Last week I met with an entrepreneur, a bright young woman who was well connected, well educated, and had lots of potential in front of her. The problem was, she wasn’t making much money. The reason wasn’t because of a lack of opportunity. She had a lineup of people meeting with her to pitch her ideas and work with her. The reason was a lack of focus. Wanting to help, I gave her this advice: Clarify your calling and then figure out how you can live that out through your business.
Are you living out your calling in your business? Maybe I should back up and write about the importance of calling in a person’s life. Then I’ll discuss what it means to live out your calling in your business and how it relates to marketing.
Every Person has a Calling
Oprah Winfrey has a great quote on calling: “We’re all called. If you’re here breathing, you have a contribution to make to our human community. The real work of your life is to figure out your function – your part in the whole – as soon as possible, and then get about the business of fulfilling it as only you can.”
Each person is uniquely put on the Earth for a purpose. That purpose is their calling. I think this idea resonates with many people. Barna Group research found that 87% of millennials surveyed want to live a life full of meaning. When people are not clear about their calling or cannot live it out, I believe that they will eventually reach a crisis. For example, the classic midlife crisis or the more recent occurrence of a quarter-life crisis are often crises of identity and calling.
How Do You Find Your Calling?
When Nike founder Phil Knight spoke to the recent graduates of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, he said , “Now that you have graduated, the goal should not be to seek a job, or even a career, but to seek a calling.” The question is how.
Finding my calling is something I’ve wrestled with over the last 10 years and here’s the most helpful advice I’ve discovered:
– Listen to Your Life – One of the best pieces of advice about calling is from Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak. He writes,“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I need to listen to my life to tell me who I am.”
– Clarity Comes with Reflection and Experience – You do not need to know your calling before taking action. Clarity comes from gaining experience and reflecting on what you learned from those experiences. From that reflection you make adjustments. Then you repeat the process.
– Discover Your Sweet Spot – This is probably the most mentioned piece of advice on calling. Find the intersection of your skills, your passion, and what the world needs. That intersection is your sweet spot and your calling.
Flexility to Live Out Your Calling
There is a trend towards more and more people running their own business or doing freelance work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of Americas that were self-employed increased by 1 million to 15.5 million between May 2014 and May 2015. That number will only increase. A separate report by Intuit estimates that 40% of workers will be self-employed by 2020. As the Harvard Business Review writes, many of these self-employed people are the brightest and the best.
One of the reasons this trend is happening, in my humble opinion, is that being self-employed allows you more flexility to design your work so that you find it more fulfilling. When you run your own business you can choose to do the work that you find meaningful, serve the customers that you care about, and hire the people that believe in your business’ vision. You can build your business to reflect the priorities and values in your own life. You can live out your calling through your business. The freedom, flexility, and independence of running a business is attracting more and more people to leave their corporate jobs.
Great Companies Give Employees a Calling
Not all corporate jobs suck the life out of people. In an article on INC.com, Chip Conley, founder of the Joie de Vivre Hotel chain, says that “calling” is the ideal thing that a company can offer its people. Conley got the concept from Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, which in order of urgency are:
– Physiological (like food and shelter)
– Safety
– Belonging
– Esteem
– Self-actualization
Until the basic level needs are met, a person isn’t interested in moving to the next one. But the higher up the needs levels you go, the more secure, happy, and fulfilled you are. Conley saw how this applies to every relationship in a business as well: customers, investors, and especially his employees.
At the basel level, an employee wants money and benefits. But beyond this, you can create community for your employees, add to their self-esteem, and ultimately give them a way to live out their calling. That’s the highest need. The benefits? An employee that is living out their calling in their work is internally motivated to excel and do their best work.
“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly paycheck. Your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling,” Vincent Van Gogh said.
The Heart of a Business is Expressed in its Marketing
As a person in marketing, my job is so much easier if I work with a business owner who is passionate about their business. Their passion comes through when we talk about their business. I believe good marketing is an authentic reflection of the heart of a business. When a business has little heart, it’s difficult to make the marketing compelling and exciting. I could make something up, but it doesn’t seem genuine. But on the other hand, when a business is full of heart, I get excited to help them share their story, their passion, and their commitment to their work. The marketing our team produces seems real and meaningful because it is honest and true.
Are you living out your calling in your business? The world needs more businesses with heart.