Living & Working On Purpose

Be on Purpose with Your Mission: Aligning Your Business Mission With Your Life Purpose

Here is a great article from Jan Stringer of Attracting Perfect Customers:

"Lighthouses speak to vigilance. They speak to caring. They speak to being there. They speak to helping other human beings." Peter Ralston, the Island Institute, Rockland, Maine

How to create a "perfect connection" with more customers, and recognize it in the moment it is occurring, is the ultimate goal of the journey on which you are about to embark. Your first stop on this journey is to acquaint yourself with the six (6) affirming standards for conducting business in the new millennium. Daily practice of these Strategic Synchronicity standards will lay the foundation for a more prosperous, profitable, productive, and more perfect business environment.

It is on this foundation that you will create your Strategic Attraction™ Plan, a strategic process that works so quickly -- usually within two days-- that the results appear almost like coincidental occurrences, or as many believe, as "synchronicities."

According to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, a "synchronicity" is defined as the "coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality."

We believe it is possible to both design and identify the process that causes "synchronicity." Through our years of experience in training thousands of people and organizations, in the Strategic Attraction™ Planning Process, we have found that it is possible to strategically attract relationships that have such a high level of connectedness, and which provide the most enriching, satisfying, and prosperous on-going exchanges of information and energy that seem almost too good to be true....as if they are lucky coincidences.

THE LIGHTHOUSE TEST

How can you tell if you and your company are strategically ready to "attract" only the "most perfect" customers to serve?

There is a simple test. We call it the Lighthouse Test.

Imagine a lighthouse standing strong and tall on the rocky shores of a beautiful ocean. The water is calm, the sky is blue, and there are many boats out to sea. But, out in the distance, a storm cloud is forming on the horizon. It is coming closer to shore very quickly. The sky is getting darker, the waves are getting rougher, and many of the boats are being tossed about on the water. As the rains and the winds pick up strength, so does the power of the beam of light emanating from the lighthouse. Some of the boats, anxious to move quickly to a quiet and protective harbor, are relying on this beam of light to guide them safely to the spot. The darker the skies become, the brighter the light shines. Notice that not all of the boats need this beam of light to guide them to safety. Some have more confident captains and crew; some have equipment for handling storms safely and effectively. Now, imagine that the lighthouse gets upset because some of the boats are choosing not to come to its harbor. The lighthouse feels that it is not successful if it is not serving all of the boats in the sea. It sprouts arms and legs and runs up and down the beach, waving its arms, doing its best to catch the attention of all the boats.

What do you think would be the result?

Most likely, the boats that were depending on the light to guide them would by now be destroyed in the chaos and confusion. Other boats, led by their curiosity, may come closer to shore to get a better look at the spectacle, still others would be perfectly content to stay where they are...out at sea. Result: very few boats are served safely and securely.

Here's the test.

How often are you, your employees, and your coworkers operating like lighthouses standing securely on the shore attracting the boats (customers) that need your business with your light? How often do you run up and down the beach frantically looking for boats (customers) to serve?

PERFECT CUSTOMERS ARE MOST LIKELY TO FIND YOU WHEN YOU ARE STANDING STILL!

MY FIRST COACH - JUDY BILLMAN

This week I'd like to introduce you to a special person in my life -- my first coach, Judy Billman. Remember, my Inherited Purpose is “I have to be smart and know all the answers (or pretend I do), work really hard to make it in life so I will not be poor and so people will not leave me.” For sure, my Inherited Purpose was doing a great job of shaping my life during my years as vet, paricularly the first 7-8 years I owned my own practice. I thought I knew everything about business. But finally, after beating my head against the proverbial wall for all those years, I began to wonder if perhaps someone might know more about running a business than I did, even though at that point the only business course I had had was a basic accounting course from the local community college. I began to search for a business consultant, a search that eventually led me to Judy Billman. As it turned out, Judy was not really a business consultant, but was instead a business coach, a difference that was much to my advantage. I initially hired Judy to help me build my practice to a level I felt was successful, so that I could then sell the business going out the top. And, boy did it work. Even though we set what I considered to be some pretty lofty goals that I figured would take at least three years to reach, if we could reach them at all, we actually exceeded them in less than two years. During the 18 months that Judy and I worked together in a coaching relationship, my veterinary business grew by more than 40 percent per year, my income more than doubled, and most importantly of all I fell back in love with being a veterinarian. In fact, there was a point where I was not sure I still wanted to sell the practice, and at that point I experienced, perhaps for the first time, the difference between deciding to do something, and choosing to do something. When I had first thought of selling the practice, it was definitely a decision. If you look at the root word for decision, you’ll see what I mean. Decision comes from ‘cide,’ to kill off; like homicide, suicide, and genocide. So, to make a decision means you kill off the other options and what is left is your alternative. I had decided that I needed to sell my practice because I was not being successful at it, and I was not happy as a veterinarian. In fact, I had a long list of reasons I used to kill off the option of staying in practice. But, after working with Judy I realized that I could keep the practice and be very happy doing what I was doing, or I could sell it and also be happy doing whatever was next in my life. After looking at all the reasons and circumstances, I could then choose freely. After staying in that place of being free to choose for a few weeks, I eventually chose to continue on my original path and to sell the practice. But in the process, I also realized the tremendous value of having a coach in my corner, and have continued to include a coaching relationship as part of my ‘life support system’ ever since. Judy Billman made a profound difference in my life, helping to guide me to a new life and new career. Our work togethr really wasn't over either. About a year later, she offered me a job to be trained as a business coach, But that's a story for another time. Thanks, Judy, for introducing me to the miraculous power of coaching.

Edwene Gaines: Prosperity Plus

I recently spent an afternoon with one of the people who's made a profound and lasting difference in my life over the past 11 years as Edwene Gaines conducted a workshop on integrity at our local Unity Center. I love how Edwene introduces herself: "I am a woman of power." She then goes on to share that, as a Unity minister, she has dedicated her life to the transformation of the abundance consciousness of planet Earth.

At the end of the workshop one of my friends, who had recently met Edwene, commented that he had no idea that Edwene and I go back so far. (I had just shared with him that I had attended one of her Prosperity Teacher's Training back in 1994, where I finally really got the power of knowing my life purpose.) In talking with my friend I realized that I've had many wonderful teachers, mentors and coaches that have shaped who I am today.

I believe there's power in acknowledging with gratitude the source of things, including that, for me, God is the source of all. I also know that sometimes she works through other people like Edwene and the others that have so profoundly touched my life. So, from time to time, I plan to share with you a bit about these amazing people, how we connected, and the difference they've made to my life. Let's start with Edwene.

EDWENE GAINES - PROSPERITY PLUS ( http://www.prosperityproducts.com/ )

Ann and I first learned about Edwene from a flyer at the Unity Center in Greensboro where we lived. The flyer directed us to Chapel Hill where Edwene and her then husband, Bert Carson, were presenting a workshop on prosperity.

We went and found it to be a powerful and fun experience, that led me to attend the Prosperity Teachers Training that took place in Alabama. There I worked with a small group of women (I was the only male except for Bert) intensely learning and integrating 4 Prosperity Principles into my life as well as learning how to teach them to others. One of those was determining your Divine Life Purpose. (After facilitating a number of prosperity workshops, I shared with Ann how much I loved leading the segment on life purpose, to which she replied, "Why don't you create a workshop that focuses on that, then?" That question was one of the seeds that led to the Life On Purpose Process.)

One of the other powerful lessons I learned was to check in with my inner guidance and to follow it. On the way home I decided to try it out. I felt guided to take a little detour from my journey back to Greensboro and to go to Flat Rock, a place Ann and I visited about a year before and liked very much. While I didn't know why I was guided to take the detour, I took it nonetheless. Once I got to Flat Rock I wasn't sure why I was there or what to do next, so I trusted my next message that directed me to Highland Lake Conference Center where we'd stayed on my first visit. From there I began driving around in as much of an expanding spiral as the roads would allow. Within less than a mile I suddenly knew why I had come to Flat Rock, as I passed a redwood chalet with a For Sale sign in front.

I drove around it and liked what I saw then went to the nearest payphone to get the information about it from the realtor. I then drove home, confident that I had fulfilled that part of my mission. Upon arriving home, I ran into the house, gave Ann a big hug and declared: "I found our new home in Flat Rock. Let's put this one on the market." Much to my surprise, Ann simply smiled and said, "Ok."

So, not only did Edwene and Bert turn me on the the power of purpose, they helped guide me to my "Paradise Found" of Flat Rock. This is Brad Swift from Flat Rock NC, where it's another beautiful day in Paradise.