CHAPTER 8

Mindset on Work

Work—The Effort Required to Achieve Success in One’s Vocation and Life’s Purpose

Purpose

Purpose, simply stated, is the reason that something exists. Inanimate objects are not the only things that serve a purpose, human beings do, too. When you wake up every day, do you feel like you are doing exactly what you were put on this earth to do? I certainly do, but it wasn’t always this way. There is no School of Purpose, unfortunately. The closest thing to it would be life itself. I attribute the discovery of my purpose to my close connection to God.

It was not by accident that I named my coaching and consulting firm, Pursue Your Purpose LLC. Once I discovered my purpose, my whole life changed, including my business. Entrepreneurs often have a passion that supersedes working for a paycheck. Their businesses are usually tied to their reason for existing. They have just mastered how to package what they do in a way that can fulfill their soul as well as their bank accounts. Yes, you can profit from your purpose!

If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you might as well do something that you would enjoy doing every day and feeds your happiness. If you haven’t figured it out yet, you must know that money alone does not make you happy. Your soul is designed to need more than wealth and material possessions for it to be satisfied. Your work should add to your happiness, otherwise, you’ll find yourself trapped in a rat race and just going through the motions. Follow your purpose, and the money will come. You may not get rich, but your soul will prosper, and you can still do very well for yourself financially.

In the mind of an entrepreneur, work is more about carving out your place in the world to fulfill your purpose. Entrepreneurs often align their work with their gifts, passion, skills, and abilities, which also happen to be clues that reveal their life’s purpose. Entrepreneurs are often compelled to choose work that is deeply meaningful and purposeful rather than punching a clock and being told what to do. Of course, the end goal is to be profitable, but this is often secondary to their dream. Successful entrepreneurs often sacrifice the financial stability of what a steady paycheck can provide, sometimes for years, to follow their dream. This is proof that it is more about creating their dream life than about instant financial gratification.

Once you discover your purpose, you will learn how to align everything else in your life with it. The type of friends you choose, the person you marry, the type of business you choose, the geographical location you choose to live in, and more will no longer be left to chance. You will become strategic and intentional about fulfilling the reason why you are here on this earth. For me, entrepreneurship is a calling and a divine mission. I won’t allow myself to quit when things get tough because I am certain that this is what I’m supposed to do and it is the work that is fulfilling to my soul.

There is a reason that you are drawn to a certain vocation more strongly than others. Your deepest desires and longings, in many cases, will lead you closer to your life’s purpose. I started out as a mechanical engineering student in undergrad. I had a full academic scholarship and a great internship making higher-than-average income for a 19 year-old, but there was still something missing.

I just couldn’t see myself crunching numbers and calculating statistical variances all day in a cubicle with little interaction with people. I was also disinterested in attending the required classes for a mechanical engineering major. It just didn’t suit my personality, and I was unfulfilled and so I struggled. That unfulfillment led me down a path to try to discover my true passion, so I began flipping through my university’s course catalogue to find a major with courses that I might enjoy more. It was then that I figured out that business courses piqued my interest. After three business management degrees and running a few of my own businesses, I was right!

I think we do young adults a great disservice in the educational system by not providing better guidance to help them choose a vocation that is more in alignment with who they are meant to be in this world. From my experience with coaching new or aspiring entrepreneurs, I have found that they have already spent years in a career field that had nothing to do with their entrepreneurial ambitions and passions. Many others weren’t working jobs that matched their college degree. This shows that college-aged young adults sometimes don’t have the capacity to figure out what they want to do for the rest of their lives. In some cases, their desires just changed over time. Either way, the missing link is purpose. Purpose is the glue that ties work and passion together.

If you’ve ever had to drag yourself out of bed every day after hitting the alarm snooze button a few times, it only indicates that you are not very excited about the work that you do. I’ve been there! It was super challenging to get to work on time and I knew something had to change, but it took me a while to figure it out. I was trying to force a square peg to fit into a round hole and my dissatisfaction was a clue that what I was doing was an unnatural fit for me. In another job that I had, I was so weary because I felt totally unmotivated to submit the required reports by the deadlines. No one should have to endure this drudgery. Work is not meant to be this way; rather, it should be a gift that we enjoy. We spend so much of our lives working so we might as well enjoy it! Ever since I’ve aligned my purpose with my work, running my business actually became fulfilling to me on a deeper level.

I have never regretted my decision to change my college major or my career path. It’s never too late to change the course of your life if you don’t like the direction in which you’re heading. However, the longer you wait, the more time you lose that you can never get back. Life is too short to continue traveling down the wrong path. So, change that major, go back to school, acquire a brand new skill set, or whatever you have to do to start over. Your purpose will keep calling you until you answer it. That’s why the same dreams and desires often linger in the back of your mind for the past 5, 10, or 20+ years and won’t go away.

When you align your purpose with the work that you do in your business, not only is it a gift to you, but you also become a gift to others. As you give of your time and your talents you are actually serving others. This doesn’t mean that you should forsake profits. Quite the contrary! It simply means that you should pursue your purpose first because profits won’t fulfill you in the long run. Aligning your business vision with your purpose is the easiest way to profit because you are doing something that you were born to do.

A company that is purpose-driven gives more meaning to the work than making lots of money does. It gives a sense of purpose while doing good in the world.

If you are struggling to find your purpose, I encourage you to take the following Mindset Exercises. It is a good starting point to uncover overlooked indicators that point to your purpose. For most, discovering their life’s purpose is a process that becomes clearer over the course of time. Time will reveal your deepest desires, what you gravitate towards, who you enjoy helping, and your gifts that you put to work with minimal effort.

Purpose is revealed when your passion, gifts and skills, and what you love doing for others intersect. Passion comes naturally. It cannot be manufactured. It’s not just an emotion, but it is also a driving force that keeps us motivated to achieve a goal. Without it, interests wane and what you’re doing becomes more of a chore rather than enjoyment. Passion could be in the form of love, compassion, anger, frustration, indignation, desperation, and so on. When used for good, your passion serves as a huge part of your ‘why’ for starting a business.

Your gifts and skills are additional clues that shed light on your purpose. Although they are different from one another, they both work together to make your purpose known. We are all born with gifts. Some may refer to them as talents. We did not work to get them, but we can identify that we have a natural aptitude for something that was just always there. Some people are naturally athletic, or rhythmical, or musical. Others might be more inclined mathematically, scientifically, or technologically.

Skills, on the other hand, are competencies that we have acquired and perfected through training and practice. A skill is something that you can do well because you have taken the time to master it with practice and you’ve worked to become competent. The main difference is that you cannot acquire a gift, because you were already born with it, but you can develop it and become even more adept at using it. Skills require more effort since you weren’t born with a natural aptitude for them, but you do possess the capacity to learn them.

I recommend honing in on your gifts first before you find a skill to develop. That’s the shortest path to discover your purpose and do what you love. The added bonus is that you will also have a sense of fulfillment with using your gifts. Birds fly in the sky with ease because that’s what they were born to do. Fish swim in the sea with ease, again, because that is what they are supposed to do. Why reinvent the wheel and go against nature when you were already naturally wired to excel at something? Problems arise when you try to alter your natural state to do something that you are not meant to do. There are so many misplaced people in the wrong occupations today. They often choose a vocation based on whatever college majors or jobs that are available rather than choosing a vocation that is based on their purpose. Many may not even have taken the time to reflect on their purpose, let alone make an intentional effort to align their career paths or vocations with it. Once you discover your gifts and your purpose, they can be monetized, packaged, and sold to an audience that you can help or serve in some way. This is what entrepreneurship is all about.

Doing what you love must be a part of the equation when seeking out your purpose. If you don’t enjoy doing it then it’s not your purpose. One of the greatest disservices that you can do to yourself is to choose a career path, vocation, or business venture based on the amount of money you think it will generate. When people pursue profits over purpose, they end up with full pockets but empty souls.

Legacy

Leaving a legacy is also a part of an entrepreneur’s mindset on work. A business is something that can be passed down from generation to generation. A job cannot be inherited, obviously because there is no ownership. As an entrepreneur, you can create income-earning opportunities for heirs and other family members, the community, and others. Business ownership is thought of as a wealth creation vehicle. Most people will not get rich or wealthy by working for someone else all of their lives. Leaving a financial legacy helps to secure the welfare and prosperity of the family who succeed the business.

Making your mark on this world is also a part of your legacy. What do you want to be known for at the end of your life? What would you like to contribute to this world to make it a better place? The world is waiting for what you have to offer. Unfortunately, many people are living beneath their greatness because they are choosing the conventional path of the masses. “Go to school and get a good job,” they say. Who is “They” anyway? Follow your instincts to do something greater than what the masses are doing.

Long after I’m gone from this earth, I’d like to leave behind something that is still making an impact and still producing income for my family members. Businesses, books, articles, other published works, intellectual property, and inventions are all legacy-building tools. Just think if all 7+ billion of humanity carefully considered how we could all leave this world a better place after we have departed. I consider it my duty, not only as an entrepreneur but also as a human being.

Self-sufficiency

Work to an entrepreneur is a form of establishing independence from the fluctuating conditions of the job market. In fact, some former employees who were laid off, underpaid, demoted, or had their jobs eliminated found their entrepreneurial spirit by circumstance. While the unemployment rate varies by country, one thing that remains the same is that, if the jobs don’t exist, then the people themselves must create them. There is an element of freedom that entrepreneurs get to enjoy because they are not at risk of losing their jobs due to circumstances beyond their control, and, to a large degree, they control their own destinies, professionally speaking. There is also the possibility of having multiple streams of income to help recession-proof your business, which I highly recommend.

During my last few years of working in Corporate America full time in the financial services industry, the market crashed in 2008 and the United States went into a recession. Many of my colleagues were laid off during not one, not two, but THREE rounds of layoffs within a period of one year. The stress of the uncertainty of being on the chopping block next, along with some other factors, caused me to rethink my whole career. I ultimately made the decision to resign on June 26, 2009 and never looked back. I had operated side-businesses for several years previously, but this time I was ready to operate my business full time.

Companies can demote or fire employees at will, reduce benefits packages, cut hours, and there is virtually nothing that can be done about it. Even the federal government can shut down and withhold pay indefinitely from employees as has happened in the United States. If a company folds then employees are out of their jobs. There’s a whole host of other dire situations in which employees can find themselves in simply because they are at the mercy of management decisions. Entrepreneurs typically prefer to be independent and self-reliant in order to sustain themselves.

Personally, I would feel more uncomfortable with having a company control too many aspects of my life than with the uncertainty that entrepreneurship creates, including the absence of perceived safety nets like a salary and a benefits package. I would gladly trade these in exchange for depending on my own talents to live and work on my own terms. It’s not always easy, but I value my independence. It is a large part of what I enjoy most about running my own businesses.

While it is important to highlight all of the benefits of being your own boss, the reality is that being self-sufficient comes with an enormous responsibility. You must be disciplined in how you manage your time. With entrepreneurs especially, if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Your mindset must be focused on maximizing your time, or you will squander this great resource that you have at your disposal. There is no one for you to rely on to manage your time. Only you can do that.

Self-sufficiency and legacy were important to me, but so was the lifestyle I dreamed of creating for myself. I wanted to be able to have enough time and money to travel when I wanted to and to do work that was more meaningful to me. And today, my businesses and my life look much like I envisioned it to be several years ago. One of the goals that I set for myself was to be able to live a location-independent life, meaning that I would be able to do my work from anywhere. This is a reality for me today. What type of lifestyle do you envision creating with your business?

Lifestyle

If you prefer to design your work around your life instead of the other way around, entrepreneurship will probably be a better fit for you than working a conventional 9-to-5 job. Very few career paths allow you to set your own schedule, determine when and for how long you’d like to take a vacation, or when you can get a pay increase. As an entrepreneur, you can decide all three and more.

There is a growing segment of entrepreneurs who refer to themselves as digital nomads. While a small number of them work as remote employees of companies from virtually any location that has an internet connection, the vast majority are self-employed freelancers or business owners who created a location-independent life for themselves. The trend towards remote work indicates that more employers are recognizing the need to create flexible work arrangements for those who are more autonomous and like the flexibility and freedom of working from home or from anywhere in the world. A positive outcome of this arrangement is the benefit of lower overhead costs for employees. The more remote employees there are, the less need there will be for larger office spaces with higher rents, office furniture, higher utility costs, and so on.

This trend also reveals that technology has removed geographical borders for people to conduct business. With a laptop, a strong internet connection, VoIP or video conferencing apps, and the right productivity software programs and apps, a business can exist without even having a physical location and without being physically present. Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of these new conveniences and are integrating them into the lifestyle they want. I certainly did.

I am at my best self when I’m travelling, speaking, coaching, consulting, lecturing, and writing. In fact, I wrote a large portion of this book while at a peaceful condo nestled in the woods with a view of a pond, in front of a cozy fireplace. The work that I’ve created for myself in my companies allows me to travel to new and exciting places throughout the world. This is how I create the lifestyle that I want on my terms while getting paid to help thousands of people each year. I call these ‘The Four Fs’ of the entrepreneurship lifestyle—Freedom, Flexibility, Fulfillment, and Finances. Freedom gives you the independence to create the kind of business you want. Flexibility affords you the ability to live without others putting restrictions on your time. Fulfillment allows you to align your work with what gives you joy and a sense of purpose. Finances have no salary cap when you work for yourself because you have over control how much you sell and for how much.