Chasing Our Purpose

Between the time we returned from our honeymoon in late April of 2000 to when we were both working exclusively in Dove Development & Consulting, we had done a lot to hone our clear purpose - albeit still quite what we’re working to achieve today. But even the ever-evolving purpose we were focused on at any given time had enough power for us to invest the time, energy, and resources into growing however we could so we’d have a reasonable shot at accomplishing it!

As we turned our calendars to 2020, we were experiencing momentum like we hadn’t seen before. The annual full day leadership event we hosted in the fall of 2019 sold out more than a month in advance. We had agreed to speak at a few events across the country for a nonprofit Carly Fiorina was operating at the time, and we had signed our largest corporate training contract to date. Behind the scenes, things were moving just as fast. Cindy and I had contributed a chapter to a book on workplace communication, which became an Amazon Best Seller, and we were working with several organizations to become approved certification providers for the professionals holding certain credentials. On top of all that, we had just moved our website to a new platform that would allow us to host digital courses that folks could access from a computer or mobile device anytime, from anywhere around the world. 

By mid-March of that same year, the world as we knew came to a screeching halt - and so did all the momentum we had been building. Nearly everything we had booked was put on hold, much of which was eventually canceled when “two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into months and months and months… The majority of the work we had been doing to pay the bills was all but forbidden. Interestingly enough, we dug our heels in and kept working on everything we possibly could, just hoping that when the world opened back up we’d be more prepared to conquer it! Praise God for the savings we had set aside but that and our clear purpose was the only thing that kept our lights on into mid 2021; figuratively and literally!

While that eighteen month stretch where Covid put the brakes on the bulk of what we had in motion may have been the biggest, I’d be lying if I said it was the only roadblock that threatened to knock us off course. I remember a few times where we opened our arms to folks who were following a similar path to us, only to have them intentionally undermine us with organizations we had been working to earn the trust of. Although that hurt, it was simple enough to keep them at an arm’s length afterward. The thing that was harder to handle was seeing businesses where we thought we had solid relationships, and we had done business with, choosing to work with firms from outside the area for services we could have provided. It would have been one thing if we had the chance to bid for that work and lost, but it really stung when we weren’t even provided with an opportunity to have a conversation at a time where every dollar we earned made a difference. As it just so happens, most of those just happened to be companies that preach the importance of shopping local…

Make no mistake, this ain’t a sob story! All of us go through crap. If anything, it served as motivation to work even harder toward that clear purpose we had become even more focused on. Some of the most successful things we’ve created came from someone pissing me off… But without having a clear purpose driving us, the roadblocks could have easily been more than we could have handled. We did have some help with staying locked in that purpose from time to time though. One source of that was each conversation I had with my buddy Mark when he’d say, “Wes, you’ll never know this side of Heaven how many lives you’re touching. Don’t stop doing what you’re doing.” Without his voice, and a few others, we may not have chosen to keep chasing our purpose - so we’ll look more at that next.