Personal Perspective #2: Entrepreneurial to Purposeful

Gary Keller curated a list of The 6 Personal Perspectives needed to excel in any area of life. Dive into the meaning & significance of each, and how they can transform your personal & professional pursuits from the inside out.

In most instances, the idea of being entrepreneurial is a celebrated idea. 

In this context, it’s viewed a little differently…

For our purposes, the definition of entrepreneurial is when you have an idea that you want to bring into the world, or an objective you want to accomplish (this can be in business, this can be related to your health, or your relationships) but you're essentially winging it, whatever it is.

When your feet hit the floor on Monday morning, you really don't know what it is you need to do. You have an idea that you want to bring to reality (which is great) but you're not really sure what it is that actually needs to be done action-by-action to consistently and efficiently get closer to goal. 

You might be able to make some incremental improvements going about it this way, but if you really want to make consistent gains, you have to go towards your goal with more purpose.

Take dieting for example. You see people approach dieting, and they are winging it total entrepreneurial style. They may set a specific health objective, but if they’re approaching it with no real action plan, it doesn’t gain any traction. Anyone who's worked on improving their health knows that without a predetermined action plan in place, you end up making a lot more errors than you thought you would because you're driven by hunger and emotions in any given moment. You don't really know the full plan, you don't have clarity, and therefore you can’t see clearly to make the best and most efficient decisions to get you towards your goal. Again, you might be able to make some incremental improvements, but if you really want a health transformation, you have to go about it purposefully.

Within our business, one of the things that has made the magic is that we have continued, through tens and tens and tens of thousands of iterations, to become more purposeful in how things are done. 

The more purposeful we have become, the more we've been able to generate the kinds of results we’re after in a predictable, consistent way. Because the reality is that there are so many different factors that go into consistent success, that things need to be tested and put into play with conscious intention over time. That is how you approach mastery, in any area of life.

If I'm not careful about where I direct my energy and my need for creativity and change, then what I end up doing instead is uselessly reinventing something that already gets the result. And because it's being reinvented all the time, and I’m winging it, the results become more haphazard and inconsistent. One day it's better, and the next day it's not, and there's no real way to be able to continue to improve it because there is no system to it.

You don't have the ability to improve when you’re not being purposeful and intentional.
This cycle, it can seem benign, but it can be really destructive, really quickly.

"There might be a hundred ways to get somewhere, but one way is known and continually tested to be the most efficient and clear path to get the kind of result you’re after. And when you find that way, that's a big gift." - Joe Arroyo

Now, when we talk about being purposeful, that doesn't mean a new idea is never generated, or we are not open to a new way of understanding something. It just means that new information and techniques are implemented in a very measured way.

What we know for sure, because it has been tested over and over again through thousands if iterations, is that the Candidate Journey we have developed delivers consistent results. We are constantly tracking our progress and setbacks, holding ourselves accountable to all the results that have come before. It's really hard to be accountable to a process if you’re doing things differently all the time. We're also not able to help coach you on your process because we really don't know what's happening.

I genuinely cannot think of any scenario where this has not been true, but when a person, no matter how much experience they have, when they start winging the Candidate Journey, they very quickly and consistently get no results.

Being purposeful means that you have found a path that works, most often built and developed over a multi-decade or multi-generational effort, and you become more and more efficient at the execution of that path. That frees up energy and attention to be more present to what is actually happening, and allows you to more naturally perceive where there might be optimizations or improvements that we want to slowly test.

That's where mastery is. An immature view is one in which we say, “Well, I'm a creative, intelligent human being [which we are] and therefore, that means I'm going to get creative in my application.”

That mindset actually robs us of the opportunity to achieve what we want to achieve, and it requires that you invest energy in something that simply doesn't deserve to have energy invested in, because we already have a path that leads to success. You don’t need to get creative and reinvent the wheel.

-Joe

Joe Arroyo is the expert on recruiting, selecting, training, and retaining world-class talent. As CEO of Vision Architect and Convert, him & his team have been "building business by building people” since 2001.

PS. If you're ready to get serious about building a world-class team of talent, click here to talk.

PLUS: Whenever you're ready, here’s 3 ways we can help you build your business by building people:

1. If you need help designing a wildly profitable recruiting process- from defining your value proposition to crafting a seamless candidate journey that retains- click here.

2. Get appointments with qualified candidates dropped on your calendar weekly by our "Done For You" Recruiting team.

3. If you need help getting into conversation with referral partners in your target market, let's connect on our "Done For You" Alliance Partner Solution.

Oh, and... check out VISION ARCHITECT:
www.visionarchitect.com