integrity

Can I Profit AND Gain My Soul?

September 27, 2018 By kwmccarthy

The 3 Tips for Profiting The World AND Gaining Your Soul

Guard your heart
Focus on the soul of people
Be about excellence on-purpose

In the book of Mark (8:36–37) it reads, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?“*

Here is a sharp warning about allowing the pursuit of such fleeting things as money, advantage, pleasures, and fame to so cloud our being that we yield our character, personal leadership, respect, dignity, and relationships. We are wise to take heed because worldly temptations are alluring, but they may not be profitable.

Alarmingly, in that last phrase in Mark, there is an oblique reference to an inevitable transaction—you will have to exchange something for your soul. What will that be?

Does this mean that profiting and soul-losing are inextricably one?

I say, “No!” We can have both. We’re designed for it. In fact, to gain our soul and profit the world is the truest standard of living. Proof: how many times have you said you want to make a difference or make a contribution in your life or your livelihood?

How many times have you felt conflicted between balancing your life and your work? (Remember that life-work balance is a myth.) Purpose integrates your life and work into a meaningful whole.

So here’s the crux of the matter—you must choose which master you will serve first and foremost.

What is the exchange you’re willing to make for your soul?
Will you first serve mankind or make a profit?

There’s a reason that your personal 2-word purpose statement has a generic beginning of, “I exist to serve by …” That’s a big hint in terms of my recommendation.

After watching this On-Purpose Business Minute, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

What’s your take on the matter of gaining your soul and profiting the world?
Do you have an example of someone who is doing both with excellence?
Where is your greatest struggle with integrating what seem like two opposing masters?

* The Message is a modern translation that uses more common language to bring forth powerful principles and insights found in scripture. Here are the same verses from The Message:

“What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?”

How Authentic Is Your Personal Brand?

July 5, 2018 By kwmccarthy

CAUTION: The text that follows may disturb and upset you, especially later in this blog post. The words are offered in the spirit of truth in love. If you are offended or hurt, then you needed to read them more than you understand right now.

The integration of your personal brand and personal identity will improve both your life and your work life.

Investing time to anchor your personal brand in the bedrock of your being will prosper you, plus the world will be a better place because of you.

The desire, ability, and effort to be authentic requires us to overcome the natural decay or decline within us. In other words, being reactive, negative, and pessimistic is easy. This “laziness about life” is like emotional gravity that’s relentlessly pulling our spirits downward into a dark place.

Given this force of nature, a decision to be true to one’s greater good followed by effort in action is non-negotiable if we’re to be our authentic selves.

The marketplace is tough enough as it is. When we’re trying to “fake it until we make it” we are inauthentic—merely actors playing the role of some fictional character crafted in the deceit of our mind’s making. The script can only work so far until soon our sense of self, right and wrong, and how to make honorable decisions is so compromised that we lose our moral center.

When we no longer know who we are, we can no longer trust or develop our instinct and conscience.

Nor can other people. When people can’t trust us they guard themselves from us. This translates into lost opportunities we never even knew we missed. Doors don’t open. Referrals and recommendations don’t flow our way.

Living in a false construct is destructive.

We’re set up for the fall personally or professionally or both. Living a lie always comes with a price. Covering up our failure of authenticity invariably exacerbates the problems to ourselves and for others into full bloom. “Nipping it in the bud” has always been sage advice.

Do you find your life to be growing in complication and overly busy? Busyness distracts us from our unfinished business.

Is now the time to assess your personal brand, including the image you portray?

Soul searching is truly good for the soul and good for business.

Some of the hallmarks of authentic leaders are

patience
trust
honesty
action
perspective
calm

These are inner traits—some of which are hard-wired into us at birth. Most, however, are etched through the blessed pain of mistakes made, forgiveness sought, redemption made, and lessons learned.

Instinctively, you sense the unpredictable trajectory of your high risk–low reward behavior. You know that it is fraught with failure. Because if you rationalize “optimism,” which is really recklessness, the inevitable consequences catch up to your deceptive practices. If living lies is ruining your life, then make the tough shift of diverting from your present course.

It is never too late to have a new start.

Do a gut check. For example, the physical world reveals spiritual truths. Look at your waist. If you’ve got excess inches around your belly then here’s a clue—you’re living a lie that somehow your self-inflicted overindulgence will not affect your health. Right! Guess again.

How do I know about this inauthentic personal brand of living a lie?

Look at my chipmunk cheeks back in 2008 and me today. Who was headed for heart disease, high blood pressure, or type 2 diabetes? I was on the inevitable downward trajectory from bad habits, poor choices, and lack of understanding. That was the easy part to fix! It was the software programming within my mind and emotions that was the greater challenge.

How could I be on-purpose carrying around a 50-pound load every day?
How much more authentic am I when I’m not self-inflicting harm?
How could I expect to prosper the planet when I was damaging and endangering myself?

The burden of excess weight dragged me down physically which affected my mind, spirit, and opportunities.

Are you ready to reverse and renew your life?

Have you reached the breaking point where the price of living a lie spoken upon you or self-manufactured and maintained has become a string of overwhelming lies that fray the very soul of your authenticity and identity? Reach out for help now. Recalibrate and realign the trajectory of your life. Time can be an enemy that reveals or a friend who heals. Begin the healing!

Reclaim your true identity.

Here are practical next step suggestions:

Reread The On-Purpose Person.
Download the free Discovery Guide and figure out what matters most to you.
Get one-on-one coaching from a Life Coach of your choice or from me.
Get on the path to being healthy. If you know a Health Coach contact him or her. If you want to talk with one, contact me and I’ll coach you in the program that helped me lose 50 pounds, or I’ll refer you to a Health Coach on our team.

The tag line of On-Purpose begins with “Be Yourself.” Incorporate this simple statement into your decision-making. The less you pose, the more you will be and become the authentic leader of your life you know you are.

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This On-Purpose Minute is a contribution I made to Crowned Grace International, an organization led by my colleague and friend Dr. Stephanie Parson.

Business Strategy > Corporate Culture > Branding

July 1, 2008 By kwmccarthy

Let’s connect the dots today on three aspects of your business as mentioned in the title of this posting. Over the years, I’ve been amazed at how compartmental I find these "functional areas" are in most businesses. Let’s break the code on the "functional areas" and put it in terms of people.

Business Strategy is code for "Senior Management / Shareholders."
Corporate Culture is code for "People" inside the business or "Administration, Operations, and Sales."
Branding is code for "Customers" with experience with the company’s service and products.

Senior Management is responsible for writing business strategy plus creating and supporting a corporate culture to execute the strategy. In turn, the customer experience is a direct result of the output of the corporate culture. Alignment of all three "functions" isn’t simply a matter of putting together gears in a wheel. The physical stuff needs to happen for sure, but that’s the easy part in reality.

Business is all about the people. The true challenge is getting the people aligned, communicating, similarly motivated, and prepared to perform their jobs with excellence. Unfortunately, I’ve watched a "Fake it ’til you make it" approach of branding ourselves into the appearance of alignment. Marketing is asked to fix a world of sins within the company by portraying the company as something it isn’t able to deliver. This short-lived approach can actually produce results and fool the customers and team into believing they’re something they aren’t – successful.

Eventually, the hypocrisy emerges. High integrity people realize the problem and attempt to fix it in their functional area of authority. Unfortunately, the addiction to the quick fix has set in and so begins the battle between the long term thinkers and the short term performers.

Who wins? Nobody wins because the house is divided.

Whose fault is it? Senior management is ultimately to blame because they set the corporate culture in motion, they have the authority to fund and fix the necessary changes to bring integrity to the system. This alignment pays dividends and makes the flywheel of success spin effortlessly and profitably. If management hasn’t done their job then the entire system underperforms.

Sadly, the battle is most often won by the short term, numbers people, who milk every penny out of the system that steadily kills the golden goose. A subtle, but significant series of departure begins. The people with true integrity battle within their functional area for doing right. Dependency on short term cash flow builds to such a degree that the situations become so desperate that the "only option" is the short term fix. In time, the people taking the high integrity approach depart frustrated because they’re unwilling to continually make and fail to keep promises to co-workers and customers. As the people of low character "win," the company grows disreputable over time and falters. Like rats on a ship who ate away at the very rigging that holds it together, the rats jump ship in droves to work their "magic" somewhere else.

So what’s the solution?