Category: Blogs

I did not have ideal parents. No one does. I grew up with no awareness or education around the significance of my own emotions or my inner being. I also thought I had to earn love. So, I set my north on mothering, nourishing, and caring for others as means to find mattering, belonging, and purpose. My yearning to be loved became the fuel to sacrificing my own needs in service of others.

I became the rescuer, the one who was always available, understanding, forgiving, protecting, and putting others’ needs first – everywhere and always.

That is how I paved my way to becoming a self-sufficient, goal-driven, easy-going, perfectionist, self-critic, and compassionate woman.

In 2020, I began the life-long journey of soul searching through the Wright Foundation. Since then, I have been diving deeper and deeper into my inner being. Acknowledging, honoring, and expressing my emotions have become the path to finding a life and career filled with more joy and purpose. Being present in tune with my feelings has been an invitation to be fully engaged in my own discovery, growth, development, satisfaction, and transformation. May this be an invitation for you to start your own transformation today! Click here to get started. 

Similar to mine, your transformation, moving from chrysalis to butterfly, could mean:

• Moving away from feeling less than, inadequate, or not good enough to be on your own side, speaking up your truth, and using your masculine values to assert yourself by asking questions, seeking help, or challenging others.  
• Moving away from self-beat-up when making mistakes toward taking a step back, breathing, correcting, and being accountable. To learn, innovate, and create instead of punishing and shaming yourself and others. 
• Moving away from seeing yourself as the “must do it all, know it all, superwoman or superman” to seeing and treating yourself more as a human—a human who is beyond producing, performing, perfecting, pleasing, and protecting—a human who is a gift to the world. 
• Moving away from serving others out of self-sacrifice to serving from a place of abundance, self-compassion, self-love, and self-care. 

Cultivating a friendship with our emotions and taking responsibility for our own nourishment and self-care are the water and the sun that our souls need to thrive and serve others well.

My purpose is no longer to be loved. My purpose is to love myself, learn, and grow to become more and more human; more me. 

Purposeful growth and transformation invite struggle and pain into the journey. At times, dying is the only way to make space for the new creation – the new, authentic self. We can choose to die, over and over, to old patterns, blockers, myths, rules, and limiting beliefs about ourselves. Have you died to your old self yet?

Here is where we get to rewrite our new redemptive story. 

The story we get to write is not about the women or men we have been. It is not about those who defined us when growing up. The story we get to write is about the women and men that we are becoming.

For me, that story includes a woman who is on her own side, goes for her own well being and satisfaction, ventures into the unknown with confidence and a sense of play and discovery, and shines her own light and truth in service of making a difference. 

What is your purpose? Who are you becoming? What is the story you want to start writing about yourself today?

We all have influence. We are able to positively impact, inspire, and ignite others into action, into leadership, no matter what we do, where we work, or what type of personality we have. We have the power and the responsibility to use our gifts and talents, our purpose, to move others into action and leadership.

After all, we grow in our leadership through the leaders we are mentoring.

We must use our influence to create trust among others. We need to keep our eyes and ears open to identifying and mentoring others into leading. And we do this by reaching out, by getting to know others and their stories—their joy, their pain, their humanity.  

Creating a multiplying effect. Both in the marketplace as well as in the nonprofit sector, the train-the-trainer model is used to help create capacity, sustainability, and long-term change and impact. The secret to expanding and multiplying leadership and change is to give those around us the encouragement, empowerment, permission, and ownership to advance their purpose, to influence, to lead.

As catalysts for a purpose-driven leadership, our focus and efforts should be on trusting, equipping, and mobilizing others into identifying, understanding, activating their own purpose and desire to lead.

We can do this by:

• Being knowledgeable and committed to influencing those in our own life – family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, etc.
• Using our gifts and talents in tangible ways, while allowing and acknowledging others in doing so as well.
• Living out our gifts and talents (outside of our comfort zone) into the world.
• Recognizing our weaknesses and investing time and resources in our own development, growth, and learning.
• Saying “yes” more to others and becoming a “permission giver.” 

Giving permission is the most effective way of leading. Saying “yes” and let others do, in other words delegating, seems easier than what it really is. Giving permission, letting go, and passing over the authority to those around us is not losing our own vision, or capacity to influence and lead. 

Saying “yes” and giving permission to those around us has to do with developing, growing, and mentoring others while activating, growing, and strengthening our own purpose and leadership—at work, with our families, our communities, and the world at large. 

According to Dave Ferguson, the author of the “Five Essential Practices to Hero Making,” there are six levels for saying “yes” and giving permission:

• Level 1: Watch what I do, and then let’s talk about it.
• Level 2: Let’s together figure out a plan for what you should do.
• Level 3: Propose a plan for what I should do, and let’s talk about it.
• Level 4: Let me know your plan for what you should do, but wait for my feedback.
• Level 5: You should handle it completely, and then let me know what you did.
• Level 6: You should handle it completely, and there is no need to report back to me. 

Putting theory into practice. Ready for this challenge? Follow the above guidelines. Give someone you work with, volunteer, or serve with an assignment and the level of permission you are giving. Then ask them to repeat it back to you, including the level of permission received. Encourage them to go do it. Wait and see what happens. Run with this new approach several times. Repeat. Reflect. I’d love for you to share what you experience.

Become a permission giver, say “yes” more often and see how this new approach helps you grow and transforms you into a hero maker—someone that believes and invests in raising up and empowering the new generation of leaders.

In a stereotypical sense, a salesperson is someone whose main goal is to sell you a product or service, get your money, and make you into a customer. As a nonprofit, it’s different. Your main goal is to make social change, generate donations, and make your donors into allies in your purposeful journey. But just because the goals are different, doesn’t mean that a nonprofit isn’t selling anything, or shouldn’t think of themselves as salespeople. 

That stereotypical definition of a salesperson often gets a negative connotation. Salespeople are associated with dishonesty and greed; they’re out to get your money and they don’t care how they do it. This association is what scares a lot of nonprofits away from being sellers. The last thing they want is to be perceived as dishonest or money-hungry. But this stereotype is just that: a stereotype.

Salespeople are not inherently bad. Like with anything, there are bad salespeople and there are good salespeople. The good ones are honest and transparent about what they are selling. They make sales that benefit not only themselves but their customers, too. Nonprofits are no different. The only difference is in what you are selling.

 

What are you selling, and why should people buy it?

As a nonprofit, you rely on donations. Whether these donations are in the form of money, time, or talent, they are immensely important to fueling your goals. And you cannot generate these donations if you don’t sell yourself.

Selling yourself is selling your purpose. You’re selling the opportunity for someone to become a part of your purpose, to make a difference, and to use their wealth, time, or talent for something that is bigger than themselves. Really, you’re selling something that everyone desires to have.

How do you sell purpose?

Your purpose is your story, and being a salesperson is the same as being a storyteller. When you tell your story, you’re creating empathy, showing off your passion, and inspiring others. If your story resonates with someone, they will want to be a part of it. People have the desire to make an impact, and they can do that by helping you make yours. Clara puts it like this:

Sales is not a one-way street. It does not pursue a benefit for only one of the parties involved. Sales is the white canvas where our purpose, passion, and presence are the brushes to create a vibrant, colorful, inspiring piece of art filled with meaning, emotions, empathy, and answers. – Clara Carrier, Founder of BTC

When you pursue donors, you have to look at it like a human interaction, not a monetary transaction. Donors are more than their donations, they want to be a part of your story, your purpose, and your impact. So let them! Then, even though you are selling, it won’t feel like it. It will feel like a collaboration. It will feel like you are making a change. And it will feel like that because that’s exactly what you’ll be doing.

 

Learn More

 
To hear Clara, founder of BTC, dive deeper into this topic, check out her appearance on the Sales Babble podcast. 

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

When you have a clear purpose and hold it at the heart of everything you do, people will respond to you and want to share in your impact. Download our free assessment tool to help discover your purpose and start sharing it with others.

DISCOVER YOUR PURPOSE