I do not know how you can relieve stress, anxiety and worry. I can only explain how I have relieved them. Each morning I get up thirty minutes before anyone gets out of bed and say my prayers. My prayer is a radical departure from my teaching as a child. I was taught to ask God to do stuff for me. I flip the coin. I clear my mind so God can tell me what He wants me to do. The most difficult part of this type of prayer is to still the mind. Without a stilled mind when God calls He gets a busy signal. I have lifted a sentence from Eva Bell Werber’s book, Quiet Talks With the Master; be still, put aside all thoughts of your own and let the leaven of My Spirit work through you. Quieting the mind is not a quick fix. I have been practicing this form of prayer since 1977. I still have difficulty ridding my mind of external affairs. Each year I am better and better at quieting my mind. At this moment in time, I no longer have anxiety, stress or worry. When I do quiet my mind I discover that God replaces my thoughts with rich gifts of the Spirit. So many beautiful people say to me, “I don’t have the time.” What they are really saying to me, “I don’t take the time.” For those who do not take the time, someday they will realize that tomorrow will the same as yesterday.

Mel Kaufmann

melvinkaufmann@gmail.com

Is Your Life Getting Better?

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Note: The video mentions an upcoming On-Purpose Leader Teleseminar. For this updated On-Purpose Minute, I instead want to refer you to the Power of Your 2-Word Purpose Statement webcast, linked below.

Are you or is someone dear to you the proverbial “victim of circumstances”? Don’t Be! A victim of circumstances is a person in an unfortunate position, but those circumstances need not dictate your future.

You may not be able to control your circumstances, but you can manage your responses. Resigning to your current set of circumstances can be negatively habit-forming and send you in a downward spiral. This response means that you’re on the fast track to becoming a victim, no longer of circumstances, but of self-inflicted circumstances.

Choose a better option. In this On-Purpose Minute, we’ll be looking at how you can order your life around a different, healthier perspective of managing your life.

Are you ready to finally know your purpose in life — in two words! Yes, your life will get a whole lot better by being on-purpose.

The Power of Your 2-Word Purpose Statement may be just the introduction for you to order your life, define what’s most important, and begin living as an on-purpose person in creation.

 

Are You Setting Goals?

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This is a classic On-Purpose Minute that first aired in August 2010 so the September offer regarding The On-Purpose Leader Experience is out of date. Alternatively, consider reading The On-Purpose Person and downloading the free preview to The Discovery Guide.

Another option is On-Purpose Peace, a six-session, small group study for Christians reading The On-Purpose Person. 

Goal setting is really the poor man’s way of doing strategic planning. Guess what? For about 95% of what you want to accomplish, writing out your goals will get the job done. If you want to take something to the next level, however, you’ll need to invest in strategic thought and planning. Otherwise, you’ll remain mired in mediocrity.

Research shows that as few as 1% to as many as 10% of all people write down their goals. Why not more people? Here are some of the excuses I’ve come up with. What’s your reason for not setting goals?

  1. I don’t have time to write goals.
  2. I’m not really sure that’s where I’m supposed to focus my effort and energy.

    Marine Institute Ireland, Strategic_Planning_S...Image via Wikipedia

  3. If it is meant to be, then it will happen.
  4. Goal setting is a waste because my goals never come into being.
  5. Who am I to set goals?
  6. No one else I know sets goals.
  7. I don’t know how to write a goal.
  8. What if I don’t reach my goal?
  9. What will other people think? They might think I’m crazy.
  10. I have too many goals to write them down.
  11. I don’t believe my goals can be realized or are realistic.
  12. Goals don’t motivate me.
  13. Goals are too basic for what I need to get accomplished.

Behind every rationale for not setting a goal is a tragic assault on hope and possibilities fed by irrational thought. OK, so maybe you don’t have Killer Goals; that’s still no reason for not learning the process and getting started. In fact, set that as your first goal.

Lose the Excuses, Gain Your Sanity.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

 

4 Sales and Business Growth Strategies

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Guest Star Today!

Sometimes advice is just so good that I just have to share it! With the permission of my colleague, Meridith Elliott Powell, I am delighted to both introduce you to her as well as share her wonderful insights on strategies for building relationships, business, and revenues.

Please post your comments below. Also, Meridith’s email is below; connect with her directly. She would be delighted to hear from you.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

Meridith

Take a moment to assess the current sales and business growth strategies you have in place, then watch this video to get the 4 new business strategies I have outlined. You can email me with any questions or comments. I’m always happy to help! Have a successful week,

Meridith

Meridith Elliott Powell

Ready to get more from Meridith? Download her free copy of
6 Key Strategies for Connecting With Clients!