People who have a strong sense of purpose tend to be more resilient and exhibit better recovery from negative events.

In short - they are better at working at your company and achieving results for your customers.

Follow my Facebook to join our weekly Live events.

Transcript of video:

My name is Nick Leighton and for the next few minutes you are exactly where you want to be.

This is originally recorded August 25, 2020 for Facebook Live - uncut and uncensored.

Let’s talk about purpose.

In these stressful, surreal times, it’s understandable for business owners to fixate on urgent business priorities - how to keep sales growing, how to lower expenses and frankly how to keep the team employed… but this comes at the expense of more intangible, personal considerations.

How important is getting your people to think about their “purpose in life” right now when you’re worried about their well-being—not to mention the survival of your business?

It’s more important than you think.

During times of crisis, individual purpose can help people face up to uncertainties (something we covered last week) and navigate them better, and thus mitigate the damaging effects of long-term stress.

People who have a strong sense of purpose tend to be more resilient and exhibit better recovery from negative events.

In short - they are better at working at your company and achieving results for your customers.

Oh, and research shows that purposeful people also live longer and healthier lives.

So, business owners should pay more attention to individual purpose as their businesses return to operations and begin feeling their way into the subsequent phases of the “next normal.”

You see, people seek psychological fulfillment from work, and, as the crisis continues or recedes and your business ramps up new ways of working, some people will experience friction, and even dissonance, around issues of purpose. Workplace interactions that felt meaningful and energizing face-to-face, for example, may feel much less so over Zoom. Meanwhile, other team members will be looking to see if their companies’ actions during the crisis matched their companies’ high-minded words beforehand—and basing their career plans on the answer.

This pandemic has been a cruel reminder for business owners everywhere of how important it is to never take healthy and motivated team members for granted. Since individual purpose directly affects both health and motivation, forward-looking business owners (like you) should focus on purpose.

Individual purpose can be thought of as an overarching sense of what matters in our lives, and we experience purposefulness when we strive or work toward something personally meaningful or valued. Research shows that most people say they have a purpose when asked, although it’s often difficult for them to identify or articulate.

Now - the question is - how do we do help our teams do this?

There are two tools to get personal with your team.

The first is a DISC assessment. A DISC measure your Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness / Compliance and allows you to better understand your colleagues work style and how to build a more effective relationship with them. You can get a DISC assessment online, or you can direct message me if you’d like me to provide one for you or your team.

The second way to get personal is to ask your team members the questions that will allow them to have a written Personal Vision and ultimately to define their Champagne Moment. There are 15 relatively straight forward questions you could ask a team member to answer that would allow you to identify their personal vision in a coaching session. If you’d like to know those 15 questions, just direct message me.

Now it’s your turn. How can you bring purpose to yourself and your team?

Post here – I would love to know.

If you found just one nugget of advice or inspiration in this quick video useful, then please do me a small favor - like and share.

Follow this page & join me next Tuesday - when we’ll take another look into Entrepreneurship and business ownership for today’s economy.

My name is Nick Leighton and I wish you passion, profit and happiness.