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New Study: Stop Chasing Money. You’ll Be More Successful Pursuing a Big Why

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The Industrial Age factory system designed work around making money. But people who work for a bigger reason are happier and better paid.

A new study, the 2015 Workforce Purpose Index, reveals that 28 percent of people are purpose-oriented, identifying them as “the most valuable and highest potential segment of the workforce, regardless of industry or role.” We call this a Big Why: something that is bigger than making money, that you can never check off as complete.

The 28 percent who express this Big Why approach to life are motivated by two things:

1) Personal fulfillment

2) Serving others

In contrast, the other 72 percent are motivated by

1) Status

2) Advancement

3) Income

Everybody Can Be Purpose Oriented

Some surprising things stand out in the study. The 28 percent don’t make less money than the 72 percent that are money-motivated. They also come from across every industry, every imaginable job type, and every age demographic.

The research says, “By every measure, they have better outcomes than their peers.” They:

– Are much more fulfilled at work

– Do better work and get higher evaluations

– Have much longer tenure in their companies

– Are bigger fans of the company

– Are much more likely to become leaders (and make more money)

The Joy Is in the Pursuit

People in the 72 percent can and do change, but that change usually comes quickly, not over time. A lot of people in midlife seem to wake up and decide they need a bigger reason to be alive than just making money or having a fancy title. The study points to a life principle that too few of us discover. In our business, we say it like this:

The joy is in the pursuit, not in the acquisition.

In grade school, I remember buying a tiny battery-operated beach radio. It was cool for about three months. Then I wanted a bigger one. Over 20 years, I bought a half dozen or more stereos, with increasingly more power, features, and quality. I continue to look at more expensive ones, but I have had a lot more fun pursuing the next one than acquiring it.

A Big Why gives you reasons to do things that you’ll never be able to check off as complete–be a great mother, get involved in a nonprofit, help others get to where they need to be in life. A Big Why isn’t necessarily a huge Why, like solving world hunger (although it can be). Instead it’s a continuous Why–one that will get you out of bed when making money won’t.

Workplace Engagement Is Unrelated

The study also clarified that purpose-orientation is much different than the too-often-used buzz phrase “workplace engagement.” People with a Big Why don’t need anyone to motivate them to be engaged. You really can’t motivate them; all you can do to them is keep them from being engaged at work (they’ll leave if the work environment stifles their purpose.)

Three Reasons to Be Purposeful

In my first book, Making Money Is Killing Your Business, I outlined why purpose-orientation works better than stuff orientation:

1) Making money is not an empowering vision. People who have a bigger reason to work than making money tend to make a lot more of it.

2) A goal realized is no longer motivating. The joy is in the pursuit, not in the acquisition.

3) We are made to be and to do something significant, our whole lives, not just the first two-thirds. There is something for everyone to chase that will get them out of bed every day, that is bigger than making money.

What Does This Mean for Business?

The study recommends that you create partnerships with people, not treat them like “resources.” And employers should measure how work is helping their people in the areas of relationships, personal impact, and growth, not status, advancement, and income.

The bottom line: There is a new war brewing for a very different kind of talent–purpose-oriented people–and companies are scrambling to figure out how to develop hiring mechanisms to find these people.

You could be one of them. This year, intend to be purpose driven. Get a reason to go to work that is much bigger than making money, that is motivating both at work and at home, and that drives you to get out of bed during the tough times. You’ll be more fulfilled, build better relationships, be more likely to advance, and still make as much or more money than someone chasing status, advancement, and income.

The joy is in the pursuit, not in the acquisition. Get your Big Why in 2016, something you can never check off as completed, and run with it.

Article as seen on Inc.com

The joy of business.

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Success is a positive thing.

Those who find joy in business have a clear vision for significance, believe they can actually get there, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, are running toward something, not away from something.

Too many people are in business because they have a mortgage to pay, or a payroll to meet, or to escape the drudgery of the cube and working for the man.

When we are driven by short term needs like these we are always running away from something – running away from poverty, moving away from mortgage default, from boredom, from fear, etc.

Running away from things will never bring you joy in your business and it will never give you enough momentum to move from survival to a really significant business that goes beyond the treadmill of paying the mortgage. The gravity of those things you are running from will eventually wear you out and relentlessly pull you back in. Running away from things is like trying to leave the gravitational pull of a planet. The only way to do it is to eventually begin to be pulled TOWARD something else.

In his book “Shift”, Peter Arnell tells about his business success but more importantly about moving from 407 lbs to 150 lbs. How did he lose 250+ pounds?
1) He says he decided to.
2) Then he said, “From that moment forward I saw myself as a 150 pound man, not a 407 pound man.” And every decision he made going forward was made through the eyes of someone who weighed 150 lbs, not 407 lbs. Peter was successful, not because he wanted to lose 250 lbs., which was simply moving away from something. Peter was successful because he was already a 150 lb. man in his head, and everything he did was to run toward that.

A study of severe heart attack victims called Change or Die” by Alan Deutschman found that, faced with the fear of early death, 90% of them went back to the same bad lifestyle that would assure that result. Running away from an early death wasn’t a strong enough motivation.

Dr. Dean Ornish, founder of the Preventative Medicine Research Institute, takes a very different and radical approach. He ignores the fear of death and focuses on helping heart attack victims find the joy of living. He gives them something to run to, not away from, and gets them to change everything at once, radically – not in tiny increments. And an astonishing 77% of his patients change their lives, permanently.

“Joy is a more powerful motivator than fear,” he says.

Things to run toward:
1) VISION – People are motivated by a more meaningful life. – not the fear of death, but the joy of life. Vision for where I’m heading and what that can mean to my lifestyle is critical for real change to happen. VISION is more important than anything.

2) INTERNAL CHANGE, not external. Structure, systems, processes, and other external things won’t make for a successful company. The right behavior will. Right behavior comes from a vision that is worth pursuing.

3) RADICAL, NOT INCREMENTAL CHANGE – Change should not be incremental – change everything at once. People who change radically are more likely to stick with it than people who change incrementally. Burn the bridges, sink the ships, shred the parachutes. Radical change with no intention of going back works.

4) COMMITTED COMMUNITY – Community is critical to sustain change. Ornish’s patients had ongoing weekly support groups and 77% of them experienced permanent changes of lifestyle.

A crises won’t change you, not permanently. Paying your mortgage or running from a cubicle won’t sustain you. People change when we have something to run toward, not away from – not the fear of death, but the joy of living.

I do a Lifetime Goals (The Big Why) workshop for business owners every few months. I do it because it is at the center of a hard-core success strategy to know what you are running toward. Everything rises and falls on your Big Why.

I’m running toward “Live well by doing good.” Every breath I take is to get my life and my business to conform with this vision. I can’t fail at it, I can only practice and get better every day. I’ll never fully get there, but I’ll always be running toward something worth pursuing with every fiber of my being. That creates joy in business for me.

What are you running toward? Will you share it with us here?

Your Mother Was Wrong

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The three S’s are not Nirvana

Your parents, 3rd grade teacher, college professor and Giant Corporation, Inc. all have you chasing the wrong dream. It’s no wonder most people aren’t excited about where they’re going. My mother thought I was nuts when, after six years, I left the army 29 years ago.

From her perspective, I had it all – a nice brick home looking out over Chesapeake Bay, provided free by the government. A great job where I rarely worked four hours (not normal for the Army). A just okay, but very stable paycheck. Very inexpensive on-base stores, free medical, and an incredibly generous retirement package that I could take as early as 41 years old.

Oh, and a highly unusual guaranteed permanent assignment at a bucolic old fort surrounded by a moat, in beautiful Virginia. I could have stayed there for 20 years and retire. I was set for life.

My mother grew up in the great depression and lived through World War II, hoarding scraps of aluminum foil to turn back in to make airplanes with. As a result, she was motivated by three very basic things:

1) SAFETY – live “sterile” – in the suburbs away from “trouble”.
2) SECURITY – get a wad of cash in the bank and retire off the interest.
3) STABILITY – know what every day holds – they should all look the same.

But where do safety, security and stability show up on Maslowe’s hierarchy, or any other measure of meaning? At or near the bottom. The three things we’ve been taught to pursue more than anything else are barely more than survival techniques.

Safety, security and stability are basics, not Nirvana. And in my experience, pursuing them as an end in themselves will keep us from doing anything significant with our lives. We were taught to move from survival to success, and success was defined as pacifying these three survival needs. Get a big house, a big bank account and ensure every day looks the same, and you have arrived.

Problem: Making money is not an empowering vision. And either is the goal of making every day look the same. We’re not made to live that way. We need to move from SURVIVAL, right through the industrial age definition of SUCCESS, to SIGNIFICANCE.

Business owners who reach for something bigger than making money are likely to make a lot more of it. Why are you in business? What do you want out of your business? Do you have Lifetime Goals driving you forward?

On the back of my first book , the cover editor put – “Use your business to build your Ideal Lifestyle.” It’s about significance.

My mother was well-intentioned, but I wanted more out of life than a safe, sterile existence that looked the same every day. Safety, security and stability aren’t enough. We are all made to be and do something significant. And you won’t get there by living safe and secure, and doing the same thing every day.

Carpe diem – seize the day. Go to the next level. Use your business to build your Ideal Lifestyle, not just to survive.

The Industrial Age is Dead – Time is the New Money

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The Industrial Age is Dead – Time is the New Money

As a business owner, you’re likely carrying a lot of baggage from the Industrial age (1800-ish to 1965-ish) that won’t fully go away for decades to come. He who makes the rules wins. You need to stop running your business on Industrial Age rules.

The Industrial Age brought us two incredibly bad ideas that led to many other bad ideas:

  1. Retirement
  2. Separation of work and play

A few weeks ago we said retirement is a bankrupt industrial age idea . Here we’re saying separation of work and play is a bad idea.

Time vs. Money
A young web designer friend of mine just one year out of college was given a huge pay raise by an ad agency, from $48,000 to $69,000. The company saw him as indispensable and didn’t want him going anywhere. A few months later, as winter approached, he quit. They wanted him there 8am-5pm and in the winter the only time to ride a bike was in the afternoon.

He would have worked in the evening, and that would have had no impact on the company, but they were stuck in the Industrial Age that valued money over time, and couldn’t see it. They were giving him the same tired “I’ll trade you money for your hours” deal that was dominant in the Industrial Age. He now runs his own very successful company and goes for a run or bike ride in the middle of the day any time he wants.

The Old (and Returning) Normal
For thousands of years people lived where they worked (over the storefront, on the farm) and played where they worked. Community was built around work and small markets. The kids ran and played, learned and worked there, the grandparents helped out – everyone was involved.

And there wasn’t much separation of work and play in the process. We look back and have a dreary and incorrect view of what life before “jobs” was like. What we miss is that above all else, we had community, something we’re only now beginning to recapture.

Humans as Extensions of Machines
It’s easy to see how this happened. During the Industrial Age, machines needed humans to become extensions of them in order to serve the machines properly. The machines needed people to be there all the time to run them, so we created humans in the image of machines. That “condition” was spread across all vocations, and “jobs” that separated work and play become the norm, even where there were no machines.

The Silent Generation – the worst label ever given
And it all worked in response to the needs of the machine, not the person. As the companies that owned the machines became huge, the pervasive need was to serve the corporation, and we were told to shut up, sit down, live invisibly, be loyal, don’t make waves and go out quietly. The generation which lived at the pinnacle of the Industrial Age, who are now in their late 70’s and early 80’s, have been labeled by marketers and sociologists as “The Silent Generation.” Can you think of a more condemning label? But it accurately reflects the damage the Industrial Age has done to us as a culture.

Time is The New Money
The Industrial Age taught us to value money above time. Giant Corporation, Inc. wanted you to focus on making money, not on having time to do anything with it. They needed all your time to run the machines. In the 21st Century we will understand that riches may equal money, but wealth equals freedom – the ability to choose what to do with my time. We will understand that money does not give us freedom, only time can do that.

Do you have time (wealth) or just money (riches)? Stop focusing on making money (see my book, Making Money Is Killing Your Business on the same subject), and intend to be wealthy instead. You’ll actually make more money and have a lot more fun in life, too.

Why I wrote “Making Money Is Killing Your Business”

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I built five businesses from the ground up. Each time in the process I found myself as a hostage of my business, never knowing how it would work out, how I would get off the treadmill, or most importantly, a firm date for when I could look forward to enjoying my business. It all seemed to be up to chance, and that the best I could do was work harder and increase my “chances”.

Along the way I learned two valuable principles that transformed me and my businesses, and helped me build a business I could enjoy for decades:

  1. You get what you intend, not what you hope for… and…
  2. He who makes the rules wins.

Throughout a number of my businesses I intended to work extremely hard and make money, and I got exactly what I intended – hard work and some money. While growing those same businesses I “hoped” they would result in a great lifestyle and worked even harder to increase my chances. But we get what we intend, not what we hope for.

I learned that unless I very intentionally designed my work around building a great lifestyle, that all I was going to get was hard work and maybe some money. I decided I was going to turn the whole thing on its head, stop working for my business and make my business start working for me.

It dawned on me that “He who makes the rules wins”, and that I had been allowing my businesses to make the rules by just “hoping” they would give me a great lifestyle. I added “use my business to create a great lifestyle” to my intentionality, having grown into the belief now that business should not just give us money, but it should give us three things – money, time, and the opportunity for significance, or meaning.

This led me to develop simple tools that would keep me on track to create that lifestyle:

  1. The Big Why – those with a great vision for what to do are more likely to be successful.
  2. A Business Maturity Date – to give me a very clear, measure of the time, money, and significance I now intended for my business to bring me, and a specific date for when I intended to be there – Friday, February 18, 2001, at 10am.
  3. A simple 2-page Strategic Plan – to help me stay above the daily Tyranny of the Urgent so I could focus on the things that would build a business that makes money while I’m on vacation.
  4. Process Mapping – to get me off the treadmill, allow me to train others to do what I do, and create repeatable and consistent experiences for my clients.
  5. Outside Eyes – I have others I meet with regularly who are helping me keep on track. I’m too subjective about my own business to make the kind of progress I regularly should.

February 18, 2011, we’ll be on our way to New Zealand celebrating the maturity of our business, and we fully intend for it to make money while we’re on vacation. Why don’t most businesses get here? Simple, the owner is doing what I used to do – intending to work hard and make money, and “hoping” it will all work out in a great lifestyle. We get what we intend, not what we hope for, And when I realized I could no longer let my businesses make the rules, I was on the road to freedom.

What are you doing to build a business that makes money while you’re on vacation?

UPDATE: The book is now out and available.

The Four Cornerstones of Business Success & Significance

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The Four Cornerstones of Success and Significance are A Big Motivator and Three Bosses.

  1. The Big Motivator – or The Big Why – Lifetime Goals

  2. Boss #1 – A simple Strategic Plan that runs my daily business

  3. Boss #2 – Process Maps and Process Descriptions to create freedom and a reproduceable business (and make it worth a lot more money)

  4. Boss #3 – Outside Eyes on my Business to catch the blindspots and bring balance and completeness to my leadership.

1) The Big Motivator

Why? Why is the least asked question in business and is the most important at every level, from buying a shiny object (Why?) to the reason you do what you do (Why are you in business – what’s the end game?)

Businesses that create success and significance for the owners and in the world around them have all answered why and are driven forward by that Big Motivator. What are your Lifetime Goals, and how are you building your business to get you there? Business should have a purpose – what’s yours?

2) Boss #1

Where and When? – I use a Two-Page Strategic Plan to run every aspect of my business. I know exactly WHERE I want to go and WHEN I want to be there. The second least asked question in business is “When?”

I know exactly what my business looks like at maturity and I have a Business Maturity Date – Feb. 18, 2001, 10am. We all know exactly where we are going on vacation and when we want to be there, and that informs us what we need to do before hand, and how and what to pack. We go blissfully through 30 years of business ownership blindly packing the car of our business day after day with no idea where we are going or when we want to be there. How in the world can we make a decision about today if that decision lives in a vacuum? Is it any wonder most businesses never grow up? Do you have a simple Strategic Plan and a Business Maturity Date?

3) Boss # 2 How?

Process Mapping is that route to freedom for the small business owner. It gets all the processes out of their head on to paper so they can create quality clones of themselves who will produce as well as they do, so they can stop being control freaks and get a life.

A business owner who wants to create success for themselves and significance in the world around them with their business has others doing the production so they can focus on the Important things while others take care of the Urgent things. Do you have your processes mapped on a simple graph with some descriptions of each step? Business freedom is not within your grasp if it’s all in your head.

4) Boss #3

Outside Eyes on your business. None of us can figure it all out, and we’re too subjective about and too close to our own businesses to see the potholes.

The business owners who are intent on using their businesses to create success and significance all have peer advisors, mentors, advisory groups, or others who can speak to their business. Who are you allowing to see behind the curtain who can help you build success and significance?

Summary

Do you have your Big Motivator and your Three Bosses? I know, you don’t have time to do this, which is why you’re still on the treadmill. There is no such thing as lack of time, there are only priorities. If getting off the treadmill is a priority, you’ll find the time to not just make money, but build a business that makes money for you, so you can turn your attention to creating success and significance, not just revenue.

What an old guy told me that changed my life.

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The Time, Money, and Energy Conundrum – When I was just starting out, a creepy old guy (about my age – mid-50s) told me life had a built in problem. He said “The problem with life is this.

When you’re young, you’ve got all the time and all the energy to enjoy life, but no money. When you’re in your middle years, you’ve got all the money and all the energy, but no time. And when you’re retired, you’ve got all the money and all the time, but no energy.”

He then went on to say something very profound. “The key to a good life is to figure out how to have all three at once – you’ll make a lot bigger impact in the world around you if you can figure that one out.”

Lifetime Goals are foundational for figuring out the Time, Money, and Energy conundrum, for a very important reason. The definition of a Lifetime Goals is:

A goal which can never be checked off.

A true Lifetime goal can never really be fully completed – there is always something more you can do to make it better, more complete. Any goal that can be checked off as complete is not a Lifetime Goal. Been dreaming about that house on the spit of land at the edge of the lake with the thirteenth tee behind you? That is not a Lifetime Goal – it can be checked off, and once it is, it will no longer be motivating.

The red herring we’ve been fed is that the accumulation of junk is the same as Lifetime Goals. “My lifetime goal is to have $5 million in the bank, a Mercedes, a 6,000sf house, and a nice boat.” No it isn’t. Making money is not an empowering vision, and a goal realized is no longer motivating. This is just making money so you can check off the accumulation of junk. Wouldn’t get me out of bed for three minutes in the morning.

If you’re initially motivated by those things and obtain them, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you don’t have a bigger reason to have them than just having them. The old bumper sticker from the 80s – “He who dies with the most toys wins.” – was wrong. No, he who lives with the most motivating Lifetime Goals wins.

I believe every one of us was made to do something significant with our lives. Have you figured that out for yourself yet? If you’ve got a burr in your saddle or a blue flame coming out behind you for something that really excites you, you know you’re on to something. And everybody is going to want to be part of your life. Nobody runs to catch a stopped train – get yours moving and watch what happens.

You can solve the time, money, and energy conundrum and have all three at once, and make a lot bigger impact in the world around you.

Retirement is a Bankrupt Industrial Age Idea

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Retirement is a really bad, bankrupt, industrial age idea that was never a good idea in the first place. It was invented by big businesses to steal the best 40 years of our lives so they could discard us when our good years were all behind us.

What makes it so wrong? A few very important ideas:

1) A goal realized is no longer motivating.

Retirement is a goal that can be realized, and once it is realized, it’s not what we were promised. In the Industrial Age, the average life expectancy for men after retirement was 18 months. No longer motivated. Out to pasture. Stick a fork in them – they were done.

Men are beginning to live longer after retirement, but for reasons connected to Lifetime Goals – they’re finding meaningful things to do after they stop going to work every day (or choosing to continue going to work).

2) The very concept of retirement teaches us to put off doing anything really meaningful and substantial with our lives.

I heard it hundreds of times growing up from future pasture-geezers still in their 40’s – “When I retire, I’m going to….[fill in the blank.] What a horrible way to live – always hoping for a future time when you’re actually free to do something with your life.

3) The other really bad notion of retirement is that you’re supposed to work until your 65, then begin enjoying life.

The not so subtle message here is that work and play do not mix, and that you are really supposed to live two lives – your work life, and your meaningful life (shouldn’t work be meaningful, too?). And the ideal way to do it is to live your work life first, and hope you have time left to live your meaningful life afterwards, when you have no energy left to do so.

Wealth is the freedom and the ability to choose what to do with my time.

The retirement game teaches us you won’t be free until you retire. What a load of crap. Stop living for a future that never arrives. Don’t be that guy who, when you’re gone, others say “Too bad he didn’t get to enjoy his retirement.”

Lifetime Goals give us something to begin to enjoy today that we find meaning in, the rest of our lives. Do you have Lifetime Goals that you’re already living, without any need to be retired to get after them? Life should be meaningful, fulfilling, and satisfying today.

Tomorrow never comes. Carpe freaking diem already.

Seven Decision-Making Principles Leading us to Profitability

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Guiding Principles of a business are necessary (honesty, integrity, customer service, etc.), but there is another set of principles that help the Business Owner in particular: decision-making principles.

How we make decisions effects everything we do. Problem – we make decisions subjectively, even when we think we’re being objective. All the research shows this – even at the major company level – we even buy subjectively.

As a result, we react badly to shiny objects, short-term victories and defeats, and strategic planning. So the question becomes, do you guide your biz or does it rule you? Who’s really in charge?

Want to make more money and stop recovering from bad decisions? Get some simple decision-making principles on which you run your business.

Like rails that guide a train, your decision-making principles are a core strategy to having a business that knows where it is going and how it is going to get there.

Here’s my seven decision-making principles. What are yours?

The 7 Decision-Making Principles of TeamNimbusWest Crankset Group:

  1. Business Maturity Date – Know Where I’m going & when I want to be there. (Seriously, you plan your vacation destination and time to be there, why in the world don’t you plan the destination and time to be there for your business. Which one is more important? Duh…)
  2. Make more money in less time. – Why do what others can and will do, when there’s so much to be done that others can’t or won’t do? Yield Per Hour. Distributive Management. Your NOT saving money by doing things below your pay grade. If you want to make $200 per hour, every time you do a $20 per hour job, you just lost $180.
  3. Focus on my lifetime goals, not just on growing my business – A BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal) will keep us going, but “grow the business” is a lifeless idea. So is retirement. Get a reason to have a business, then watch how much more money you make, and in less time.
  4. Get off the treadmill, own the business instead of the business owning me. – The purpose of our business is to create a lifestyle for ourselves and our family. Stop making money, stop making a living, and start building a business that makes money while you’re on vacation.
  5. Work ON my business, not just IN it. Highest and best use of my time. – The key to growth – perfecting as we go by strategic planning, not just production. Know where you’re going, and regularly adjust. I revisit my Strategic Plan every Monday. Keep steering all the time.
  6. Make decisions on where I want to be, not where I am. – Clarity of Purpose leads to Hope which leads to Risk. Know where you’re going (clarity), which will give you something to believe in (Hope), which will allow you to risk moving forward. Take good risks to grow.
  7. Bad plans carried out violently many times yield good results. Do something. Stop planning. Implement now and perfect as you go. Speed of Execution rules. It’s a both/and thing. Move NOW (stop thinking), then as soon as you start moving, start perfecting. If you just move, you’re going to get clobbered. If you just perfect, you’ll never start moving. Implement now, perfect as you go.

What are the decision-making principles of your business?

You’ve got decision-making principles that are running the show. You might as well write them down and see if you agree with who/what is actually in charge. If not, change them and take control of your business future.

Learn objectivity in decision-making processes. Know where you’re going, delegate, make decisions based on your strategic plan, and not based on where you are right now. And stop thinking about it so long. It’s not how good the plan is, but how committed you are to the bad (incomplete) plan you have. And how good you make decisions as you go.