There is great power in knowing your calling. You must be able to answer the question, “Why on earth am I on earth?” This is the true source of power, transformation, and engagement with the world.
But once you know your calling, you must take action.
This is what I mean by violence of action. By knowing your calling, you can commit to making the world a better place.
For some, their calling and their job are the same. For others, the job pays the bills while the calling fills the soul.
In either case, don’t assume the task is the calling. To-do lists are never a calling. Instead, you are called to serve, give, and bless others. Your calling, your chance for greatness, is always about others. Doing that well gives you a source of abundant joy.
Don’t settle for mediocrity, pursue greatness.
On This Episode
On this episode, we talk about:
The importance of knowing your calling
How to overcome inactivity
When to take violence of action.
The 5 signs when it’s time for a change.
About Justin
Dr. Justin Hiebert works with mission-critical leaders to accomplish the unimaginable. Realizing that no leader has ever needed more things to do, he works with his clients to get the right things done. His clients rise above burnout, captivate their teams, and transform their communities. By engaging their hearts and minds, his clients unlock their full potential to be, do, and have it all. This affords them the ability to leave a legacy of influence and impact on the world. He is a husband, father, teacher, learner, and champion of joy. He resides in Bakersfield with his wife, four kids, two cats, and one dog. In his free time, he loves exercising, riding motorcycles, and doing anything outdoors.
One of the most frequent phrases I tell myself is to, “Work With Purpose.”
Every day, I am given the chance to do something meaningful and make a difference for others. Through coaching and consulting, I help my clients break through their mental barriers and experience a real and lasting transformation.
But there’s more to it than that.
I remind myself that working with purpose affects every area of life.
The way I parent.
How I interact with my spouse.
The type of community member I am.
Where I spend my free time and volunteer hours.
Each and every component of who I am gets run through the grid of what it means to work with purpose. To help me stay focused, I ask myself three primary questions.
Question One: Does it bring meaning and purpose?
Behind this question is the idea of joy in the work I do. It reminds me to engage with work that I deem as significant.
Question Two: Does it bring long-lasting consequences?
Want to live a wasted life? Think only in terms of short-term, instant-gratification results.
Want to work with purpose? Think long term. Now thing longer.
I’m not talking about six months or a year. I’m talking 10, 20, or 50 years from now. Some of the decisions I make today are because I’ve intentionally thought about the effect this may have on my grandkids when they are working.
My actions are filtered through an eternal perspective.
To work with purpose, I think less in terms of what feels good now, and instead how good discipline in the moment, however unwanted, produces long-term fruit that can be harvested for several generations.
Question Three: Does it help someone else?
This last question is about service. I don’t want to engage in work that is only (or even predominately) self-service. I want to help others. One of the clearest calls and commands in my life is that I am here for the benefit of others.
It’s why I coach, teach, consult, podcast, parent, write, speak, and volunteer.
I want my work to be filled with meaning and purpose.
I want it to bless those that come after me
And I want it to have an immediate impact on those around me.
That’s what it means to engage in work with purpose.
Leaders set the standard. Recently, I read an article (excerpt below) that reminded me about the vital importance of leadership culture. This week, we’re talking about the culture challenge faced in leadership, and ways to overcome and transform poor culture.
“The culture inside the Nebraska locker room isn’t OK.
Scott Frost made that apparent during the bye week, when on his radio show he said there was a “portion” of the team not ready to play at Minnesota, where the Gophers blew out the Huskers.
He went all in and called out his team Saturday, saying his team is ‘just OK’ and that he’s not ‘going to be happy with just OK.'” (source)
—
As a fan of all things Nebraska, this has been a particularly painful football season. While most of the last twenty years has been a disappointment for one of college football’s most storied and proud programs, this one hurts deeply.
Why?
The expectations were different. The season was supposed to be different. The outcome was supposed to be different.
Year two of a coach’s tenure is supposed to see improvement. Year two of Scott Frost’s tenure at Nebraska, his alma mater, was supposed to be glorious.
The Culture Challenge
Instead, eight games into the season, analysts are reporting how the culture is, ‘just okay.’
Just Okay Is Not Okay
When talking about culture, on the field or in a company, just okay is not okay. Fighting okay is a big part of the culture challenge faced by leaders.
Leaders set the standard of conduct. They set behavior expectations, acceptable methods of social interaction, as well as the vision and direction of an organization. When someone, or a group of someones, fails to live up to those standards, it is up to the leadership to change the culture.
There are, of course, many ways to do this. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to unpack the importance of culture in leadership. We’ll examine how to create a new culture if you’re in a startup, and how to change a bad culture.
For now, here are three principles to use no matter what your current circumstance is.
1.) Set a Clear and Compelling Vision
Like a masterpiece painting, a healthy culture is a product of vision and hard work. Longing for a great culture and actually having one are two different things.
As a leader, spend time intentionally investing in the culture and direction of your company, team, and surrounding people.
What does the workday “feel like?
How do people act?
What’s the end goal?
How does your department handle promotions? Confrontations? Missed sales goals or development targets?
If you can’t articulate your culture clearly and simply, it needs more work. Worse yet, if it doesn’t inspire others to be better, it will ultimately bring harm.
The goal is to articulate the what and why of the organization in a way that shapes, inspires, and transforms.
2.) Inspire Others to Greatness
Once the vision is clear and compelling it should inspire those that hear it. It should be a place where people outside of the organization say, “I want to work for them.“
Inside the organization, there should be tangible feelings of joy, clarity, and a desire for growth. This doesn’t mean that people necessarily want to work longer hours, but it means that they want to work harder in the hours they do work. Why? Because their work has meaning and purpose. They know that they are contributing to something greater, something beyond themselves.
The goal is to call forth the highest level of character achievement and belonging.
3.) Take Immediate Action
Violations of the culture will happen. Eventually, someone will know that a tardy might go unnoticed and regularly start showing up late. Part of a healthy culture is dealing with problems that arise quickly, fairly, and with the goal of restoration. Discipline happens to correct behavior and hold the standard high, not to deliver punishment.
Tardiness is corrected not by docking pay, but by showing them what is missed or at stake when they fail to show up on time. Poor attitude with customers doesn’t mean demotion, it means providing better training to help them deal with the stress of other people’s bad attitudes.
The goal is to restore the person to their own personal standard of morals, to the team, and to the vision and culture set in the company.
Transforming Culture
The challenge presented to Scott Frost is daunting. Not only does he have to instill his good culture, but he also has to overcome the bad culture he inherited. On top of that, he has to rewrite twenty years of poor standards.
For many of us, we face similar situations. Family histories, company profits, and personal standards all confront us on a daily basis. Some we inherit, others we create. All need to be transformed and redeemed.
Creating a compelling, inspiring, and consistent culture is not easy. But it is worth it.
Welcome to the LeaderQuest Podcast Episode 8. This week we are talking about ways to bring passion and purpose to our work.
Work takes up a significant portion of our week. Add on to that family, self-care, hobbies, andlife’s unexpected moments and you’re probably feeling overworked.
But the problem is not really our work. While some may need to focus on working less (those chronically overworked includes those regularly working 50 hours a week or more), the much more likely scenario is that you need to bring more passion and purpose to your work.
Join Elise and I this week as we talk about this topic.
What does it mean to work with passion and purpose?
How can you cultivate?
What are some easy hacks to get the momentum going?
Don’t forget to join us live every Saturday on the #NextSteps Coaching Facebook Page. We do a live Q&A show, introduce our weekly topic and record the podcast.
As always, thank you for listening! I really appreciate it.
Please be sure to like, share, leave a comment, and turn on notifications to keep aware of upcoming events, live streams, and new video releases.
“Hieb, this isn’t going to happen again. We’re going to get him next time. Set the goal. Focus on it. Put your energy into it.”
Those were the words from my high school wrestling coach after a tough loss. A regional match my junior year set me into a favorable matchup for state placing.
I was wrestling Blake, a decent wrestler from a school less than an hour away. My record was better. My skills were better. My coaching was better. I was set. A quick win and I was off to state, ranked in the top ten.
Given all those advantages, I overlooked Blake to prepare for state the next weekend.
Blake beat me. On a late third period comeback, he got a reversal and won 8-7. My failure to prepare for the object right in front of me meant that my end destination was changed. Instead of a favorable seeding in the state tournament, I was on the outside looking in.
That loss took me out of the top ten and into the bottom four. I faced the number two wrestler in the state (and eventual state winner) in the first round and lost. Then in the losers bracket, I lost again.
What had started as a promising season ended in bitter defeat. 0-2 in the state tournament and a long offseason to think about the final thirty seconds of a match that was still eating away at me.
That’s when coach pulled me aside and told me to write my goals down for next season. Even in the pain and through the tears, focus on where I wanted to go. How did I want my senior season to end? How did I want to be remembered?
Begin With The End in Mind
That day, I wrote down three goals to focus on:
1.) Beat Blake
2.) Make it to state
3.) Set the school record in reversals.
For an entire year, those were my goals. Every extra practice. Every meal. Every weight training session.
“Beat Blake” became my mantra.
At the start of the next wrestling season, Coach Z put my goals on the board for everyone to see. Now, I was accountable to the entire team.
Every day at 3:30, the music would start, the reps would begin and my entire focus became to “Beat Blake.”
The final regular-season tournament of the season pitted me against Blake in the championship match, with regional and state seeding positions on the line. As I stepped on to the mat, Coach Z pulled me aside, “You’ve worked a year for this match. It’s time to finish.”
Three minutes later, I stepped off the mat and something along the lines of, “Rabid Wolverine” was hurled at me as they raised my arm in victory. From a close loss to a dominating win, I finished my objective and beat Blake.
Goals Create Clarity
Goals create clarity. Put another way, when we begin with the end in mind, we know what we’re aiming for.
By creating focus, instilling discipline, and getting clear on our life ambition, we know how to put a plan in place to help us reach our ultimate destination.
Or, think of it this way: As you near the end of your life, sit in your favorite rocking chair on the front porch of your house, answer these three questions:
1.) What are you glad you accomplished?
2.) What do you want to be remembered for?
3.) What are some of the things you’re most thankful for?
I’ve never coached someone who has answered those questions, “I think I need to spend more time at work.” Or, “My life would be better if I’d burn the candle at both ends a bit more.” Or, “Everyone wins if I’d ignore my family more for a few more late nights of office paperwork.”
Instead, when we think about where we want to end up, we then know how to create the plan to get us there.
I often tell people that coaching is a lot of “reverse engineering.” We get clear on where we want to go and why that’s important to us. Then we create the “how” piece of the puzzle.
We begin with the end in mind and then create the roadmap to success.
Working With Passion and Purpose
Work is a large part of our everyday lives. Whether your work is as a stay at home parent, a business executive, an entrepreneur, or as a skilled service provider. Whatever it is that you have been called to for “work” at this stage of life is vital. For you. For your family. For your employees. For the economy.
God has created you to not just work but work with meaning.
With purpose.
With passion.
This is accomplished by getting clear on what makes our work significant. We do that by knowing where we want to end up in life, and what makes that important to us. We bring purpose to our work when we begin with the end in mind.
When we know the how and why of our work, the rest becomes clear. When we know where we want to end up, we know how to create a plan that will get us there. When we begin with the end in mind, we will spend our days on tasks that help us “Beat Blake” every time we need to.
