How to Run Your Business, and Your Life (Authentically) to Make a Difference

If we don’t consciously sit down to evaluate how we’re running our lives and our businesses, we can get stuck in the muck of the daily challenges and lose sight of the big picture.

In this article, we’ll hone in on the impact you’re uniquely able to make and how to start embodying that in your decisionmaking on a daily basis.

This can be done for your own life or as a leader or team. Answers can be written or turned into more of a visual collage with sections.

For this exercise, you will need:

• A notebook, journal, or space to write/create

• A pen or pencil

1. Your Role

This is something you carry at your core that is a part of what you naturally give to others relatively effortlessly. What seems to be a constant as far as what you contribute and give to the world?

If you are doing this assessment for your personal life:

• In your various jobs, circumstances, different friendships and relationships, what remains constant, or what do you do in your life regardless of what the position is or responsibilities are? This could be something tangible, but is probably something which isn’t.

• What have you never stopped doing?

• What do seem to do all the time regardless of whether you’re paid?

If you are doing this for your business:

• Other than what you sell, what actually matters to you about your business?
  This answer should come from your heart, not your head.

• Other than cheap prices or low cost, what is it about what you do that keeps people interested?
  This answer comes from an inner knowing.

• Other than moneymaking, what is it that makes your business worthwhile?
  This should be personal, not something that makes all business worthwhile.

2. What’s Your Beautiful Future?

The Opportunity

Answer the ones that call out to you.

• What does a beautiful world look like? (What are people like? What is the Earth like? What do people do? What do landscapes look like? What has changed?)

• What does the world need? (What is not working now?)

• What do people need? (How do people suffer in a way that bothers you the most? What suffering do people not see they have? What suffering do you know they don’t need to go through — you know there’s another way?)

• What is missing? (What should exist, but doesn’t yet?)

• What bothers you that people can’t see is a problem? (What

• As you’ve moved through your day, year, life, notice what bothers you, what you wish would change, what you wish someone would do something about. These are cues for opportunities for you to capitalize on. You can write them down!

Your Contribution

• What can you offer to solve these problems?

• How can you use you/your business’s tools, knowledge, strengths, resources, and influence to create your beautiful future?

• Think about you/your team’s personal history, things you’ve overcome, expertise, things you know, educational background, what you care about, what motivates you, your life experience. What problems above are uniquely equipped to address?

• If you are already creating an impact, is it in an area you feel passionate about and aligned with? If so, what steps can you/your team take to feel and experience your impact in a more connected way?

• What matters?

3. The Journey

Know what forward feels like.

These are times when you felt happiest and most connected, to yourself and those around you: What are happiest moments you recall? These can often be very simple things where everything just felt good, everything felt complete, relaxed, peaceful, everything was flowing. What makes them matter?

Times when you felt the most open — to other people, to new experiences, to love. The most energy flowing through you — heart full, easy, in the flow, and joyful, overflowing with desire to give kindness and appreciation to others. The most grateful to be alive.

• How do you know when you’re on the right track? What makes you sure?

• When do you feel the most electrified and energized?

• What makes those moments feel so good?

• What matters?

Know what backwards feels like.

These are times when you just seemed to have no energy for anything more, feel depleted, upset, stressed out, burned out, ready to go hide under a rock or Ctrl+Alt+Delete. (This is not an unavoidable state — it’s the mindset that this direction is forward that is the issue. Your willingness to look at this will help you find a solution that takes you forward again — this goes for individuals and for teams.)

For teams:

• What times did team members start becoming unresponsive, miss deadlines?

• What was going on during this time?

• How were decisions being made?

• How were problems being handled?

• Were opinions and frustrations welcomed, considered, and resolved? If not, what was getting in the way of that?

For everyone:

• What were your priorities from most to least important, financially, mentally, emotionally, and time-wise during those times?

• What needs were not being met?

The purpose of seeing this all together is not to judge or intellectualize anything, but rather to see the complete picture — to see if there are ways of doing things that aren’t working which might be the cause of some pain, and also what’s been working great that you don’t want to stop doing.

4. Accountability

Make It Visual

Making this stuff prominent and visible in physical space can serve as a reminder to help you align your decision-making with your vision. Making it a massive, unmissable part of your space helps create a sense of shared accountability.

Schedule Regular Time for Measured Reflection

How will you reflect? Will you journal, invent some sort of spreadsheet or accountability system to check in and see how you’re doing? What will you measure to track your progress — what numbers and data matters?

For teams:

Make sure input and feedback, from your customers and your team, is an integral part of your decision-making process and important data you’re capturing on a regular basis. Value this to be equivalent to or more important than your own ideas for your own sake. Make your opinions count the least and listen with curiosity most — if your employees or your customers are unhappy, you don’t have a business (service or product that makes money and helps people), you have a passion project (a thing you do because you love it, but might not make money or help people)! Business is a team effort, and requires service, genuine care, and support for those who you employ to help each effort be a successful one, whether that be financial, emotional, mental, or spiritual care + support.

Adjust

Develop new ways of doing things that work to better serve your goals, needs, and problems that are revealed during your scheduled reflection times.

How’s It Going?

Have questions for me, stuck or need help?