4 Reasons Why People Do Not Turn Their Purpose into Profit

A round the world, one single biggest problem we face is joblessness. I have always wondered who the first person ever to be declared jobless was. What were the circumstances around their situation? Are they the same today? Did that person have purpose in their life? What really was going on?

Fast Forward

The same questions can be paused today. Why is it that people are jobless? What are the pervading circumstances? Man countries have policies that are geared towards solving this systemic problem. Chief among those interventions is education. Education systems are crafted so that people can “get qualifications” in order to get a job.

One of the glaring misses of the education systems the world over is the subject of personal purpose and vision. I mean we learn all there is to learn in technical and theoretical fields, but we miss one major thing, the nucleus of our lives—our purpose. And so you find many talented and gifted people jobless while all along they have something that can be monetized.

The Purpose

Traditionally, people get employed for the most part out of their academic qualifications. We need to change that increasingly so that people can do what is in their fields of ability. For the sake of this article, I will have us use the following aspects to depict purpose.

1. Ideas

If you read Steve Jobs biography (someone is saying, “here we go again with Steve Jobs), you will realize that Apple was an idea. It was also a passion. There were gifts and talents involved. But let’s talk about ideas. An interesting thing about ideas is that they do not come fully formed, as Mark Zuckerberg said.

Also, you will notice that ideas at times revolve around things that you are passionate about, things that you could do and things that you care about. I am more than 100% sure that of the millions of people that have no jobs, a great percentage have ideas.

Dormancy or Drought?

One needs to ask why ideas are not implemented. Personally, I have over 10 ideas for books, online courses, seminars and so on that are yet to see the light of the day. I am not so sure the extent to which these ideas can go. That’s the same place that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were when they started Apple.

It is the same place that Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma and Aliko Dangote were when they started out. The only difference is that they chose to lean in. Anyway, your ideas according to me are part of your purpose.

2. Gifts and Talents

If I created a bottle, I will put in it the capacity to hold liquids. The capacity that you have is connected to your purpose. If for example you have a capacity to write, that writing is to your purpose what the hollow of a bottle is to its purpose.

In this day and age, there are quite a number of people that think (and are actually convinced) that they have no talents and gifts. They think that the only people that are gifted and talented are the big time sports people and artists and orators. Many people overlook their talents.

Why Talent?

The purpose of a talent is to help you enjoy your life’s work. It is to help you connect with what you were called to do in the first place. It is possible that you would spend your days doing things that are not connected to your gifts and talents. In fact, this is happening with a million people and more who are “jobless”.

In our pursuits in life, let us accommodate our gifts and our talents. They do have a place here on earth. They relate to what our purpose is.

Passion

Passion is a very interesting energy. It also speaks to our uniqueness. What you are passionate about is not necessarily what I am passionate about and vice versa. At times, this passion can be so consuming because at the end of the day, we might not have the wherewithal to execute it.

If for example you have passion about freedom, you know full well that you cannot do it alone to get freedom of the masses. If you are passionate about the girl child, or marriage, or men or whatever else, you will realize that you cannot do it alone.

The Use of Passion

Passion is an indicator of where your life’s work is supposed to be. When talking about passion, I am not necessarily talking about passion for things like teams as in sports fans. I am talking about passion in our spirit and heart to change things, provide value, and contribute and so on. That passion is exemplified by the emotion of anger or love and care.

4. Calling

Your calling is your reason for living. I will still hold strongly the opinion that there is no one who came on earth without a specific purpose to fulfill. Just the fact that people have not identified their purpose by their hundreds of millions does not mean that people do not have purpose. It is there.

There is a process of purpose discovery that I believe if everyone went through it, they will discover their reason for being.

In talking about the four things above, I am bringing to attention perhaps the four most important aspects of your work in life. Whatever work you find yourself doing ask yourself these questions:

• I’m I passionate about this? Is this something that I can do for life?

• Is this helping me grow in capacity? I’m I having fun doing the work that I am capable of doing?

• How is this work helping me bring my ideas to life? As I work, I’m I seeing seeds germinate to be great things? I’m I working on my ideas?

• Is this the kind ow work that I have been called to do? At the close of my life, would I be proud of what I have done?

Without taking these four questions into consideration, I submit that the kind of work we end up doing is drudgery, fleeting, arduous and unfulfilling.