12 Tips To Leading Your Best Life (4/12)
How Leadership Atlanta led to finding my personal Purpose
Hello friends,
There are two things I want to share before diving into the meat of this newsletter (for my non-meat eating friends, what would you say, diving into the…carrots? zucchini? impossible burger?).
First, I attended my first Pride Parade last weekend, and I had the best time. I hope, if you haven’t attended, you’ll consider going with me next year :)
Second, we’ve signed some exciting new authors at Ripples Media, and I can’t wait for those announcements to come out. If you are someone who is interested in writing a book, or you know someone who is, please drop me a note. Our Purpose at Ripples is to fill the world with authentic and powerful stories to inspire positive change. Maybe your story will be one of those :)
This is the fourth installment of the series I call, “12 Tips To Leading Your Best Life”. It’s a talk I give each semester to Ed Baker’s GSU class, and after delivering it to the class last semester, I decided to create a series out of it.
Tip #4 Find Your Personal Purpose.
Before we jump into it, make sure you saw my first three tips:
#2 - Dream big, but start small (the 48in48 story)
#3 - Be all in on your dreams (the New Zealand story)
Storytime
Way back in 2012, I entered what will be forever known as “the best class ever” of Leadership Atlanta. (That’s a not-so-funny-and-entirely-overdone inside joke for my fellow Leadership Atlanta alum.)
I entered the class because my forever mentor, Ken Bernhardt, suggested it would be the best thing for me at that time. He said this after I explained that, yes, we were about to sell Engauge, and yes, five years prior, we had sold Spunlogic, and yet…something was missing in my life. I didn’t feel…fulfilled. I felt like, for 15 years, I had been chasing other people’s expectations of me (or society’s at large), and I didn’t know what I was doing or what I should do next. I was a bit lost.
When Ken suggested I go through Leadership Atlanta, I had no idea that he was guiding me toward another critical moment in my life, as he always has.
And then Purpose slapped me upside the head
I’m going to zoom through the next part of the story because, well, I’ve written about it a lot. Like, a lot. So here’s how it went:
My eyes were opened, helping me see the world more clearly (and my privilege within it).
Spent a few years trying to understand how Purpose could fit into my life and into my companies.
Dragon Army became a test case for all of my experiments…sorry, fellow dragons!
Eventually nailed my Purpose statement: To have an outsized, positive impact on the world.
I started capitalizing Purpose because I practically consider it a holy concept.
I began living my life through, and measuring it against, my personal Purpose. And my “big buckets”: Family, Health, Doing Good, and Work.
I wrote four books about all that…but I haven’t yet gotten it out of my system :)
Since following my Purpose for roughly the last ten years, I’ve never been more fulfilled or happy with the choices I make, what I spend time on, and who I spend it with. And I’ve become much better at saying “No” to things that aren’t a “Hell, yes!”.
You can read more about my thoughts on how I found my personal Purpose on my blog, because I’ve written about it ad nauseam. I’m like that 12-year old girl that discovers Taylor Swift for the first time and then has to tell EVERYONE in her family how amazing Taylor is ALL THE TIME and now we have to watch KANSAS CITY CHIEFS football games. Go figure.
The Point
I gave a talk in Bowling Green (the home of Gerald Printing & Liberty Imaging, the first business we acquired via Purpose Group, and who will absolutely crush your print, signs, and apparel needs, just ask me for an introduction 😁) a couple weeks back at the American Marketing Association event there. I had a great time, met some awesome people, and my 16-year-old went with me and even introduced me before my talk!
At the event, I shared five ways that the audience could embrace the mindset of an entrepreneur in order to have more success in their marketing efforts, their careers, and most importantly, their lives. I probably spent as much time talking about the importance of finding your personal Purpose as anything else. Like I said, I’m like a Swiftie when it comes to Purpose (and you can tell I have them in my house, because I spelled it correctly.)
Please spend the time to find your personal Purpose. I promise you it will be worth the effort.
I hope you’re happy.
Recent podcasts
I produce a podcast called Begin the Begin. I hope you'll consider subscribing. Here are the latest episodes: