When Your Business is Your Calling
This letter is to everyone whose passion and purpose are at the core of their businesses.
Yes, you're an entrepreneur but not for its own sake. You’re doing what you’re doing for a reason. You didn’t fall into it.
It’s part of your personal mission. It fulfills you. It’s what you need to be doing.
I'm sure you've figured out by now that by turning your passion into a business, you chose the hard road.
Fulfilling? Impactful? Worthwhile? Yes, yes, and yes.
But not easy.
From a purely business perspective, passion and purpose have disadvantages.
When your business is your calling,
You can’t just pivot on a dime to follow the numbers or changing market.
You have stricter natural parameters 'untouchables' for your services, your clients, and the way you run your business.
Things like marketing, systems, and strategic development almost always take a back seat.
You feel guilty caring about money.
And just to throw a wrench into the mix, entrepreneurs who follow their passions aren't necessarily business people. Some because they lack experience, some because their brains just don't work that way.
All you really want to do is practice your craft but all your knowledge, passion, and commitment to transforming lives can’t help people (or as many as you could be) if your business isn't healthy and growing.
Any of this hitting home?
My partner Cat and I talk about this all the time. Not coincidentally, it comes up about once a quarter.
We founded Reaching & Rooted Publishing with a very specific and very personal shared vision. And yeah, it gets in the way sometimes.
Our untouchables include:
We want to publish books and amplify voices that heal and improve the lives of others
Human manuscript writers & developers
Including extraction, marketing services, and business consulting with publishing packages
Authenticity. In our marketing and everywhere else.
Here's how we continue to grow while staying authentic to ourselves and our core mission.
1. We created that list ^^ so we know exactly what's off the table. Notice it's not very long. This isn't a list of everything we care about. Just the absolute non-negotiables.
Think of them as load-bearing columns. Now that you've distinguished them, you can fix up the space without damaging the integrity of the structure.
2. We got creative about finding efficiencies, marketing strategies, and responding to competition and changes in the market.
3. We make no apologies for caring about profit.
Your purpose is your North Star. Your destination. Your business is your vehicle to get there. Sure, you can get there by walking, but it will take forever and exhaust you quickly.
The more your business grows (whatever that looks like, the bigger the impact you make and the more people you can help (or in our case, the more people we can help, help more people).
4. We resist Shiny Object Syndrome. This is a tough one and we fight this battle every day.
You have a lot to offer, and a ton of ideas. The passion driving your business also drives you to innovate on ways to serve and bring wisdom and healing to people.
As long as it doesn't come at the expense of your business itself. Anything that distracts you or take bandwidth or resources away from your core offer AKA the part of your business that keeps it running and profitable AKA the vehicle to achieve your true goals, is a shiny object.
You don't have to ignore the other things you want to do. Just prioritize them appropriately in the context of your business.
5. We (try our hardest to) apply the same mindfulness and intentionality to growing our business as we do in other parts of our lives.
If you're not already practicing mindfulness in your business, start. When you're driven by purpose, there is no separation between your business and the rest of your life.
You'll notice a change right away.
It's absolutely possible to build a thriving, profitable, sustainable business that is both personally and professionally fulfilling, and contributes positively the universe.
If you found this helpful or at least interesting (I guess you wouldn't have made it to the end of the email if you weren't), we have a weekly community call where we talk about stuff like this.
Let me know if you want to come and I'll send you the time and a zoom link.
(No charge or obligation, in case you were wondering)
Happy Sunday and have a great week!
