Do you know your “why?” Why are you doing what you are doing? Please don’t tell me to make money. Money is a result of what you are doing, it is not the why. Your “why” is your purpose. When you find your purpose and live it, you discover meaning and you get to do what you love. When you do what you love, you never have to work a day in your life.

When you find your passion and your purpose and live out your “why”, your work becomes a labor of love. Work is what we do by the hour, while Labor sets its own pace.  Living out your mission, you tap into a creative stream that allows you flow — an intense focus and crisp sense of clarity that others notice.  Simon Sinek has a TED video with more than 12.6 million views on YouTube in which he explains the importance of finding your “why”.  He points out that “people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”  

What is your cause? What are your beliefs that drive you and get you out of bed every morning? Why should anyone care? Most of us can explain what we do. Most of us can explain how we do what we do. But can you articulate your “why”?  Are you passionate about solving problems? Are you driven by continuous improvement? Does helping others succeed drive you? Are you trying to make the industry more professional? Do you love being part of the creative process and watching an idea germinate, blossom and flourish?  Find YOUR Why and live it courageously. Steve Jobs said, “the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. Don’t settle.”

It is your responsibility to discover your “why”. Once discovered, center your life on it and allow it to flood meaning into your life goals and daily activities and become an everyday source of integrity and pride. Your purpose should be rooted in love, not fear; aligned with your fundamentals, your passions and desires; something that moves you emotionally and not just mentally; be energizing and nourishing; inspiring and worth building a life around.

Here are two ways to help you find your “why”.

1. You’ll find it inside. You already know the answer, but you will find it close. So step back and look inward and then trust your gut. Let go of self-interest and control and reflect with honesty on your values, your beliefs and the things that matter most to you. Ask yourself if your life serves something of value in itself and not just what you think you can get from it. If you can direct your energies in the service of creating a greater good, it will return to you. Allow yourself to have moments of “awe” that put you into the moment. Watch the leaves change color and drift to the ground. Stare at the fire and smell the smoke and hear the pops and crackles. (Hopefully around a campfire or fire pit). Get up and watch the sunrise and see how the colors of the world change and hear the birds greet the new day. And then, listen. To yourself. The answer is inside of you.

Be for the sake of being. Love for the sake of loving. Give for the sake of giving. Trust the world to give it back to you. It always does. It’s the law. The law of the universe. Pursue your purpose with a sense of service to it. When you keep your self-interest at bay, you’re able to find your true purpose.


     2.  You’ll find it by working at finding it.  Steve Pavlina suggests that anyone can do it in about twenty minutes. Begin with an open mind and a commitment to work at it until you get there.  On a blank piece of paper or a new document file if you’re more of a computer person, write “what is my true purpose in life?” Write the first answer that pops into your head. Now repeat that with each new answer that you think of. When you get to the one that makes you cry, you have found it. It could take you one hundred, two hundred or even a thousand answers but when you hit one that hits every emotional nerve in your body, you will have found it.

Will finding your “why” help your business? It will if you make the decision to live it, love it and be it. 

You are a marketer and you are a sales professional. If that is a true statement then you use words to market and to sell.  Words have power and you need to use them properly. Weak words equal weak results. Powerful words create powerful results. Choose your words carefully whether spoken or written. Here are three that you should use and use to their full effect.

1. YOU. Everyone cares most about themselves. They care about their life, their job, their problems and their reputation. Make everything you do in sales or marketing about them. Take a look at your elevator speech, your pre-approach letters, your website, your brochures.  Rewrite everything and remove the “I”s and the “we”s and replace them with you and your.  Make it about them. YOU will see better results.
2. NOW.  Create a sense of urgency. A related word, “Urgent” is powerful as well. Make your message relevant in this moment. Make your solutions active in the present. People want action now, not empty promises for something in the future. People hate to miss out and NOW and Urgent create a sense of a limited time offer. Everyone is wired to care more about losing things than gaining them.  “Instantly” is another cousin in this family of creating the sense of immediacy. We live in a world of instant gratification. Creating a sense of urgency NOW will create action.
3. FREE.  The number one word in advertising and sales and I so wanted to leave it off this list.  But how can I leave it off? Everyone wants something for free.  It’s a powerful word that will grab your customer’s attention every time. It can even change their buying habits. It never loses its power.  It’s also very relevant to what we sell in the promotional products world. We create FREE offers for our clients, thus empowering them to use the most powerful word in all of sales and marketing. Do not assume that your customers already know this. Show them how they can use the power of FREE by offering a promotional products to reward a new customer, to create loyalty among existing customers, to draw traffic to their business or their trade show booth, to get people to sign up for their newsletter or opt-in to their email or any number of great objectives.  You may even want to offer them something for Free for ordering from you.

There was a day when my world fell apart. Exploded or imploded might be a more accurate way to put that. A series of events beginning with the death of a best friend, the end of an important professional chapter, the start-up of a new chapter, the suicide of a business partner and then, the end of a thirty-three year relationship.  The last event came unexpectedly and suddenly and I was on the floor, my legs wouldn’t hold me anymore. Fortunately, the man I called was calm with the most profound and important piece of advice. “This is a defining moment, Paul,” he said. “What you decide to do with the moment will define who you are and who you become.”  

My journey from that moment became one of self-discovery and one of a strong commitment to certain values that would become my rules. I made commitments to make certain things happen and for certain outcomes that were important to me. Yes, my faith was important to me as I recognized certain things such as my friend’s advice that I can only describe as “grace.”  The “grace” of forgiveness was another discovery. I also discovered Eckhart Tolle whose “A New Earth” helped to understand my new consciousness. Byron Katie’s “Loving What Is” helped me to not just accept but to love everything life brings and to question my thoughts to cleanse away any negativity.  Another teacher who came to me was Don Miguel Ruiz who described “The Four Agreements.”  For me these have become Four Rules for Living Now and In the Now.

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word. This is more than be truthful or honest or a person of integrity. It means to recognize that your words have power. They have the power to build up or to destroy. Choose your words carefully.  Be especially careful with your words to yourself.  Many of talk to ourselves in ways that we would never permit another person to talk to us. Start listening and start making yourself become not just honest, but impeccable, with your words. Make sure your words build up and create and are brimming with positivity and possibility.  To be impeccable means there is no margin of mistruth allowed. Always be one hundred percent truthful and positive.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally. Oh, my goodness!  How much time we spend thinking that life and others are directing their actions toward us!  If we only knew how little others are thinking about us, we would be nearly as concerned about what they think of us.  People act in their own best self interest. If you perceive the actions of others as being directed against you personally, you’re most likely wrong and you’re not being impeccable with your words. If your client steals your idea and gives your quote directly to another competitor, its not about you. It is about them. It is a reflection of them, not you. Don’t take anything from life or others as being directed at you. Live your life and be clear about who you are. It will serve you well.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions. One of the biggest lies we can tell ourselves is that we know the motivations of others. You can never know what another person is thinking, what they are living, or the events in their life that are motivating them. Perhaps that is why Jesus recommended that we don’t judge others and that when we do judge others we are passing judgement on ourselves.  As you may be able to see, if we are impeccable with our word, we are less likely to take things personally and when we don’t take things personally, we’re less likely to make assumptions.  One of the oldest lessons we learn is how to break about the word: Ass-u-me. I believe the phrase is something about when we assume, we make a donkey out of your and me.  When you hear yourself making assumptions, stop immediately. That’s all there is to it. Simply don’t allow it.
4. Always Do Your Best. It’s easy to coast through life and get by on good enough. You’re really denying yourself the best life you can have when you do. Always do your best. This also requires continuous monitoring or your self talk and your efforts. When you always do your best, you live free of regrets and you live with the confidence that you’re putting forth your best self possible.  When you are impeccable with your word, you realize that sometimes your best really sucks and other times your best is world class. If you’re sick or experienced a loss in your life, your best that day may not be so great. That’s okay as long as it’s your best. Get in the habit of always putting out your very best efforts. Be the best spouse, the best friend, the best promotional professional, the best parent. You can be world class. You are unique in this world and your best is your gift to the world.  Give it.