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It’s Not Your Passion, But Your Purpose

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Everyone feels lost sometimes.

Everyone feels lost sometimes.

I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t been lost in their head at one time or another — even those folks overachieving all over the Internet. We all find those moments that we wonder about who we are and what we want. But the question is not whether everyone gets lost, but how we get ourselves back on the road to the life we want.

Ask everyone how to get back to moving forward, and soon enough someone will say, “Follow your passion.” Follow your passion? What if my passion is sitting on the beach, listening to music?

When faced with the questions of who we are and what we want, the road to moving forward follows your purpose. Passion is only half the story. However you define success in business or in life, a critical component is finding your purpose — your unique ability to help others that involves both your mind and your heart.

Purpose is both credibility and passion. Credibility is at the heart of knowing who we are. To find your credibility, ask yourself what you’re already known for, what you’re good at, what you’ve accomplished. Passion is at the heart of knowing what we want. To find your passion, name what you talk about, think about, and do every day — without payment — simply because it makes you feel like you’ve got a contribution to make. In other words, concentrate on combining what you do well with what you really like.

If you’re an ex-lawyer fascinated by marketing. You might find your crossroads showing lawyers how to market their business. If you’re a mother who wants to start a small business, research small businesses for mothers or by show mothers how they might get started in business. Then help others who feel lost find their unique space.

It’s hard to feel lost when you’re helping people find their own way.

Be irresistible,

Liz

Put Your Mind to It

Set your mind to find the crossroads of your credibility and your passion. You’ll find a problem that you have solved for yourself in your own, unique way. Consider how you solved that problem for yourself. Then go solve that problem for everyone else.

More from Liz . . . about Not Passion, But Purpose:

Are You Seeing the Things that Make a Difference to Your Business and Your Life?

Choosing and Deciding: How Do You Sort a Path to Opportunity?

How Passion Can Tranform Your Business

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By Chris Nosal

Today the world is more oversaturated than ever; on television you see insurance companies, retailers, car dealers, and pretty much every company under the sun all telling you they’ve got the lowest prices, and trying to compete by offering customers the best deal.

But, recently, I noticed there’s one thing missing from all these commercials, advertisements, and marketing pieces; something that would instantly make any company who used it stand out, so they could lead their industry instead of compete.

Want to know the secret?

It can be summed up in one word:

PASSION.

How To Apply Passion To Your Business

Imagine that you saw a car commercial, and while all the other companies were telling you about how they had the lowest prices, this company decided to innovate out of their passion, their love of what they do, and their desire to create the best experience in the world for their customers?

This company went a step ahead of all the other dealerships, found something they could improve (car buying is usually considered a pressure situation with a lot of hassle), and gave customers REAL BENEFITS that they could offer.

Now, imagine this commercial said:

“We want to make your car buying experience most pleasurable, simple, easy, and fun. We have a commission-free showroom, so that our focus is specifically on helping you, educating you, and making sure that you have all the unbiased information you need from our experts to make sure you get the perfect car for you… we also employ extra team members to make sure that you can always get helped right away when you come to our dealership; you’ll be welcomed the moment you walk into our dealership, because we believe our customers are people too, and people should be treated like family… we want to create the best car buying experience on the planet for YOU.”

Now, while this might be good for customers, it’s also good for your team of workers…

Your Business Needs A Bigger Purpose

People with a common goal connect with each other.

While the desire to make money might motivate the boss of most companies, it doesn’t often motivate the salaried or hourly people working for you.

So what does motivate people?

A PURPOSE

If you ask most people why they come to work each morning, you typically get a common answer, “because I need to make money”.

There is rarely, if ever, true loyalty to a company or business.

But why?

Simple.

Because your company lacks a purpose.

Imagine if you asked someone why they came to work each day, and they said:

“Well, I do need the money, but the job I do is also focused on helping people make important decisions in their lives, and my focus every day is on putting smiles on people’s faces with the service I deliver, making people happy, and enriching lives by giving customers the best car buying experience on the planet… and my every day my work helps me learn something new and grow as I connect with more and more people.”

Now, when a company pressures with sales deadlines, quotas, or commissions, that doesn’t give people a sense of purpose, a sense that they’re having a positive impact on people’s lives, or a sense of true purpose that goes beyond making money for the customer.

And if you give your employees a common goal that involves creating the best experience in the world for your customers, it’s good for your customers, it’s good for your employees, and it fosters loyalty all around, which usually also means many customers referring additional business to you.

The benefits of this are:

  1. You don’t have to play the price game… you play the “providing the best customer experience in the world” game.
  2. Your business grows as a result of customer referrals, because you provide the best service in the world.
  3. Your team members actually care about their jobs, and will work harder, longer, and even turn down other offers for a job that actually has meaning, and is focused on improving people’s lives.

The Key To Success Is NOT Competition

For years, the game of competing on competition has worked. But the world is growing more than ever before, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that competing on price or consumerism is NEVER going to work again, it’s time to start defining ourselves in a different way, and focusing on enriching lives, and creating amazing experiences for people.

If you make this your focus, give an actual purpose to your business that extends beyond simply selling something, and you share this vision you have of a better world with your customers; whether it’s creating the best breakfast restaurant on the planet, the most amazing online shopping experience, or just putting a smile on someone’s face, make your focus on something that has meaning to others, and you’ll be amazed at the transformation that will take place in every area of your business, and your relationships with everyone you work with and serve.

At the end of your life, the amount of money you made isn’t going to matter… but the legacy you create, and the ability of what you created to enrich lives, and make people happy, will love on long after you’re gone.

Author’s Bio: Chris Nosal is a marketing expert who writes at his blog http://chrisnosal.com, and gives private consultations. You can visit his website to download his free eBook, and read more free articles. You can also find him on twitter as @chrisnos, and on Facebook

Thanks Chris, great thoughts to start 2013!

What If You Don’t Know What Your Passion Is? Where to Look

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True Story

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This is a true story related to me by the guy in the story. He told it to me in 2007 and I’ve been retelling it ever since. I’ve changed the names for his privacy, because well, this is my version of the story. Let’s call him Rick and her Julia.

Rick was driving Julia to client meeting about an hour from their office. They were talking of dreams, missions, strategies, and life goals. Highways and passing scenery provide a perfect backdrop for considering such things. The topic had gotten on to doing what a person is meant to do … the “follow your passion” thing. And Rick, the one who had found his path, was doing his best to avoid that over-used shallow description of what he felt he was doing.

But Julia was passionate about finding out how to find her passion.
And so she kept asking, “What if you don’t know what your passion is?”

“I hate that question,” Rick said.

“But you know the answer, don’t you?”

Rick started singing along with the radio.

“Listen to me!” Julia said. “I need to know. What if you don’t know what your passion is?”

“I’m not going to answer you,” Rick said.

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll get mad.”

“No I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“No, I won’t. I promise. Just tell me. What if you don’t know what your passion is?”

“I’m telling you … you’re gonna get mad.”

“I’m gonna get mad if you don’t answer me,” Julia said deliberately. “What if you don’t know what your passion is?”

“You do.”

“WHAT?!!”

“You know what your passion is — maybe you won’t admit it or you’re lying to yourself — but in your cells you know.”

“I think I hate you.”

“See, I told you you’d get mad.”

What Rick was saying is that our “passion” is the purpose written in our cells.

That thing that people keep telling us to follow is what we were built to do and what we naturally do well. Part of the problem in identifying it is that because

  • it’s so natural that we have trouble recognizing that it’s a value.
  • it’s something that comes so easily to us that we think that everyone can do it too.

Sometimes it’s easier to find and define if we kill the word passion and just look for

  • the helpful thing that we can’t quit doing.
  • the problem that seem to be solving for person after person because “it’s what we do.”
  • the subject that we get blissfully lost in exploring and innovating on.
  • the activity that ties to the people we most enjoy
  • the one thing we do that we would miss most if had to give it up.
  • what we’re doing when lose track of time and all self-consciousness

Look for your passion in the thing you do that makes you feel like the best version of yourself.

Be irresistible.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

My First Big Failure and What It Meant …

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about my first big failure and what it meant

When I was in my 20s, I lost my job. The guy who said good-bye, my boss, did it in the nicest way. He talked about territory restructuring and other changes. The company gave me a lovely package so that I could move back to my home in Chicago. I might have tried to believe that I had no part in what happened, but in my heart I knew my job was gone because of nonperformance.

It was the first time I had failed at anything.

I’m not going to tell it was fun or that I learned a lesson then that changed my life. It wasn’t and I didn’t.

It took me a long time to even make sense of it. I was a winner, always successful. How was it that I totally missed on this one? How was it that I couldn’t seem to find a way to get to the winning? How did I get myself lost in a spiral of unhappiness that made every small loss lead to another slightly bigger one? What was I not doing or seeing?

Really I was blind to one HUGE thing.

It was the wrong job for me.

How hard I’d tried to fit myself into a space that didn’t fit me.

I bent and twisted, smashed and squished, curled and flattened, until I was walking in circles without direction. All the time that I was doing that, I was sure that my lack of performance was the problem — it was only a symptom. The problem was that I was trying to reconfigure myself to fit a job I’d taken.

We live in a time finding the right job may seem a challenge, but living in the wrong one still isn’t the answer.

Ever wonder what you bring to the world? … where you belong?

Look at what you’ve always done well, what problems you’ve always solved for other people, the things you do that other folks rely on. You’ve been successful before. Look inside those successes. You’ll find the answers have always been there.

I can say it’s so.
I know.
I’ve lived it.

All that my first big failure meant was that wasn’t MY path to change the world.

Be irresistible.

Liz's Signature

7 Ways to Carve a Path to the Future of Your Dreams

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Perceived Leadership

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How do some folks always seem to know where they’re going? Are you one of them?

We learn in school the ease of having our time and our next steps arranged by someone else’s plan. Our limited decisions decide our rewards and failures. So we feel we’re some part of the system. Yet, through necessity we have no real controlling decisions. We learn perceived leadership that has no real risk and no real power.

Following a preset path is great if it goes where you want to end up. It’s not so great when we find ourselves on a path leading to somewhere we don’t really belong. Unfortunately, no one tells us when to switch over to our own power.

7 Ways to Carve a Path to the Future of Your Dreams

We graduate as leaders who might be excellent at following the larger plan. But there’s no official transition from doing that to carving our own path. Some of us jump in naturally and start walking. Some us follow what’s laid before us until we find ourselves out of a job. It’s easy to be swept along without ever owning our decisions, but that’s a risky business and ultimately not fulfilling.

Here are 7 ways to carve your own path to the future of your dreams starting now.

  1. Have a purpose. It’s powerful and attractive to have a defining direction. Without a purpose, circumstances decide where and how you land. The wind or the world can blow you anywhere. When every road leads to nowhere, who bothers to choose?
  2. Get determined. It’s your life. Breathe for it. Eat for it. Keep the folks who support you close. Disregard those who shoot you down.
  3. Speak for yourself. Speak with care and carefully, but say what you mean as clearly as you know how. Don’t discount what you’re saying. Say the guy was wrong, even a jerk, if you solidly think so. Tell the real story — respectfully — without fear of how you might look. Stand for what you think by saying it out loud.
  4. Have a strategy. Char said it well, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Wishes are granted. If you’re wishing, you want someone else in control.
  5. Hold your own hand. Be your own teacher. Don’t stop your progress until someone has time to show you how. Plan a way to what you need to know. Do the research. Write your own lesson. Then do the homework. That’s incredible power.
  6. Pay attention to your intuition and instincts. You years of experience didn’t all get recorded as words. Some things your body knows. Trust that your post decisions have taught you how to respond to those now.
  7. Decide what success looks like to you. Seek out opinions and value them for exactly what they’re worth. You’ll always have more experience and more information about being you than anyone else can know.

It’s totally in our power to reach our dreams and our destiny — we can start on our way right here and right now. We can turn off the voices that tell us what we’re not . . . , what we should . . . , who’s supposed to . . . they’re not in charge of what we do with our lives. I offer this bit of wisdom to their noise.

My future is at the end of the path that I follow. I’ll carve it myself.

What do you need to decide to start toward your future?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Take charge. It’s not as hard as you might think. Work with Liz!!