Tag: Purpose

Death and taxes

Posted on by philipdodson

These were said to be the only certainties in life.

Well, maybe as tech advances death may no longer be a certainty, taxes I suspect won’t be vanishing any time soon.

Yet we are suckers for wanting to buy certainty through school grades, lottery tickets, shortcuts, get rich quick schemes and so on. We want ever less risk and even more safety. We are sold fear and then we look to get a solution either from the arms of the industrialised complex or the state.

However, the magic of life is the uncertainty, that is what makes life dangerous, exciting, adventurous, meaningful and a struggle. Without it, there is little point. Struggle took the human race from the plains of Africa to inhabiting the entire planet and doing all the magical things in between.

We will only go backwards without risks and without a struggle.

Don’t seek certainty, seek adventure, risk and the beautiful uncertainty that life gives us if we look for it and let go of clinging to the inside of the circle with the masses. The fun is always right at the edge.

Putting the cart before the horse

Posted on by philipdodson

This is what most businesses do.

They focus on the detail or the benefits of their products or services before actually looking at why their business even exists.

Like choosing what food to put on your restaurant’s menu before you’ve clearly defined the concept.

We go for the easy as we can all talk about what we do or the benefits of our offerings. It’s much harder to talk about our company’s purpose or why we do what we do.

If you start with a purpose, a mission, what you stand for, the business’s values and then it’s so much easier to get the details right and align everything.

It’s then easier for the right people to fall in love with what you do.

Mass produced generic services and products that sell on benefits and features are in a one way race to the bottom and very few remember them when they’re gone.

Long lasting businesses that people care about take time and a willingness to follow a mission, a purpose and stick to it.