Last fall, after selling out to my business partners, I began to study what the remainder of my life should look like. How would my cuts, bruises, and experiences help others cultivate profit for impact in their businesses?
It seemed reasonable to believe there would be enough energy for one more twenty-year season of fruitfulness.
Three mentors walked with me to help define what could be my greatest season of fruitfulness.
I couldn't forget a business-as-mission conference I spoke at a few years earlier. My presentation included four pages of PowerPoint slides to accompany the speech. Hal, another presenter, walked to the stage, wrote three things on a whiteboard, and blew us all away. Those three things have never left my memory (no one remembers all my PowerPoint slides!).
Three things.
Profit for a purpose
Bless the community
Advance Christ’s kingdom
Hal posited that when entrepreneurs built their businesses around these three concepts, they maximized their impact and found significance.
Significance is something so rarely found in "successful" entrepreneurs. They often make money, have many employees, and give all the appearances of the good life, but deep inside, they lack the power that only significance can provide.
My mentors helped me see that I might be uniquely qualified to lead entrepreneurs to find that ever-so-elusive gift of significance.
Agricultural metaphors were easy to use as we talked, having been a farmer all my life. The three things that Hal impressed upon us seemed to fit so easily into a farming analogy.
Seed
Sunshine
Soil
Harvest
Over the next few weeks, my posts will examine the role of the seed (ultimate purpose), sunshine (good leadership), soil (market/customers/niche), and harvest (impact) in great businesses.
What if, when you read them, you too will be impacted like I was when I first heard them? What if, after reading them, you too were inspired to move from success to significance?
That would be divine!
That's my prayer.
Harry T Jones
P.S. I would love to hear your thoughts on significance. Has it been as elusive to you as it is to most? When do you feel significant? Connect with me by email or LinkedIn.
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