It's all about you

Your Primary Aim

Photo by Matt Nelson on Unsplash

“The chief characteristic of the volitional act is the existence of a purpose to be achieved, the clear vision of an aim.” — Robert Assagioli, The Act of Will

I want to make it clear — and sorry dear readers for being so direct — that the purpose of setting up a business, any business, is not to make money, live a different life or have fun (I’d like to think you can do all these things, though).

No, the purpose of any business is for you to have something to live for, something bigger than your ‘I’, something that you value beyond your needs and wants.

In short, to enable you to lift the veil on your old self and come alive to as a yet, unknown, or partially glimpsed you. Think of it as the unlived genius that resides in all of us; and someone who we rarely find or rediscover.

This means asking a number of serious, serious questions (you will need to adopt beginner’s mind) long before you ever open the doors on your new enterprise.

I call this your Primary Aim. Actually, it’s not my expression but something that Michael E. Gerber writes about in his book, The E-Myth Revisited (see pp. 136-148) (“The E-Myth”). The questions he posits are:

1. What do I value most?

2. What kind of life do I want?

3. What do I want to look like, to feel like?

4. Who do I wish to be?
   And I’d tack on a few more:

5. What feels like you?

6. What has life in it?

7. What’s the real need of the business?

Please don’t think, though, that asking these questions, or any other(s), is going to wake you up to a new personal reality.

They won’t.

Not now.

Not ever.

Why?

Well, for starters, not everyone wants to start a business. They’re content or at least not too crestfallen doing their thing which, indeed, is where I’ve been for long stretches of my life working for other people.

Even if you do want to start a business, as I’ve already written about and as set out in some detail in the E-Myth, most people who go into business for themselves are suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure, meaning that they believe that because they’re good at what they do, they’ll automatically be good at starting and operating a business offering the same service. In adopting this mindset, they end up working like a lunatic and heaven help them if they try to get off of the treadmill to spend time trying to figure out who or what they are in the midst of all that activity.

I think it’s worth saying that NewCo — my NewCo — will be based on the idea that as well as helping people get clear on the idea upon which the business is based (remember what I said yesterday on this point), my Purpose is to awaken and transform the lives of every small business owner. Now I know that sounds hyperbolic and you may not believe me or believe it’s possible but I can’t emphasise this point strongly enough. I can go further and say that my Mission is to create a turnkey system to awaken and transform the lives of every person who wishes to start a new business, while providing them with the support for doing it.

I realise that I’m biting off a lot with all these lofty promises but trust me having been here twice before, first with Ambassador Recruitment in 1989 (it failed after three years) and then again in 2010 with me trying to build a consulting and coaching business to the legal sector (it died a natural death because I never worked out what I was selling that other people wanted to buy), I’m not going to make the same mistake again. Why? Well, if it’s not already obvious from this post, the reason I’m starting NewCo is to come alive to my true self — the one I left behind and ignored for all those years.

Take care.

Julian

PS. You’ll be relieved to know that this will be my last daily post. I need to dial down the writing and focus on building and prototyping NewCo. I don’t want to say how frequently I’ll be posting but I hope to share something no less than once a week. If you need to contact me, here is my diary and you can always schedule a call.

PPS. Never forget that you are unique, precious and only pass this way once. And it’s never too late to lift the veil on your old life to something brand new.