Do you know your purpose?
I often get asked if I always knew what I wanted to do in life or if I found my purpose early on in life. It seems that many of us go to our day to day jobs wondering if there is anything greater out there than just pushing for a mere 2% increase each year or if there ever will be a time when our work is more untactful than just a company profit and loss statement? Sometimes we may even feel like we are destined for more, but the reality is that many people feel that way and you are far from alone but I ask you one simple question…
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?
We’ve discussed several times the impact that “Driving your own life” has on your journey to success. We also covered the fact that without actions can exist no reactions. These are two very important messages that you must believe in order to help you get out of this routine that you drain yourself in everyday.
I am going to share with you a story of how I found my purpose and then will help you understand how it was as simple as using those two basic ideologies to align myself to my ultimate goals.
Most of you have read my story and understand my background in finance, and more importantly my lack of school based education. I started working young in a construction company and no particular reason for working there other than money, but I saw opportunity, seized it and advanced. This opportunity opened more doors, one of which was in banking and enabled me to start in banking at the age of 18. Banking was never a personal choice, or favorite nor did it have any perks that made me pick it rather than another role. I simply knew that being near money would help me learn money, and eventually teach me how to make great money. When I started working in banking, I had the intention to going to school and earning a business degree to eventually work for a better company, maybe an equity firm perhaps. I had no intention of staying in banking nor did I like it, I actually used to hate coming to the bank as I dreaded every day, more and more than life itself I could not stand being there. One day I decided to look at things from a different viewpoint…
I decided to do the best I could everyday… and see where that took me. I simply put aside my likes and dislikes about today and told myself that the life I want is simply about money, the more money the more I can do and buy, therefore the happier I will be. I decided to work hard simply to make more money, nothing else.
A few months later I was promoted and the promotions continued for 2 years straight and it was after two years that I came in a role that enabled me to manage many people and have them all rely on me to lead them and it was only then that I found my real calling to be coaching people. It wasn’t that I enjoyed banking, or coaching on sales, services and other useless things to make others money but rather the fact that I enjoyed them looking at life from my perspective and understanding how much they are missing just by focusing their energy on the wrong things and being afraid. I spent most of my time coaching people on being better at what they did, at nothing more than just seeing things differently, acting on them and not being afraid of outcomes regardless of how good or bad they are. I then understood that by helping people, their loyalty only increased and their lives only got better, therefore their productivity at work got better because they learned to work for themselves, being the best they could be regardless of what other’s expectations of them were. I had really found something I enjoyed doing more than anything and I realized that my purpose was to help people unleash what they were best at, and therefore enabled me to continue my work in banking loving every minute of what I did. Remember that success is never defined by an action that occurs overnight, but rather the foundation you stand upon and the road you choose to travel. That road is often a difficult one and only you know the destination, but if you don’t actually start heading that way…you’ ll never get there.
In today’s business world, everything has changed and the focus of major organizations have changed as well and therefore my ability to influence people’s lives for the best has been significantly changed, but I acted upon that by starting Secret Entourage, so that I could help more people, more times and have them be advocates of success and spread this mindset to others around them, and so eventually more people will act upon their dreams and reach their goals without fear.
My point here is quite simply that without actions, the reactions you seek of life simply won’t occur. If you repeat the same actions at the same job over and over and find no satisfaction, and find that your time is wasted at work but yet you depend on a paycheck and choose to do nothing about it then remember that sometimes our immediate actions do not lead us to finding our purpose instantly but sometimes open new doors, new ways, and new paths that help us get closer to knowing who we really are and what we are really meant to do. For me, money was the indicator I followed and quickly realized that without it, there isn’t much of this world that would keep functioning and therefore I realized that no matter what I did then, following the money was most important for that moment and that money created opportunity and enabled time, time which I spent carefully learning myself and knowing what I do best.
All you have to ask yourself now is “ What’s my indicator?”
Till next time…