Education

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.

How Many Friends Do You Have?

October 16, 2018 By kwmccarthy

(This Classic On-Purpose Minute first aired in 2009. Where I say 2010, insert 2018. Start creating friendships today so your tomorrows can be richer.)

Are you hiding behind your avatar pretending to do life?

Who really knows you?

Despite the proliferation of social media, digital connections, and the means of communicating via FaceTime, Skype, text, phone, email, and a letter, do you truly have friendships?

Facebook friends are not the same as true friends. Hiding behind our Facebook profile has become an art form but not necessarily a form of friendship. These one-way communication postures allow us to talk but not be challenged.

I’ve often said that one of our greatest fears is the fear of being known for who we really are and what we’re really thinking.

These “unmentionable secrets” create strongholds of deception that undermine our confidence or cause us not to act. Confession is a sacramental exercise for good reason. It frees the soul to be right with God, self, and others.

When no one really knows us, we can be so lost and alone in the midst of our tribe. Adding more “friends” becomes an unfulfilling addiction in our search for identity, connection, and meaning.

Perhaps you aren’t even aware there is a different way.

Has the number of your connections become your measure of the meaning of your life?
Do popularity and followers define your worth and character?
Have the online hours spent building your network left you busily distracted, desperately lonely, and lacking? Is something still missing?

Consider this, however: a true friend knows what doesn’t get posted on social media or knows it before it gets posted.

Try an experiment this week: Make fewer new connections and have more conversations with a handful of people whom you love or truly would like to know better. Instead of focusing on your burgeoning network, try investing in going deeper with the relationships you do have.

Begin by writing down the names of 2 to 4 people whom you identify as worthy of becoming a better friend.

Call them and tell them what you’re up to in terms of deepening the friendship.
Get together with them.
Grab a cup of coffee; invest yourself in what’s happening in their life.
Learn to listen and ask the deeper, more penetrating questions.

Instead of staying on the surface of life and activities, discover what they learned, how they felt, what concerns them, what gives them joy, and so forth. Laugh, cry, reflect, and just do life together.

Challenge yourself to add at least one true confidant to your life over the coming weeks and months.

Your reward may be a lifelong friend.

When we have friends, we can be apart from people, but not alone. Keyboards can masterfully sustain and keep true friends connected through time and distances. Having friends to talk things through, to be in the flow of one another’s lives with context and concern—now that can make all the difference!

This classic On-Purpose^® Minute invites you to take a hard look around and see who is truly there standing with you. As importantly, are you at risk of being off-purpose and there’s no one there beside you to call you to task because you’re caught in the swirl of social media?

Read a summary of the Duke University research here.

How Are You Learning to Be in Business?

April 19, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Most people in business really don’t know what they are doing when it comes to the business of business.

It doesn’t mean they aren’t successful. It means they generally aren’t as successful as they could be. In a moment of candor, most of us will tell you that we’re plowing into virgin territory regularly. And what we’re doing for continuing education is generally a hodgepodge from a variety of sources.

A great solution is to join a peer learning group. More on those later in this post.

If you own a business and you don’t understand the foundations of business, then you’re likely functioning at 50% or less of your potential. Where else can you get an ROI (return on investment) like that for such little effort and energy expended?

Learn to be a Business Person

Most management and business training tend to be job specific or skills related. Overlooked are the fundamental concepts of business, the free enterprise system, and basics of what is called “general management” and business leadership. It is expensive to learn the basics of business.

Most businesses are built by—as Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, calls them—technicians who have an entrepreneurial seizure. They haven’t got a clue about being in business. Look no further than the professions of engineering, medicine, and law, for example, for really smart people who often don’t have a clue how to do business but are in business or own one. At least the professions have enough honesty to call them practices instead of businesses. : )

For years I’ve asked the question, “How did you learn how to do business?” The typical response is “School of Hard Knocks.” In other words, trial and error is the teacher—a cruel one at that. Check out the results of this small study I conducted with attendees of a previous webinar. (click on it to see a full-size version)

A small percentage of people have undergraduate business degrees or an MBA.

Candidly, as a man with both an undergraduate business degree (BS from Lehigh University) and an MBA (University of Virginia Darden Graduate School of Business Administration), I’ll confess my college degrees prepared me with concepts, tools, language, and business context. They didn’t, however, turn me into a businessman. Degrees accelerate learning but they don’t make the person quite like being on the job does. We can’t avoid the School of Hard Knocks, but we can be prepared to learn the lessons faster, smarter, and less hard.

Becoming a Better Business Person

What are some of the ways to improve as a business person?

Business consultants are an effective means for business improvement. Match a consultant’s strengths to your weaknesses and your business will prosper. Use consultants to set-up, fix, and refine systems where you lack the expertise or time to learn. This is especially helpful for those one-time set-ups such as an accounting system, putting up a website, or succession planning.
Executive and business coaching are ways to improve as a business person on the job. Having someone come alongside and “teach you to fish” is important.
Peer business owners outside and inside your industry. Generally, these are casual meetings where you learn from one another. Golf is often played!
Associations often provide industry-specific training and resources. Tap into your association and see what they have to offer. Another great source is your Chamber of Commerce or local business development center. They often provide very reasonably priced training with local experts.
Read books on business and leadership: Shameless plug coming … Read The On-Purpose Business Person and The On-Purpose Person. Together they lay the groundwork for leading a business and leading your life.
Peer Learning to the rescue: One of the most overlooked programs for business training is non-competitive, facilitated, peer learning groups. In Napoleon Hill’s classic book Think and Grow Rich, he introduces the business idea of mastermind groups. These are generally self-managed versus having third-party facilitators who prepare the agenda and lead the group. Peer learning groups are also called business roundtables or CEO groups. The power of having peer learning grows your learning exponentially because the groups typically involve business training, reading business books, special learning programs, or technologies. In other words, they combine all the ways we learn plus the many benefits I’ve outlined in this On-Purpose Business Minute.

Here are some recommended resources for peer learning groups:

CEO: Colleagues of Executive Online: John Smith, the founder of CEO, pioneered the concepts of business roundtables for Christians in 1989. In April of 1990, I joined one of John’s CEO groups. He’s been a mentor and friend ever since. John now offers virtual groups leveraging video conferencing. I’m a co-chair of a group with John.
Vistage International: I know several people who participate in, speak to, or chair Vistage groups. Generally, Vistage members are running businesses with a minimum of ten or more employees. Dave Zerfoss in Charlotte, NC, is a personal friend and top-notch chair. Connect with him directly if this interests you.
C12: I know Buck Jacobs, the founder of C12, as well as many members and chairs. C12 is designed for the Christian business person. In Orlando, connect with Kevin Respress.
Peerspectives Roundtables: Peerspectives is both a group as well as a specific technique developed by the Edward Lowe Foundation. The Peerspectives technique provides a structured approach to problem-solving and sharing. A friend of mine, Steve Quello, uses this approach in Florida.
Christian Roundtable Groups are sponsored by Truth@Work and are designed for solo owner or SOHO operators.
The Advisory Board has been around for decades. I don’t have personal experience or relationships there but given its long-standing presence, I have to believe they offer excellent value and opportunity to grow.

So there’s my short list of recommendations for bolstering your business skills, concepts, and relationships. If you are serious about growing your business to the next level, then run, don’t walk to find yourself a peer learning group.

Are You A Purpose Driven Person?

March 20, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Today, let’s explore the difference between being purpose driven and purpose called.

Let’s start by defining our terms.

What does it mean to be driven?

Mules and horses are driven by the coachman or whip, as he’s called. For many of us it is too easy to get on a track at work and in life, lean into the yoke, and just keep pushing forward day after day trusting that in the end, it all works out for the best. Is this a healthy way to live?

One day we will reflect and look back over days, years, or decades of being a driven person. We’ve been pushed from behind, compelled to do something that may not be the right fit for us. Often we’re motivated by influences outside of ourselves. Such extrinsic motivation works for a while but it is hard to sustain.

To be called is to answer to a higher power.

It is ours to respond to the calling or ignore it. Most of us think of clergy as having a calling. In fact, every person has a calling, a purpose, a design and gifting that is uniquely fitted into a neat package called YOU!

We are not purpose driven. We are purpose called.

Instead of being driven, what if you were leaning into your calling? It may be the same load, but we’re choosing to accept the burden differently.

Here’s a secret about your calling.

You have to be still and listen. It is a calling, not a shout or a holler or a scream. It is subtle, gentle, a small still voice in the wilderness that is never demanding or pushy.

Implied in being called, is being called by name. In a manner of speaking, your 2-word purpose is your spiritual name. So when you hear or recognize it, you know you’re being called and you can answer it.

God calls us by name.

Purpose is one’s identity or name that God uses to call us. We then offer a response of yes or no. When we say yes to our purpose, we are being on-purpose or answering our call.

Here’s a great article on the difference between a job, career, and vocation from Fast Company magazine founder, Alan M. Webber. I remember reading this article in 1998 and nodding my head in agreement.

Watch today’s On-Purpose Minute. You may find it alarmingly disturbing to your “well-ordered life.” Perhaps you’ll find it amazingly comforting as you pursue a calling that seemingly defies logic and reason to everyone except you.

Have you heard about Type A Personalities? These men and women have traits in their personalities that thrive on stress, pressure, multitasking, and … (drum roll) premature death due to heart attacks, high blood pressure, and other stress-induced diseases. Being a driven person and exhibiting Type A behaviors are related but it need not be a death sentence.

Are you ready to begin the cure from being purpose driven?

Here it is: it has nothing to do with your personality—Theory A, B, X, or Y. It has to do with your worldview. You’ve adopted or adapted to a driven personality style.

The cure is to recognize that you are called, not driven. Your purpose forms the words of your identity by which you are called and, once known, you are better capable of recognizing and appropriately responding to your call.

Please let me hear from you. Share your story in the comments section below and you’ll be putting voice to your thoughts and desires. More importantly, others will read your post and glean insights and better self-awareness. You can make a difference this way that can alter the course of another person for good.

Be On-Purpose (called, not driven)!

Kevin

P.S. I’m often asked what I think about Pastor Rick Warren’s best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, which came out many years after the original release of The On-Purpose Person. First, no he didn’t “steal” my stuff. I get that question all the time. Second, we use purpose differently. He uses purpose to describe what are really the five missions of the church. He hasn’t asked me to re-title the book, but if asked, it would more properly be named “The Mission-Driven Life.”

Are You A Leader?

August 13, 2013 By kwmccarthy

I mentor a number of people. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of this work is to see people's leadership blinders. There are many ways of "acquiring" these blinders that needlessly bury and blind their leadership potential.

I've been gifted with eyes to see into the hearts of people and to have an inherent sense of their leadership potential. Frankly, this gift has a heartbreaking downside as I see people who cower from knowing who they really are and settle for less in this one lifetime.

I understand that it takes courage to find one's voice in the world. May I help you?

What Happened To Us? Was it a mentor or parent who failed to recognize your potential and polish the genius of your spirit? Perhaps it was abuse at the hands of a tyrant who pushed you down in order to build up himself or herself? Or is it simply the fear of being known and choosing to play life too safely? The reasons are many, yet the results are the same—being off-purpose and suffering the costs of being less than who we were intended to be and become.

Are you ready to reject mediocrity and begin majoring in your life? May I be your mentor for six weeks through The On-Purpose Leader Experience? Join other on-purpose persons as we go deep into the heart of being a leader to the spirit of who you are. This breakthrough Experience is hard to grasp on the front end, yet, I promise, you will not regret participating in it.

Each week of six, we delve into the On-Purpose Process in a fun, yet meaningful and respectful manner to help you get to the essence of who you are and how you can become a more confident, strong, and faithful leader of your life.

Click here for more information about The On-Purpose Leader Experience.

What Kind Of Business Owner Are You?

April 2, 2012 By kwmccarthy

Business owners are anyone with a job to do.

In The On-Purpose Business Person I write about the Think Inc! mindset and the importance of taking on responsibility. Blame is the easily spread dung of cowards. They avoid consequences, but will revel in results.

To assume responsibility for leading one’s life and work is a heroic effort. To put oneself on the line along with the ensuing consequences (good or bad) takes guts. If you’ll simply get started with assuming responsibilities, you’ll be amazed at how it feeds your confidence and fuels your growth. Rarely will you blow it. Always will you learn from it. The more you attempt, improve, and succeed, then the more opportunity and increasing responsibility will come your way.

Hopefully, you have an executive coach or mentor who helps you sort and think through your responses and lessons when you miss. Also, the person can give you perspective when you hit the mark and help you raise the bar of the possible next.

One of the most important roles of a business owner is to set and create a culture or an environment. How well are you doing with those around you? We can be slack about it or intentional. We can encourage the taking of responsibility or we can crush it. The same holds true at home. It reflects an approach to life, marriage, rearing children, or volunteering for a committee at a not-for-profit.

As a result of this On-Purpose Business Minute, please challenge yourself to truly reflect on this important aspect of leading by taking responsibility for yourself, your actions, and your choices.

Just what kind of business owner are you?

My Darden School Experience Could Be Yours!

February 4, 2010 By kwmccarthy

Image via Wikipedia

The Darden School at the University of Virginia provides a business education that I rate as second to none. The faculty are amazing, the facilities are stunningly beautiful, and, yet, that isn't what makes it so exceptional. It is the culture of Darden that makes it special. Being a part of Mr. Jefferson's University offers a rare grounding in the exceptional vision and intelligence of this founding father. While President's name are often attached to building and schools, Mr. Jefferson truly created to core strategy, designed the buildings, and oversaw physical construction. He was the architect and truly laid the foundation for generations and created a culture of engaged learning and excellence.

I consider myself truly blessed to have earned my MBA from the Darden School. Have you considered getting an MBA while still working? Here is your chance!

The MBA for Executives Program at Darden allows seasoned managers to
earn the Darden MBA from the University of Virginia while continuing to
work full time. Students have an average of 12 years professional
experience (7 minimum).

If you’d like to learn more, you can attend the MBA for Executives
Open House at Darden on Saturday February 13. The day (10 am- 3pm)
includes the opportunity to participate in a classroom discussion and
meet current students, faculty, and staff.