How to Start a Purpose Driven Business
Many people give up hope of living the life they want to live at an early stage due to the pressures of having to pay the bills and tread the mill. A few are oblivious to the irony of the situation, most are brutally aware of it but just can’t overcome the bonds that hold them in their current situation.
I’ve been encouraged by very young people (and here) doing some truly remarkable things with their lives. It seems that brilliance is getting younger and that today’s kids have a much bigger appetite for adventure than my generation ever did.
That’s good though as it means that we have done something brilliantly well; we’ve inspired our children to be free, to do their own thing and to make their own way in life. Personally I don’t encourage my kids to think in any particular terms other than; it’s their choice and I’ll support them in anything they do as long as it’s broadly legal and positive.
The trouble with being in the generation before is that it has mostly resigned itself to supporting these high flying kids and seems to have metaphorically passed the baton on to them and is now in the dugout wrapped in tinfoil, getting warm and drinking hot chocolate, resigned to watching the action from the sidelines.
Fortunately there are plenty of people in the generations before us that prove that this doesn’t have to be the case and live a full free life right until the sweet end at a very old age…good for them.
So what’s stopping us for the most part? The pressure of doing the things we don’t want to be doing, to support the lifestyle that we think (have been convinced) we want, to own a house (pay the mortgage), so that we have something to leave the kids…a legacy. A house that you struggled to pay for over a huge amount of time while getting into a huge amount of debt and living a life with a huge amount of shit that you didn’t want…is not a legacy I’m afraid.
No…saying to hell with the office, making a living doing things you love to do in a way that incorporates family and life in general…now that’s a legacy and your kids will just suck in that attitude by osmosis. You will have left them a legacy greater than any stale old house on some stale old street.
But how can you possibly stop in mid stream and go and get that life you always wanted?
Sure you have big commitments, sure you have bills to pay, but that is always going to be your lot if you don’t break into this crazy circular argument somewhere.
Why would you start now? At your age for god’s sake? If you haven’t achieved anything by now…how the hell will you manage to achieve anything going forward?
From this point…its too late, you’re too old already….RUBBISH. The fact is that you’ve already achieved a huge amount, its just that it was achieved while you were only running on 2 cylinders; imagine what you can do if you really put your mind and your spirit into it. Think of the difference you could make! Some inspiration here, here, here and here.
Uh oh…here comes the weird deep bit…Think like you only have today, because actually you do! There is no tangible yesterday, you can’t go back there except in your head and there is no tomorrow until it comes. And if it comes…it doesn’t exist anymore…there is only now…so when would be a better time to start this new life? There isn’t any other time in which you can definitely do it is there?
I know it’s tough, I know you don’t know how you will pay the bills yet; I know that you are embarrassed to admit this to your friends and family…but this is your life and one way or another you will work it out.
So what if there was a way to quickly overcome these fears and worries; a kind of blueprint or map to help you along the way to making these changes, to help you start digging your tunnel?.
Strangely enough you only need help to get started…as soon as you take that one simple step, the excitement and rekindled passion in your heart will do the rest and carry you along. It’s what I imagine being released from prison must feel like; to finally pack your desk contents into a box and walk out that door for the last time. Think of all the little faces pressed up against the bars secretly wishing they were you, even though they will be pulling your character to shreds at the water cooler later.
There is no getting away from it, the single biggest hurdle for most people is money.
There are two common resistance filled arguments that, would be freedom seekers put up related to money and why they can’t be free. The first is, how will I pay the bills? And the other is how will I pay down my debt? So this means that the main thing that is holding you back from living the life you want, a life that would be inspiring and beautiful to everyone that encounters you, is a human invention i.e. money. The universe doesn’t care about money and death doesn’t care about money and hey…you are going to die one day. Hopefully not too soon, but some day it will be too late. It might be next week! Think about that.
I’ve dealt with crippling debt elsewhere on the site, so that only leaves how to pay the bills going forward from here. You obviously need to make some money from somewhere and in this scenario that needs to be from doing something that you love, something you will have no trouble getting up in the morning for.
I’ve talked about digging tunnels elsewhere and that remains true, you have to dig an escape tunnel out of your current income source so that you can build up a regular income from a passion while still paying the bills meantime. Of course you could just leave your clothes on the beach and disappear, but I don’t recommend that usually.
First you have to choose something, or things for your tunnel digging project; work or art that will inspire you and drive you forward to ever greater success. This means that you have to do that annoying thing of following your passion! If you ask anybody what they are passionate about they have a great deal of difficulty describing it…don’t worry this is normal, you have to experiment a bit and of course you don’t have to focus on just one thing either, you can have many passions.
Finding your voice, passion, calling or life purpose is all well and good, but how do you make money from it. I often implore readers to make their life their work and not to make their work their life; so assuming that you have found something to do that you love you will want to know how to make cold hard cash from it and that is an art in itself.
With all of the above in mind I’ve uploaded an eBook to help you with all of this. It’s called Purpose Driven Business. It’s free; it’s yours and its here.
Until next time, start digging that tunnel.