Episode Title:
What is a Purpose-Driven Business?
Episode Summary:
In this episode, I talk about my story starting an online business and my definition of what a purpose-driven business is.
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Topic 1: My story starting Shannon Bain Digital [00:44]
Topic 2: What is ‘purpose’ [4:54]
Topic 3: Success vs. Fulfilment [7:50]
Topic 4: Characteristics of a Purpose-Driven Business [8:50]
Topic 5: Personal + Professional Fulfilment [11:19]
Topic 6: Finding Your Purpose (Questions To Ask) [12:41]
Episode Transcript:
Welcome to episode two of the Purpose-Driven Business Podcast. This episode is all about explaining what a purpose-driven business is, based on my definition and this message that I have to share. Um, my story starting and growing an online business and how you can find more purpose and meaning in your life.
So I started Shannon Bain Digital about three years ago now, at the start of 2020. And honestly, I had been wanting to work for. Four years, like ever since I could remember, I wanted to start my own business. But before I got started, I was actually working for a company running a health and wellness facility, managing all the operations marketing, and I was kind of like thriving in the role in terms of the results the business was getting.
But there was a few things that just didn’t feel right. Things like my days went aligned to my highest values. I didn’t have the choice of how I spent my time, and ultimately I was building someone else’s dream. There was a day that I vividly remember where one of my coworkers said to me, you know, if you put half the effort that you put into your job into building your own business, you would be super success.
And it’s funny how those little things that people say can stay with you when to them it may have just been like a fleeting comment, but I sat and thought about that comment for quite a while and I thought, you know what? He is actually right. And no one really knew how much I was actually suffering at the time.
Not because I didn’t like my job. I actually loved it because I had a great team. It was a great work environment. Fun. I got to do the things that I was good at as well. Um, and it was in the health and fit fitness industry, which I am super passionate about as well. But internally, I was dealing with such a strong internal conflict of knowing that I wasn’t doing what I really wanted to do, but then I was struggling to know what it was that I was meant to be doing, let alone then taking action on.
It. Then finally got to the point where the idea of staying the same was actually a lot more painful than potentially failing. So it was probably the end of 2019 where I thought to myself, I cannot do this anymore. Again, like I said, I didn’t hate my job, it was just that it wasn’t. The work that I wanted to be doing for myself because I had this internal drive inside me to start my own business and work for myself.
And then when Covid happened at the start of 2020, I saw the opportunity just to take the leap. I guess it was kind of like, um, a now or never moment. Where everything seemed to kind of be falling apart anyway, the world was losing its mind, so I thought I may as well try and start a business, right? Like I kind of have nothing to lose.
The worst case scenario was that I was going to end up being in the exact same position that I was currently, and I think that’s what a lot of people forget when. Are maybe taking a risk or trying to start something new or, um, you know, make changes in their life if you fail, which is probably the worst case scenario.
You’re going to end up being in the same position that you are right now, except you’ll have the experience of actually trying and failing and the lessons that you would’ve learned from that experience. So you’re actually in a much better position, even if it seems like you failed. And so with that mindset, I went ahead and just took the leap to start my own business.
And honestly, from the moment I broke, From what the safe option was and just started pursuing my own dreams. It completely changed my life. I didn’t realize then, but what I had done was finally align my actions with my intentions or higher purpose and started listening to that voice inside me that knew me better than myself.
And you can call it whatever you want. Everyone has this voice and this higher guidance. Um, you can call it your soul, God, the universe, your intuition. But I was able to take that guidance and clarify the mission that I was on with my work and in my life, and I was finally on purpose. See, humans are wired to find meaning if they don’t have meaning or connection in their lives, it can cause a lot of suffering.
You don’t have to have this grandiose purpose or mission in life. And I’m gonna cover more of this later on. But it can just be the reason why you are doing what you are doing and that what you are doing every day, whether that be in your work or in your everyday life, that it is aligned to your values and that higher purpose, mission, vision, and.
Goals that you have in your life. So I think about purpose in a little bit more of an esoteric way compared to other people. Basically, we first need to look at the way that like a human is actually made up. So we have our mind, body, and soul. Like everyone’s heard of that obviously, but. Your body occupies the physical plane.
So this is the external world around you. Your mind occupies the mental plane, which is the internal world within you and your soul occupies the spiritual plane, and this is the omnipresent state of consciousness. So where three parts, soul, mind, and body, and this is what makes up the fra fabric of who we are.
Now, each of these three parts of you has a specific function. The function of your soul is to connect you to your true higher self, which understands your desires better than your conscious self. And this is really this inexplicable drive, whether you recognize it or not, to be, do, or have something. So when you sit and you listen to this higher guidance and you connect to your higher self and you connect to your soul’s desires, it will become clear what it is that you want, which is what a lot of people struggle.
So once we know what our soul’s desires are, we then have our mind, which makes decision. So whether consciously and unconsciously through observation of the sensors, based on where it’s being guided from your mind is going to make decisions and then it’s going to tell your body to act out those decisions on the physical plane.
So those choices that your mind makes because your body is the vehicle that you use to physically navigate and express yourself in the world, will take actions based on the decisions your mind makes, which should be making decisions. Based on your soul’s desires. So if you visualize this for a moment, we have the soul at the top, which guides your mind, and then your mind determines what actions your body takes, and the actions that you take will determine the results that you get.
So when these three things are aligned, you are on purpose. You’re living your soul guided life, you’re following the correct hierarchy of these three. Being soul, mind and body. We always wanna be guided by the soul. The soul will always communicate its desires to you, including what your purpose is. You just have to listen.
Everyone has this within them, but the problem is that most people aren’t living in this way. They’re actually instead guided by the external world and everything is in. So their body is running the show. Basically, their body guides their decisions, which causes conflict within their mind, their internal world, because the mind can listen to the soul and the body, and is the connection point of these two worlds.
It wants to listen to the soul, but is being told to listen to the body instead. And when the soul is suppressed and and ignored, it causes this emptiness, unhappy, uncomfortable feeling because you’re not fulfilling your deepest. And whether you’re aware of it or not, all kinds of issues will arise because like any system, if it isn’t working the way that it’s supposed to, there are going to be problems.
Being on purpose within business follows the same concept, instead of being guided by a body, which is success on the physical plane, you were guided by. Whatever success is on the spiritual plane and the soul’s desires are this inexplicable drive to make an impact or positive change to our lives in the lives of others.
Now, I wanna be totally clear from the beginning and say that in no way am I suggesting that success on the physical plane is not important because it. Money is amazing. It’s an essential, powerful resource. Our bodies have needs and they are a real thing, and life is to be enjoyed. And sometimes things in the physical plane can bring us happiness, but it’s a different kind of happiness.
It’s not our purpose to have these things. The soul, mind, and body are all just as important as each other. But the difference is the priority and where we are making all of our decisions or deriving our motivations from, again, it is totally okay to want the physical things, but a purpose-driven business is a business guided by a higher level mission.
It’s guided by soul. When you have a purpose-driven business, you will become successful on the physical plane and achieve your lifestyle goals while simultaneously creating a fulfilling and meaningful life. You can 100% definitely find success without being on purpose too, but you’ll lose your spark and motivation if you lack the alignment that we’ve just spoken about.
That’s why we see so many hugely successful people who are depressed and don’t actually like their lives. At the end of the day, everyone wants to live a life of meaning and purpose. They wanna feel like they’re making an impact. So if you can be driven by purpose and still see the success that you.
That is better than seeking success in the external world and then realizing that you are really looking for purpose and fulfillment in the first place. I heard this quote that says, true mastery is the union of success and fulfillment and living by purpose is the cornerstone of achieving both. So this is where getting the physical success and you’re getting the soul guided fulfillment as well.
We wanna find purpose in life, but if you own a business, you wanna find purpose in that. Or find your purpose in life and actually turn that into a business. Now, if we break this down further into what fulfillment actually is, because we’re all pretty aware of what success looks like on the external physical plane, I believe there’s two sides of fulfillment.
There’s professional fulfillment, which is how we can help others, how we’re making impact to someone else’s lives and contributing to the community. This is how you are being of service to. And you need to be of service to others to be fulfilled. It’s not all about you. Humans are wired to want to be of service to other people.
Then there’s personal fulfillment. So this is your lifestyle, how you’re spending your time living aligned to your living, aligned to your values, and just being at peace with who you are and what you do. So to have a purpose-driven business, it needs to fulfill both of these needs. It needs to be of service to others, and it needs to give you the life that you want as.
In these two sides combined results in you helping others be better, solve their problems and overcome the challenges that they’re facing, and you being better as well, resulting in you being happier and more fulfilled in your own life. So this combination is super powerful, especially when we start to think about what would happen if tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of people were living.
A life aligned to their purpose. Now, if you’re someone that’s wondering like, what is my purpose? I really just don’t know how to clarify it. The first thing you need to do is look at where you’re actually spending your time and money. What are you already doing? You are going to buy nature already, be spending your time and money on the things that are important to you.
These are your values. It’s also going to sound a bit weird, but the best way to really. Be able to listen to and understand what your soul’s desires are is to just sit in silence. Sit in silence, and actually listen. You can also ask yourself these questions like, if it wasn’t for money, how would I be spending my time?
If there were no risk of failure, what would I be, do or change in my life or my business? Why do I do what I. But ask that five times because it’s not what or how it is, why it doesn’t matter what or how you are doing something, it matters why you are doing something. So ask yourself that five times until you get to the real reason why you do what you do.
And the last question to ask is, if I could be of service to 10,000, 100,000 or even a million people, what would the impact. So sit and think about those questions. Look at how you’re spending your time and money, and sit in silence and actually listen to that higher guidance that you have inside of you.
So I hope this episode has helped you to understand what a purpose-driven business is, why this message is something I feel so inspired to share my story, getting to know me a little bit. And understanding what purpose actually is so you can find and clarify yours.
