Ask anyone the question “What is your purpose” and after a blank stare for a while they will try to answer it by saying something that does not really make sense. We all long for that ultimate purpose deep in our hearts if we have to be brutally honest. Just working to get a salary at the end of the month to feed all the months and pay off debt is not really what we signed up for, true or false?

Kevin W. McCarthy wrote two books on this subject that I can highly recommend, the On-Purpose Person and the On-Purpose Business Person. In this books he challenge us to be On-Purpose. Here is an extract from his Purpose Business Person book:

A Purpose statement is simply two power-packed words honed in on the very uniqueness of the person or organization. It answers the question, “Why do I exist?” The preamble begins with ‘I exist to serve by…. and ends with two words.

My personal purpose statement is: “I exist to serve by activating growth”. The frustrating part of this is that it sometimes took years for someone or an organization to realize what their real purpose is. I took me the better half of a sentry to find this out. Could you image someone at the age of 21 realizing his/her purpose and start living it out, the sky is the limit.

Unfortunately I encounter very few organizations or people that know their purposes. Lets focus a little bit on organizations that have no defined purpose. The challenges that they deal with is among other a disconnected work force. According to recent research by Strengths Institute only 9% of South African employees are engaged in their work. This means that 91% of South African workforce care very little for the work they do, nor the organization that employs them.

Isn’t the problem related to this topic? If everyone in an organization have a clear understanding of the purpose of the organization would’t they be more engaged, even more so if they also understands their own purpose?

I had the privileged to work for one of South African’s blue chip companies during the slump of 2008-9, their CEO ensured that everyone understood why we existed and we did not even felt the slump, why, most of our workforce back then were engaged, understood the purpose of the organization.

If we as individuals thinking of starting our own business understand our purpose clearly we would be able to choose a the right-fit business for us. Let’s us myself as an example, I exist to serve by activating growth, do you think that a business that need 80% of my time on maintaining a process will be a good fit for me, no, not in a million years. Why, I am an activator, an once or maybe twice-off action of activating something, this is where I thrive and excels. I can maintain a process, but it is draining the life out of me within days.

Bottom line, find your and your business’s purpose and thrive….