A Life of Purpose and You Can’t Buy Time
There are 168 hours in every week and it’s up to you how you invest or squander them. Some people are successful whilst others are busy making excuses why they do not achieve. Which are you? That brings me to the point of this simple blog. You need to have a purpose. A reason to exist that is greater than just to wake up tomorrow. Something to aim your efforts towards.
During 2015 I had a period of reflection of what I had achieved. The surprising revelation was that I could have achieved most of that so much faster, if only I had of understood where I was heading. I came to understand I had been running a lifestyle business for most of the twenty-two previous years, since the formation of Business Computer Solutions. It paid for the holidays, healthcare and education fees. Until then, it had seemed like that was enough.
That all changed when I defined my legacy. For me that was a plan to leave my business in 2018 by my fiftieth birthday and start my next life chapter as a coach and business mentor. Yes, a change of pace at fifty may be a cliché, but it had always been a vague goal. I just didn’t have a focus on it or more importantly a plan. It was in 2015 around the time of my forty-seventh birthday that I defined my plan to leave Business Computer Solutions in the hands of the staff by transitioning the business to Employee Ownership.
To step away meant firstly selecting and developing leaders within the business who could take over and secondly, getting out of their way. The business was built on my personal core values of integrity, dependability and education, so I had a good team of like-minded people to choose from.
In June 2018 Business Computer Solutions celebrated transitioning to Employee Ownership on national Employee Ownership day. A proud day for the whole team.
The void left by leaving Business Computer Solutions I filled with joining the team at ConnectWise to run the European IT Nation Evolve peer groups. A role I undertook for two years, during which I learned much more about business, business owners and even more critically, myself. I left this role in June 2020 having given and received value. The team of facilitators I leave behind will ensure the members continue to get value from these programmes.
So, can you define your purpose? I can, in these four statements. The order determines your priority and is important too.
- Maintaining amazing connections with family and good friends.
- Travelling the world, soaking up the history, culture and cuisine.
- Learning skills, including always improving my business insight.
- Helping business owners be the best versions of themselves.
What you can see from the above is that my number one priority is family and friends. Nothing else matters if you forget that life is about people first.
Where I can combine my purposes, I do. I am never without a business book or two when I am travelling around in the motorhome.
So, your homework is to document your personal core purposes and order them in the priority you are willing to give each statement.
Why do you exist? Why is the world a better place because you are here?
