Career & Work

How To Be On-Purpose in Business & LIfe

June 25, 2024 By kwmccarthy

You never really know how your work touches another person’s life.While I’ve known Dr. Jim for over 30 years, I had no idea until this interview the impact of our working together on his 2-word purpose. Here’s the interview in its entirety.

Jim, as you’ll see, is a bright guy with a curious mind and a steward’s heart. His strong Christian faith comes through in this interview — as does mine. Thanks to his inquisitive mind, we go deep with some on-purpose principles. Given our relationship, there’s a natural comfort in our conversation, which I hope translates into a deeper appreciation and application of your 2-word purpose. As always, your comments are welcomed.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

Dr. Jim Harris

My Personal Declaration of Independence

July 2, 2023 By kwmccarthy

When in the Course of my Human Life it becomes necessary to dissolve my unhealthy and unproductive Patterns which have led me to this point in my life and relationships, there arrives such a time to assume among the Powers of Earth and Heaven, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of God entitle me, an inherent Identity, Respect, and Worth apart from the opinions of others, requires that I declare and separate myself from such distraction, derailment, and destruction in order to ascend to my rightful Purpose, Promise, and Place as an On-Purpose Person in Creation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Wellbeing. — That to secure these rights, personal responsibility must be seized, embraced, and owned, deriving said just Powers from the consent of the Creator, — That whenever any Form of Self-Governance becomes destructive of these ends, it is my Duty to alter or to abolish it, and to institute revitalized Personal Leadership, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its Powers in such form as one’s Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values, as to most likely effect my Safety, Wellbeing, and Joy.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Patterns long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown I am more disposed to tolerate and suffer, knowing that insufferable evils will not right themselves or abolish the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of self-inflictions and disruptions of Purpose, pursuing invariably the same Object repeats a Pattern to reduce and subject me to Despair, it is my right, it is my duty, to throw off such Inflictions, and to provide new Guards for my future security. — Such has been my patient sufferance; and such is now the necessity which constrains me to alter my former System of Personal Leadership. The history of my present Person is a history of repeated Self-Defeat and Squander at great peril and cost to the Innate Purpose and Promise bequeathed to me by my Creator upon my Human Birth.

<insert your Off-Purpose Pattern(s) here>

I, therefore, the Person solely charged and vested to lead this profound Gift of One Life do assemble and engage with others in like-mindedness in my Personal Declaration of Independence, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the ethic of my intentions, do, in the Nature, and by the Authority of the People of this On-Purpose Planet, a Commonwealth, solemnly publish and declare, That I am, and of Right ought to be a Free and Independent Person, that I am Absolved from all Allegiance to the Distractions, Derailments, and Destructions of my Past and that I sever all connections from them and their grip on me. They are to be totally dissolved; and that I am to be a Free and Independent Person, with my full On-Purpose Powers and Promise to defeat my nagging Fears, embrace true Peace, contract healthy Alliances, establish meaningful Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which an Independent Person may of right do–And for the support of this Personal Declaration of Independence, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I, as an On-Purpose Person In-Creation and a member of this commonwealth with On-Purpose Persons do mutually pledge to myself and to each other my Life, my Calling, and my sacred Honor.

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Daring You To Be A Commonwealth Capitalist

May 23, 2023 By kwmccarthy

Let’s get some terms on the table to guide our conversation.

Capitalism is the economic system by which private enterprise is the chief means of production and distribution of goods and services in a nation.

Socialism is an economic and political system whereby the chief means of production is controlled by the government or publicly owned.

A Commonwealth is a nation, state, or political group that is founded on law or agreement to serve the common good or to serve to the advantage of one’s self and others.

Communism is an economic and political system with a single central authority with the collective ownership of property, labor, and means of production and distribution whereby its people are required to serve the greater good or the state’s agenda.

Individualism is a belief in the primary and moral worth of the individual to make decisions, to be self-reliant, and to be free to pursue self-interest.

Collectivism is a belief placing the community’s worth, morality, and interest first.

Materialism is a belief that the personal accumulation of money and physical comfort are the chief aim of the individual, at the exclusion of spiritual or intellectual endeavors.

Idealism is a belief that the basis of all life is rooted in mind, spirit, or soul apart from the material.

Clarify your beliefs to gain deep personal insight on the social, economic, moral, and political foundations defining how you operate in the world as an individual, a partner, a parent, a friend, and a business owner or team member.

Why am I daring you as a business person to be a Commonwealth Capitalist, basically the left side of the above list? You are capable of being an even better leader of your life than you already are. Yet, if you don’t take a stand, you’ll be squashed by your ignorance. On the other hand, better understanding who you are and where you stand provides you a meaningful opportunity to tap into a even deeper anchoring of who you are being and becoming. You may love your specific choices or doubt them, or reject them with greater insight and appreciation thanks to heightened awareness about the underpinnings of your thoughts.

Capitalism is proven to be the greatest system in the world for raising the standard of living for any people group. From the Pilgrims to the Founding Fathers of the USA to today, the ideals of free enterprise, fair competition, personal responsibility, and rule of law have proven to create a prosperous nation. However, raw capitalism left unchecked leads to materialism and greed. Raw capitalism, therefore, must be checked by justice and further moderated by idealism and mercy.

A Commonwealth Capitalist is a business person who eagerly accepts personal responsibility while also embracing and acting upon the moral urging of the soul to do right by others. Their “pursuit of happiness” is not a headlong charge of individual aggrandizement and enrichment. Theirs is a shared and uplifting journey that’s the epitome of the adage “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

How to Name (or Rename) Your Business Right for Success

April 18, 2021 By kwmccarthy

Creating a Right Business Name

Keep Your Business Name As Simple As Possible

Business naming is a combination of art and science. Done right, it sets your business up for long-term success. How? A good business name eases the marketing and sales process, builds customer and team member loyalty, and provides a strong ROI.

If your business name isn’t helping you, then it’s hurting you. Why settle for anything less? Let’s get your business name right from the start-up, or rename your business to gain a host of business advantages.

Business naming is a big subject. Let’s focus on the start-up entrepreneur and the small-to-midsize business owner. Large corporations typically turn to their internal marketing team, an outside ad agency, or strategy consultants like On-Purpose Partners for this work. Because you’re reading this, is it fair to assume you don’t have $1 million like Pepsi spent in 2008 to change their logo?

Creating a right business name is first a strategic process. Start-ups have the advantage of the proverbial greenfield to start fresh. In an existing business, a business name change typically means something isn’t working with the current name. Perhaps you need a new name because your business and another are merging. Beneath a new business name, something strategic is in play.

Business naming problems fall into broad categories such as being too long, too difficult to spell, or too hard to remember or pronounce. It takes an extra investment of time, money, and effort to establish a difficult business name. However, once established, the business name can become distinctive. Here’s an article from HubSpot on hard-to-pronounce business names that you likely know.

Creating a right business name has practical implications. The business name will visually appear in print and in pixels. It will be in use everywhere. It will also be spoken on video, podcasts, radio, and other audio formats. It will be converted into a graphic for placement on signs, doors, trucks, business cards, stationery, banners, and more. Your business name is tightly tied to your brand strategy and implementation.

Creating a right business name has personal implications. For many owners, your business name is a reflection of you personally. In addition to the physical assets of your business, your business name lives as intellectual property with a goodwill value for when you sell the business or pass it on to others.

Creating a right business name has creative effect. Do you want a catchy business name, a cute business name, a prestigious-sounding company name, or (to the other end of the spectrum) a short, nondescript name that you build into a brand? Do you want your business name to be bold or subtle?

How to Get Your Business Naming Process Started

Business Naming exercise — Business Naming Brainstorming Exercise

Here at On-Purpose Partners, clients periodically seek me out to help them name or rename a business, product, or service. Because they recognize I’m gifted with distilling big concepts into a few words, as in a 2-word purpose statement, I’m a natural for this work. I’m remarkably fast and accurate at naming businesses, programs, products, and such. Pushing the boundaries of the mundane to get to something magical is really a blast! And, as a business owner myself, I appreciate what all is riding on the business name. There’s an urgency to get the business name in place sooner rather than later. Otherwise, the business is can get bogged down and kill precious time.

Here’s the way the business naming process works:

Initial Consult: This is typically a 30-minute over-the-phone or video call where we mutually assess fit and appropriateness. If both of us agree it’s the right fit, engage me via a Small Business Advisory Package (as long as your revenues are under $1 million). If you’re a larger company, then our next step is a consulting engagement with the On-Purpose Partners team that I’m leading. The fees vary based on the degree of complexity, which includes but isn’t limited to the size (sales and people) of your company, the stakes involved, the number and level of decision-makers who need to sign off, and the speed of your need. We only work directly with the company owner, president, Managing Director, CEO, or CLO.

Engagement: Ready to get started? Below is the typical flow of a business-naming engagement.

Prep Me: In advance of our interview(s), send me links to your current website and LinkedIn profile. This helps me get a sense of your company and you. If you have an existing product or service, if possible, I want to experience it. Send me your available product and current marketing, brand guidelines, or business plans. If none of these exist, no problem — we’ll talk it through.

Give me context. The nature of your business matters when it comes to business naming. For example, business naming for a B2B enterprise versus a B2C company typically defines a direction.

Prep You: You’ll be given access to use ONPURPOSE.me to find your purpose in life. The best small businesses are ultimately the expression of a person’s purpose and passion. Your 2-word purpose provides a solid basis to craft your business name and to assess if the business name and your purpose are meaningfully aligned.

Interviews: You’ll be interviewed about what’s working and what isn’t working with your business name as well as your business. It’s vital we establish a dollar value to renaming the business. It may not be worth it or it may be worth a lot. This metric is important. Otherwise, it is easy to put off working on the business. There are always pressing issues, and business naming is easy to put off. Here’s where my accountability to move the project along matters.

Once I’m prepared to meet with you, we begin a fun, exploratory process. My first question is, “What’s your gut tell you to name the business and why?”

You’ve been thinking about this for some time and I want your thoughts. Put your ideas out there. While you may not be gifted at business naming, you know your business. This is our starting point that tells me what you have in mind.

I’ll ask a number of related questions to assess the fit with your vision (where you envision your business going), missions (what you do), and your values (what is important to you). Surprisingly, we may be able to tweak what you have and be done in minutes. Business naming isn’t something you do on a regular basis so my best advice involves affirming your keen thoughts.

I may even throw a number of business names in your direction just to get a sense for your personal preferences and to hear your reaction. Ultimately, this is your business and you want to be proud of it. This fast, creative, instinctive process can produce remarkable results so you can get moving now!

The instinctive approach works best for start-ups and small businesses. This collaborative business naming approach gets to a business name thoughtfully fast. You’re relying upon my decades of business experience to absorb the spirit of your intentions and to translate that into an immediate and sustainable business advantage.

Beyond the instinctive approach is a more structured approach that most often comes into play for midsize or larger companies where lots of livelihoods are at stake. This typically involves a 30-day process and can range from thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, subject to complexity. At this point, you’ll have a written contract to sign.

If the instinctive process fails to produce near-immediate results, we move to a more structured approach. This is typically needed in midsize companies and larger.

Competitive Assessment: Give me the names of your top 3 to 5 competitors. I will assess how far behind or ahead you are of your competition from a strategic and marketing perspective for attracting and keeping customers and team members.

Set Criteria: Based on all I’ve learned, we’ll collaborate to create criteria to measure how well potential business names achieve the desired business goals and outcomes. For example, does LLC or Co. or Company need to show up in your business name? How long or short does the name need to be?

Suggestions: For existing businesses, we may write a briefing or produce a video to share that a renaming process is underway. Next, we launch a campaign to invite related parties (team members, customers, vendors), asking for their suggestions.

Collaborate to Create a List: Eventually, all those involved go away to just noodle on a new business name and send me their suggestions. I compile their suggestions, plus I do “my thing” as my team calls it.

I use a combination of internet research, the dictionary, mind-mapping, and conversations with consulting peers and creatives to come up with a list of names. During this creative process, I’m also searching for trademark and domain name availability so we don’t fall in love with a name we can’t readily use. I’m also searching for variations on the name, including misspellings. For example, Lyft, the shared-driving service, plays off the concept of giving some a lift or a ride somewhere.

Presentation(s): Depending on the size of your company and the number of decision-makers involved, I cull down the list to a reasonable number of business name options where we weigh the pros and cons against our gut and against the criteria. This may take a few rounds of whittling the list to the final selection.

A New Business Name!: Now that you have a new business name, this opens up a host of wonderful opportunities — plus work. You’ll need a new logo, an outreach campaign to announce your great news, and more.

Business Naming Lessons

Over my decades of doing this kind of work, I’ve learned a few lessons. Here’s a few:

Generally, the shorter the name the better. A short name works better for memorability, graphics, and efficiency in all communications. Simple sells better and faster. The more people can remember your business name, the easier it is for them to refer people to you.

Business naming is easier when business strategy is in place. At On-Purpose Partners, we help clients write their deep strategy of purpose, vision, missions, and values. These are defining statements that feed into the naming process.

Business naming draws upon the past while inspiring the future. Even if your business is a new start-up, you have a history that led to this point. You also have a vision for where you want it to go. And you need to act in the present.

Get it right the first time. Business name changes are a big deal. You don’t want to do them very often. Everything from filing a name change with state, federal, and local agencies to communicating with vendors and customers to graphics to banking and checkbooks and more are just some of the realities of a business name change. The corollary to this, however, is:

When your business name stops working for you, make the business name change fast. My father-in-law was a dairy farmer and had an expression about dragging things out: “It’s like cutting the tail of the dog off an inch at a time thinking it won’t hurt ’em so much.” Act and act decisively.

Digging deeply into your personal, career, and business history produces gold! By also exploring your dreams and aspirations, we’re more apt to land on a solidly meaningful name for your business. The added benefit of this is a significant strategic advantage because the purpose, vision, missions, and values of your business are clarified.

Decide if you’re building a practice, a lifestyle business, or a business. What’s the difference? A practice is a business a professional builds. A lifestyle business meaningfully integrates one’s life and work to where profit-making is one of several measures of success. A business is a serious, all-in endeavor with significant aspirations and ambitions that will employ lots of people and serve many customers. This relates to the purpose, vision, missions, and values of the business and its owner(s).

Founders matter. Founders insert a spiritual DNA into a business that sets a pattern and mindset. Sometimes that is good and other times it isn’t. For example, renaming may be necessary to reinvent the organizational culture.

Your business is its identity in the marketplace. The business name and your business strategy, marketing, graphics, sales, and team culture are all influenced. Investing in such a vital aspect of your business on the front end has very practical human, operational, and financial implications. It’s a small forward investment with dividends through to a retirement or exit strategy!

Do I use my name in naming my business? Yes and No!

Ford or General Motors? Post Cereal or Generals Mills? Hewlett-Packard or IBM? The first business name in each pair bears the name of its founder. The second group doesn’t. There is no right answer, just the one that best suits your needs. There’s also change. Edison General Electric Company became General Electric Company in 1892.

Here’s some guidelines and examples:

Are you a start-up solo owner who is a coach, consultant, counselor, trainer, lawyer, CPA, engineer, realtor, broker, architect or other role that’s providing professional services? If so, then using your name in the business name of your practice often makes sense.

If you’re a personality-based business, such as an author, politician, artist, solo musician, TV or radio personality, comic, keynote speaker, etc. and that’s your gig, then use your name.

Using your last name in your business is fairly typical but not necessarily all that inspiring. For example, if I were starting a business, I could name it McCarthy & Associates or McCarthy Company, if it is available. Typically, this business-naming method conveys a small professional service led by one person and perhaps a small team. Frankly, I find these names bland from a marketing perspective, but they may also reflect the personality or lack of marketing expertise of the owner. Ironically, it is truth in advertising.

On the other extreme is the Trump brand. Heck, it helped Donald J. Trump become the President of the United States!

My colleague, Terry Pappy, is a talented solopreneur business advisor. She formed PappyClub to help her peeps build their businesses and brands. She included her last name in the business name to convey that you’ll be hanging out with Terry as she coaches and offers business and marketing insights. She’s very sharp, quick-witted, and fun to be around so being in a “club” with Terry matches her style.

What about using your first name? I engaged the services of Jan & Susan, a virtual assistant team. Jan and Susan are the two founders who elected to use their first names in their business name. Perhaps they were fans of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and followed their lead?

But using your name isn’t always right for naming a professional services business. Since 2008, Julie Holzmann has provided copy editing and proofreading services. She calls her business WordProofing. We created a tagline of “You write. Then I right. (That’s word proofing.)” The business name conveys what she does so there was no need to include her name.

The benefit of not having your name in the business is when people are looking to the business and not a specific person. That makes it easier to add people to the team and create more long-term freedom. Frankly, there’s an element of ego involved, hopefully healthy ego. And there can be an element of low self-esteem involved that prevents a person from naming their business with their name.

Name That Business!

Naming a business seems like such a simple task. To some degree it is, especially for start-ups, professionals, and small businesses. In fact, business naming is a vitally important, sophisticated task that touches every facet of your business, primarily because it is how people will identify, relate, and brand their experience with your company.

How to Get the Job of Your Life?

April 30, 2019 By kwmccarthy

This On-Purpose Minute originally aired in November 2011, when the unemployment rate was over 10%. In the years since then, not much has changed really. Supposedly, the unemployment rate is currently around 4.9%, but that statistic fails to account for many who have simply dropped out of the job market due to discouragement. Some say the effective unemployment rate is as high as 1 in 6 persons.

I regularly talk with people who are underemployed, but at least they’re in the game. Opportunity tends to create more of itself. There’s learning happening and new relationships being made. This is currency that doesn’t spend, but it can pay.

Then there are those who are involuntarily unemployed. This is heart-breaking on many levels. The fear of rejection, let alone the rejection itself, can erode confidence. This reduces their chances for future employment even more.

Aside from the loss of income and financial struggles, what I often observe in their situation is a point of view that is detrimental to their state of being now and long-term. They’ll never get the job of their life. It is like the movie Dead Poets Society, where the one young man decides that a life of just pleasing others is worse than death and others learn the lesson. Despite Robin Williams’ tragic death in real life, he provided a source of inspiration through his body of work.

Many think that a job provides a sense of security and identity. This “3-2-1” pattern, however, is a frail basis upon which to build one’s life. Instead of growing a sense of self, the shifting “foundation” speeds the cycle of being in and out of dissatisfying jobs or workplaces.

Perhaps the money is too much to quit a miserable job. The pain of change appears worse than the suffering on the job. For a few dollars more, we’ll trade our life. What a waste! Yet, I fully understand and deeply appreciate the dilemma. Money is important to function in society, to eat, to be housed, etc.

Work on You

Don’t blame the job for your state of being. Instead, bring your state of being to the job! Here’s how:

Don’t quit your day job just because I struck a nerve with you! These seemingly stalled or downward career spirals can be broken.
Let my 1-2-3 approach in this OP Minute settle in your spirit. Even if you think it is impractical, do you find yourself wishing you could actually do this? Do you imagine what’s really possible if you pursued your passion?
Take action. Be in circulation. Make appointments for visits over coffee, not lunch. Coffee is cheaper and you’ll not get fat.
Develop a list of ten to twenty friends or business colleagues with whom you keep in regular contact. Describe in detail what you’re looking for. Gain their agreement to keep their eyes and ears open for you. Have them make warm introductions to your target companies.

Investing time to think, sort, and pray about who you are and how you can contribute to the well-being of an employer and company is smart thinking.

The job of your life is to live your life on-purpose — to be as fully YOU as God intended and designed you to be. It is the only job you can’t delegate so get to it now.

How Do I Find The Job of My Life?

The On-Purpose Person provides a simple and affordable roadmap for discerning who you are before you decide what to do.

Recently, I was speaking to a group of women who worked at a local college. Their Wellness Committee recognized the connection between purpose and health and booked me to speak the faculty and staff (not students). From the audience, two small groups formed who were systematically going through The On-Purpose Person. After completing the study, I was invited back on campus for their last “Gathering” to discuss the experience. One woman decided to make a job change and was starting a new higher paying, more rewarding job in 10 days. One decided she needs to start a job search. Others, however, reaffirmed that they were exactly where they were most suited to be. They saw the meaning of their lives and those they served with a fresh and positive point of view.

Not bad! Not bad at all. So the point is, use The On-Purpose Person to plan your life and then your work. Remember all work is neutral and that it is our job to bring meaning to it.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

Have You Thanked a Business Owner Lately?

November 29, 2018 By kwmccarthy

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.

———

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?

November 27, 2018 By kwmccarthy

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?

November 20, 2018 By kwmccarthy

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.