Well how have you gone finding your Why? If you pursued it down the rabbit hole you should have come out with one word that describes your purpose. Caring, passion, love, adventure, souls. You should have a nominalisation, a noun that won't fit into a wheelbarrow.
Adventure may apply to a travel business, a specialist sport like rock climbing.
Joy may apply to a florists business or a childcare business. Honda adopted Joy as the one word to describe their motor cycle business.
Passion may apply to a relationship coach or a football team.
My word is soul. I help people find the soul of their business. The abiding reason they come to work and enjoy every day. My mission is to return my chip of god that is my soul in better condition than I received it. So I care for people and how they find the soul in their life. Where they find their passion and joy.
Once you have found your vision, voice reason for living and building a business. You need to set the goals/mission for your business so that you can explain it to others. Your family, your friends, your staff, your customers. You need to write it down and put it at the top of the page on everything you prepare.
Next you need to plan the structure of your business. In the beginning you may be the shareholder, chief cook and bottle washer. However, as your business grows you will need to explain your why and how for each aspect of your business to many people. The explanation needs to be consistent, otherwise you will confuse the lenders, staff, suppliers and customers. Then Chaos will reign and you will find nothing works, you will struggle to manage and finally you will loose the battle and close the doors.
So let's start thinking about the message. Mine is SOUL. This relates to everything I do. In my relationships with friends, my love and caring for family, my smile and laugh at the behaviour of my grandchildren. It means that my business must be structured to be profitable so I can care for my shareholders, my family and myself. It must allow me the time to live my life to the full. Enjoy time with my grandchildren, travel to see my friends and be generous to the charities close to my heart. It must give me time to learn and grow. It must give me the time and resources to keep fit and healthy. I'm 62 and I intend to live for 40 + more years. You must have goals consistent with your dream and dream big if you are going to succeed in building a better business.
More tomorrow.
What are your goals for your life?
Comments
Thanks girls. I'm having fun writing the posts. Lot's more to come.
Peter
Peter, this is a wonderful post! I love the way you write and the context of it as well. Keep them coming everyone needs your input for business and life in general! :)
Susan
Peter, this is a wonderful article. I love your connections and associations like "Honda adopted Joy as the one word to describe their motor cycle business.". This is really inspiring. Need to share this article.