What Is Your High-Value-Driver in Business?

I was at a retreat about 14 years ago, where we were asked to make a list of our top 20 values. What mattered most to us and what ideals we shaped our lives around. I don’t have that list anymore, but I remember the exercise vividly. You may actually want to do the exercise as you read along, making sure not to read faster than you write. So, top 20 values.

Then, the facilitator asked us to remove 5. This was manageable and I remember the ah-ha I received from forcing the cream to the top. This was the solid 15 ideals I lived by.

Then, he asked us to remove 5 more. Ugh. But again, do-able. Can you see the next move? Yup, another 5. That one was impossible. Are you kidding me? I’m supposed to narrow all that matters most to me down to 5 words??? We all groaned and whined, certain that we were compromising or sacrificing as we chopped away. Then, the gauntlet fell, the moment of reckoning was offered to us: Take everything away but one.

It’s that single answer—that single word—that I remember so crisply 14 years later. And it revealed, without question, my true north star. It was THE value that had driven me since I was at least ten, when I’d asked a veterinarian my father knew if I could “shadow” him for the day and then came home and drafted a written test for myself and assessed my learning.

It is the single word that has driven my success in business and my success as an expert (two different things); what has driven my choice in mates and friends…and the leaving of mates and friends. It’s what has driven my parenting style; my spiritual journey. And that same value, that same word, is—though I’ve never done an official survey—the top value of my students and clients. My high-value driver is the same as those who pay me…as it can only be; we attract who we are. And as it really, should be. We should live with, clink glasses with, raise, and work with only those who value what we value.

What was my word? “Growing.”

I can’t do anything and not grow. I am highly self-reflective; intensely curious about things that capture my attention; I would far rather improve myself than be “right”. And I want the world to grow. I want extreme growth for my students, so they go out and bring growth to the world.

Whittling away what didn’t matter most for me was excruciating in the moment of that exercise, but what it revealed was precious and priceless: my high-value driver—why I do what I do. When things get choppy at home with friends or family, it is my value in “growth” that enables me to calm the waters. I seek to improve things, rather than let them be. And when things get funky in business, it is my high-value driver that pulls me through. I am here to grow myself, grow others and grow the world. Any outcome less than that will do me harm, truly, and so I’ll do whatever it takes, overcome all hard-spots to fulfill it.

So, what is your high-value driver in your business? What is the single word that conveys what you must do, and why you do it?


A Successful Expert But Not Feeling Your Big Purpose? Reason #1

So, what do you do if you’re like my colleague-friend–an expert with a successful
business–and you want to feel that you have a BIG PURPOSE, but you’re just not
feeling it?

If you’re feeling ho-hum, and not called to anything particularly meaningful, or not meaningful enough for you, I can almost bet
it’s because you aren’t connecting with the right audience.

The one you’re currently working with is either too broad (a
huge issue for so many experts/service providers!!) or simply
not the right one.

You need to know, who has the pain that you most want to
heal
? Not the pain you are dealing with now, but the pain that most galvanizes you when you think of soothing or eliminating it. Perhaps you are working with too superficial a pain right now—or an audience whose level of pain doesn’t enable you to do your greatest work.

Or look at the aspiration you most want to help people fulfill. You may simply not be calling your current audience to reach high enough. Or you may need another audience entirely who has higher aspirations.

My Big Purpose is to change the world by ensuring that you, visionary leaders, change the world. I am very clear that I am here to help that population, and the
recent change in my business identity makes that abundantly clear. I am speaking to
a very select group of experts now—those who are visionaries and want to change the
world. I narrowed my already narrow market. And I did it because I had to for my
own growth. I was feeling that something was missing—I was feeling uninspired–and I
realized that I was getting bored with what I was asking of them. I didn’t need to change
markets, as you may, but I needed to call them to higher aspirations—to satisfy my
own soul.

And, luckily, my desire to call them higher coincided with what was happening in the marketplace: millions of service-based entrepreneurs waking up to a desire to be part
of something bigger. And I knew I was the one to help them.

Knowing my skills and talents went a long way to firmly establishing my Big Purpose.
But I’ll delve into that in my next post. For now, I want to emphasize the importance
of your audience in feeling your own purpose.

You are here to effect change. You wouldn’t have chosen your profession otherwise.
And you do have a purpose—and I firmly believe you have a Big Purpose. If you’re
not feeling it, take a hard look at those with whom you’re working now. In some way,
they are not igniting your spirit. Either call them to something higher, heal a deeper
pain, or change to an audience who wants either or both in direct proportion to
your passion
for either or both.

Be sure to get on next week’s call: A Time to Lead: Do You Dare?

UPDATE:  A relatively new client of mine wrote me the other day because she was
noticing a lag in her excitement. “I have moved away from “life interests” and into
more of a “business” market and am questioning what I am doing and why– forgetting
that it simply doesn’t excite me thinking about working with HR or executives to
bring my offering to them. It actually gets me to an icky place of,  “Why bother?” I’ve
looked at our work so far and see that the only thing that needs changing is my target
market! Now, it is feeling GREAT!!”

Purpose is entirely linked to your target market!

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