Insights, inspiration, and practical leadership and business tips and advice for meaningfully integrating your life and work using the On-Purpose Approach by Kevin W. McCarthy
A Tough Shift™ happens when we're not making a smooth and peaceful transition. Often these transformations are due to a change in circumstances beyond our control. Sometimes we choose them in order to improve our situation or life.
A essential element of any tough shift is the ability to have a firm grasp on reality. Hindrances such a denial, blame, and fear cloud our progress. The management of changes is a core life skill to develop.
Do you need help making your Tough Shift? Today is the last day to join me in a new 6-week On-Purpose Leader Experience. The On-Purpose Process is amazingly simple to do, yet the effects will last a lifetime. Invest 5 minutes to learn more.
For your convenience all webcasts are recorded and available for replay at our private website where you can also post questions and interact with other participants and me. Here is the link for the webcast 1 replay from Feb. 1: http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=26215212
A Tough Shift™ happens when we're not able to make a smooth transition. Do you find yourself fretting, fearful, or discouraged? Take heart!
Tough shifts are events such as career changes, starting a business, having a baby, retiring, getting married or divorced, a death, a move, a job change -– they're all around us. Some are smoothly managed, others are not. That's when we need help (scroll to bottom for help).
As a kid, I remember learning to drive a stick shift in an ice blue 1962 MG Midget that our family owned. This car made today's Mini Cooper look big. It was basically a tin coffin with an engine and wheels and a removable lid. It had paper-thin doors, slide on windows, a pull starter, and it was absolutely the most fun car in the world to tool around town in. (I can't believe I found a photo online of one that looked just like it!)
My digression into my '62 MG Midget past is about learning to shift gears. I remember the first sounds and feel of that gearshift in my hand as I attempted to sync the clutch, the gearshift, and still steer the car. I find myself driving two-footed every now and then with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Growing up in the "South Hills" of Pittsburgh meant I needed to master it all fast, lest I drift into the car behind me at all stops! Today, driving a stick is still second nature thanks to what I mastered at age 16.
Tough shifts in life are similar to my learning to drive a stick shift experience. They can be difficult, noisy, rough, clashing, and damaging with the threat of even worse things happening. On the other hand, once mastered, the ability to make what used to be a tough shift becomes an opportunity to efficiently go places. The skills are transferable to other "vehicles." The lessons learned stay with us.
Do you need help making your Tough Shift? Join me in a new six-week On-Purpose Leader Experience starting on Wednesday February 1, 2012 at 12:05 PM Eastern. For your convenience all webcasts are recorded and available for replay at our private website where you can also post questions and interact with other participants and me.
Have you reached the point where you've said, "Something has to change! I can't go on living like this!" But then you just keep on pushing your scheduling and piling up the work at home and on the job.
Life in the fast lane requires a vehicle designed to go fast. To do otherwise is simply gambling with one's life. Aren't you blessed with the capacity to run in the fast lane? But, you've also been blessed with the wisdom to know that can't be sustained long term without negative consequences.
No research studies here to reference, but my gut tells me many of us are looking to simplify life with the hopes that decluttering will offer stress relief, healthier living, and a more peaceful existence. We're running so hard and so fast, that if we ease off the accelerator of our lives for a minute, we're apt to discover we're lost and without direction. We begin asking basic and solid life questions such as, "What does it really mean to be yourself? How do I find direction in my life?"
The desire to simplify our lives and the act of actually doing it are easily postponed. When a car needs maintenance, a dashboard light flashes on and we take it to the repair shop or dealer. When we need maintenance, we experience headaches, stress, grumpiness, and worse. Hypertension, adrenal fatigue, weight gain, and other risky decisions keep us flying down the highway of life in ill-maintained bodies. What do we do, we pop a pill to kill the pain or turn off the indicator. We're running ourselves into the ground at a frenzied, unhealthy pace.
"Clutter equals postponed decisions." That's what my friend Barbara Hemphill, author of the Taming The Paper Tiger series and professional organizer extraordinaire, says about all the stuff surrounding us. In essence, Barbara's telling us that physical clutter is a reflection of a life of indecision.
In the On-Purpose Approach, clutter is speedily and readily managed with the Want List and Tournament process. Download the free preview to the Discovery Guide by going to the Free Stuff page here on my blog. Use this simple process to sort and set priorities. In just about 10 minutes, your brain will be better organized and you'll be more productive. Use this tool every day with your Two Do lists or anytime you've got a project and can't figure out where to start.
Let me offer a different perspective for you. What if the demands, stresses, and strains of our modern society are actually blessings that refine and sharpen us to be more of who we are and are called to be? That means you are, in fact, an on-purpose person in creation.
Your contribution to the life of another is directly tied to the gift you possess. How well you examine and understand your gift directly influences the measure of your difference making.
Within you is something inherently special. It is a gift that must be unwrapped, examined, and understood to be fully appreciated and enjoyed. This gift is an expression of your purpose.
You can give this gift by sharing The On-Purpose Person with a family member or friend. Place your order today. Do you want the book(s) to be personalized and signed? Use the comment section on the order page to give us instructions. If you want to include a gift card with your name, please let us know and we'll even do that for you.
Unemployment, slow business, foreclosures, and underemployment are just some of the struggles pressing into the hearts and minds of many today. As the debts pile up and the opportunities apparently diminish, the personal repercussions can cause us to lose hope and begin to see our lives as failing. This situational depression can weigh on one's spirit to the point of discouragement and negativity as we paint ourselves as failures.
What if your perspective, not your current circumstance, is the problem? Today's On-Purpose Minute challenges us to stop looking outward and begin looking inward and upward for a fresh approach that holds the key to the present situation and life beyond.
Thomas Alva Edison, the great inventor, saw "failure" as information. (See the video clip "I Haven't Failed" by my actor friend, Frank Attwood, who portrays Edison.)
Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, in the movie Apollo 13 is attributed with saying, "Failure is not an option," in the face of saving the crew in space.
I'm struggling right now with many challenges in life, business, and family. Perhaps I needed this message more than you do, so forgive me for talking to myself out loud. Yes, failure is not an option. Sometimes it simply takes that kind of resolve even as the world crumbles about us. I needed to hear that!
What does it mean to be a grownup, to mature, or to assume adult behavior? Sadly, far too many older women and men haven't a clue what it means to act, live, and be an adult. I find that we men, in particular, are slow to grow up into manhood.
Maturity begins with a decision to grow up. Like anything worthwhile, it takes practice, a mentor or coach, and the desire to keep at it. Practice pays off. The rewards of maturity are to live into the life intended for us and to make a greater difference or contribution with our life.
Seek out a mentor, life coach, or counselor with whom you can create a structured relationship for personal leadership growth and development. This intentional approach and relationship provides the benefits of accountability, fresh perspective, and experience.
If you want to learn something new, then invest in becoming a more mature and capable person. Take one step toward being more responsible for yourself. Then another step, then another. Soon you'll discover that growing up isn't such a big deal if you take care of the small deals along the way.
Finding peace in your life is really a matter of finding peace in your spirit. When your spirit is calm, then peace of mind follows and the swirl of chaos and confusion is an annoyance, but unable to cut to the core of our being.
Peace is not like an elusive rainbow that can be seen but never visited. Peace can take residence in your heart when the space is there for it. Most of us have such cluttered spirits and have gotten ourselves so busy that we don't have the margin to explore the possibilities within us, nor do we have the process to help us get there.
Peace and security are often joined at the hip as being mutually dependent. We may have a sense of security, but we aren't really secure. The world is a broken and fallen place so security is an illusion.
Security is simply protection from outside forces. Peace is the need for no protection. Yes, you can have a bit of heaven on earth. Peace can be owned. You've experienced it, haven't you? Now you know when you have it and when you don't.
The On-Purpose Leader Experience is designed to help you find that peace that passes your understanding and then to live into it. Is it the easiest thing you'll ever do? Hardly! I'll challenge you (in a good way) to dig deeper, experience more, and rise to the surface of your life a renewed and refreshed person.
"What is the meaning of life?" Now there's a tiny topic hardly worth pondering! The graphic and T-shirt design below by artist Aled Lewis (used with his permission) may provide as good a sense of "clarity" on the topic as one can find.
Kidding aside, the value of asking, "What is the meaning of life?" may be less in the answer to one of life's big questions, but more in the very act of the inquiry. Asking this question is a positive sign that changes in life, ideally growth and maturity, are budding. There's an awareness that can lead to a new life with the potential to lead to a life of purpose and meaning. Engagement in a greater reality has begun.
Change is a part of life, but a change for life needs to be self-initiated -- owned, if you will. Those around may demand or encourage us by saying "Change your life," but at the end of the day it is our responsibility and challenge.
How you go about embracing growth is up to you. For me, my big shift change happened when I attended a Bible study of the book of Romans back in the spring of 1985. Like many, I had been searching for meaning in life. As a true student of self-help literature, I was well read in the classic and contemporary self-help writers. At some point, however, it all started to sound like the same stuff simply rehashed from a different point of view.
I was not a Christian, but I was curious and willing to give that "old and irrelevant book" and the institution of the Church a chance. The Bible, I discovered, had a ring of authenticity about it that none of my self-help books had. There were no lightning strikes or trumpets sounding. It was mostly an intellectual pursuit to better understand, "Who am I? Why am I here? What should I do with my life? Is life meaningful?" The Bible was different because here was core wisdom instead of just knowledge.
What is the meaning of life? It doesn't matter what I say. You have to find your answer for yourself. What I will tell you, however, is this: life is meaningful! Start with this basic assumption and go forward.
Are you unemployed, underemployed, or just plain finding that your corporate job is slowly sucking the life out of you? Are you gasping with this suffocating sense of being stuck with just enough air to breathe, yet barely enough to thrive? Is some combination of your income, lifestyle, family relationships, and health suffering because of dissatisfaction and frustration with your present work situation?
Starting a business isn't just for people with business degrees and experience. Motivation, hard work, and a willingness to learn serves any budding entrepreneur.
Plan ahead for starting your business off right. In time, you'll ease into the transition. Sometimes it is thrust upon us from necessity. Regardless of whether it is a retirement, layoff, job elimination, or simply what you want to do, starting a business is a smart move.
Here's my list of ten compelling reasons I see many of my clients have for starting small businesses:
Escape the rat race. Get out of that corporate job and transition to more meaningful and enjoyable work.
Personal expression. A business can be a creative outlet for a hobby or passion.
Independence. Set your own hours, decide who you want to target as your customers, and don't have a boss.
Retiring to work. Retirement looms in a few years so growing a business represents a smooth transition and new sense of work identity.
I need the income. Your small business may provide extra income to cover the bills for braces, college, and vacations. As it grows it can replace your current salary and become full time.
Tax breaks. A small business is a vehicle for deducting some existing expenses from your tax return. Consult your CPA, but when the business picks up a fair share of the bills, it can ease the household budget.
Ambition: A small business can become a big business! Put your ambition to work.
Change the world. A business can be the means for you to truly change the world with your business idea, invention, or service.
Plan B Security: A sour economy can be a ripe time to start a business. In such times it may be the means to provide for one's family and self in the event of a job loss or cutback. Security matters.
I can do better: Many businesses have begun because the founders knew they could do better than their employers or what was offered on the market. I've seen women-owned business blossom simply because the founder wanted equal pay in parity with men and to do better for her family.
What is money? After watching and reading this On-Purpose Minute, I invite you to comment below:
Money, life, and work are interwoven life themes. That's why in the first week of ONPURPOSE@WORK I invite participants to explore their working relationship with money. Your money perspective paints your financial outlook. Here's a preview:
Money matters! There isn't a day in your adult life when you're not handling money. Consider all we do with money. We're exchanging money for time; making money on the job; spending money for groceries, goods, and services; doing money makeovers; investing money; counting money; worrying over money; saving money; and wasting money. There are nefarious aspects of money such a counterfeiting money, stealing money, embezzling money, and "follow the money." The list could go on.
Money is everywhere. Money moves and measures the economy. Money is our storehouse of value. Money is in our pockets and purses. Money rests on our dressers, in our drawers, and under our mattresses. When we're short of money and long in the month, we're worried.
Money can be the currency of a relationship, as in a couple fighting over money, saving for retirement or a home down payment. Money opens doors to social standing and status. There's people with old money and new money. Money can define a parent-teen relationship. There's mad money. And then there's money madness.
Money has meaning. It can be a source of security, income, worry, emotional stability or instability, the driver of our decisions, and generous giving.
Artists and theologians weigh in with gold nuggets of money advice:
1 Timothy 6:10 informs,
"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."
Pink Floyd's Money lyrics (first stanza below) from their album Dark Side of the Moon reflects the dilemma with the almighty dollar:
Money, get away Get a good job with more pay and your O.K. Money it's a gas Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash New car, caviar, four star daydream, Think I'll buy me a football team Money get back I'm all right Jack keep your hands off my stack. Money it's a hit Don't give me that do goody good bullshit I'm in the hi-fidelity first class traveling set And I think I need a Lear jet Money it's a crime Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie Money so they say Is the root of all evil today But if you ask for a rise it's no surprise that they're giving none away
In a prior On-Purpose Minute entitled, "How's Your Trust Account?" I invite viewers to consider where their trust is located... really. Now you're invited to chip in below with your comment to the question: What is money?
Minute: Money will become whatever you choose it to become. Will you become a slave to it or will you be the master of it. Coming to terms with your attitude toward money. Money can be a source of great confusion and consternation. It can also be a source for provision and blessing.
Money can help you be on-purpose! Every time you use it, ask yourself, "Am I spending or am I investing this money?" Then consider if you are spending time or investing your time.
Ask yourself this simple question: What is money to me?
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