You own a business, you sell things to customers and meet their needs.  You probably want to sell more things to your customers and get new customers to sell even more things.  But why?  To make more money?  To get rich?  To not have to worry about your finances anymore?  To increase your status in the community?  ALL horrible reasons.

You do not need more stuff!  You hear me on this but you probably don’t understand.  YOU.  DO. NOT. NEED. MORE. STUFF.  You probably don’t need more money than you already make.  If you have enough regular customers to pay your bills then you probably don’t NEED more customers either.  If making money is your ONLY reason for doing what you do, then you don’t NEED to make more than you live on.  Make enough to pay the bills, get out of debt, but do you really NEED more?

So, what else is there?  You started the company for a reason, and presumably that reason was to help a certain group of people with a problem.  You saw that people needed someone to work on their homes, so you offered your construction skills.  You saw that people seemed to like your artwork, so you made more and sold it to them.  But what is the ultimate point of doing what you do???  And it’s not to make money.  Money is a natural consequence of doing a good job at what you love to do.   What else is there?

Take this away and chew on it for a while:  You are in business to build high quality relationships.  Your ultimate purpose is to cultivate as many of these relationships as possible, through your business and every other facet of your life.

This is an entirely new way of thinking and if you fully embrace it, this idea will transform your customers, your business, and your life.

What if I just wrote honestly and not to please my audience? What would I write?  What if I could live my life how I always dreamed of, what would that look like?

What if I actually learned to like people? AND all their issues and problems? AND  stopped dealing with them as problems themselves?  Stopped seeing them as a burden or a curious idea? Would I be able to help them more?

What if I expected less than I got and therefore was happy all the time?

What if I started reading the Bible less for its problem solving help, and more for the miraculous story it tells? Less for what it can do for me to benefit my life, and more for what it can teach me about God…?

What if I truly saw my life as a story, or a movie, and embraced every moment as a scene, where each line was dialogue, and crucial to moving the story forward? What if I really saw myself as important? What if by being important I could help others and make them feel important?

I don’t know what would change but I think it would be something.  And it would be profound.

For years I struggled with the question of a calling.

I wondered “What am I doing with my life?” and “What is it all supposed to mean?” Sound familiar at all?

To a Christian Business Owner it’s even more puzzling.  You are supposed to have it all figured out, but it’s never that simple.  You still have questions and too often you have precious few answers.  It’s further complicated by the disconnect between the Church and “The World”, and there you are trying to bridge that gap.  How can you make both happy?  How can you be an amazing Christian, live out your faith, and yet still be successful enough to provide for your family?  It’s hard to find answers on your own.

If you are a man, who either owns his own business or wants to, and you are a Christian, then this might be the place for you.

Treat this like a repository of ideas and we can talk about what they mean.  Check out the other posts, comment if you want to add something, and I’m sure you will find something useful.

We tell stories because they are about conflict.

One man against nature, or another man (including himself), or against man’s own creations (machines).

The good ones always detail something to watch out for, something to be careful of that might diminish one’s resources.

Because humans have learned how useful stories can be, we inherently pay attention to them. We want to know when the conflict is coming, where the dangers lie. We simulate them in our heads, putting ourselves in place of the main character, all so that we can truly see what’s coming on the horizon.

Stories are about a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it, and we all can relate to that in one way or another.

Too often we tell stories without connecting to the larger story. When we do that, the audience is lost in the telling.

They don’t know where the story you are telling right now fits in the larger story. Usually they aren’t sure why this story is really important in the long run.

Audiences must have the context as well as the content, and it is up to the story teller to provide both, explicitly or implicitly.

Have you ever tried to change someone else’s mind?  Talked and pleaded with them to see a different point of view but in the end failed to get through?  There is an old adage that says we have to look at how hard it is to change our own mind before we try to change someone else.  I think that’s true and a good place to start.

We see the world in expectations of what is to come.  We expect to have certain real-world outcomes with everything we come in contact, also called experiences.  These “expected experiences” or expectations, are how we plan the world to work out for us, what we expect to get from the world.

If those expectations are violated then we are disappointed, if they are met then we are content. But if somehow these expectations of our future experiences are exceeded, then we have the phenomenon known as happiness.

My wife is great at this.  If it is supposed to be a certain way then it better be that way, or else crushing disappointment follows.  For example, if I say I will do the dishes, and then don’t, I have given her a reality that is below what she expected and she is disappointed.  If I do the dishes, she got what she expected and is content because reality met her expectations.  If I decide to be “Husband of the Year” and do the dishes, vacuum the carpet, give the dogs a bath, AND clean the bathroom on my day off, then she gets more than she expected and since reality exceeded her expectations she experiences happiness.   It’s all very simple, but often goes unnoticed.

Definitely something to think about for your own life.  If you want to change someone’s life for the better then ask yourself:

• In what ways am I disappointing the one’s I care about?  The one’s I love? What are their expectations of me?  Are those realistic expectations?  Am I even close to meeting the realistic ones?
• How often am I just getting by?  If I were to grade my daily behaviors on a 1, 3, or 5 scale then how many would be in the middle?  How can I change my efforts from 3 (mediocre, content) to 5 (exceptional, happiness)?
• In my day to day interactions, business and personal, how can I exceed someone else’s expectations?

You have the power to change a life for the better, you just need to find out what their expectations are and learn to go beyond whatever that person expected from reality.  It will change their lives and yours.

We tell stories because they are about conflict.

One man against nature, or another man (including himself), or against man’s own creations (machines). The good ones always show something to watch out for;  something that might diminish your resources.

Because humans have learned how useful stories can be, we inherently pay attention to them. We want to know when the conflict is coming, where the dangers lie. We simulate them in our heads, putting ourselves in place of the main character, all so that we can truly see what’s coming on the horizon.

Stories are about a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it, and we all can relate to that in one way or another.

What stories are you customer’s telling?  Where are they on their journey?

What stories are you telling?  Where are YOU on your journey?