It’s Your Time to Have More Impact

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? If you do, you may be wasting your time. Evidence shows that most people don’t keep them. Daily trips to gym, reading a book a week, and spending less time on social media all fall by the wayside after a few short weeks. Instead, we lapse pretty quickly into our old habits. And nothing changes or improves. Unless something deeper is pulling you. Impact is what can pull you and your business into a new and powerful year. Your impact is more than a mission, more than a purpose, even more than your why. All of those can be too narrow and self-focused. What you need is a broader, more holistic perspective, where your own growth, development, and how you show up combines with what you are contributing to others. That goes for your business too. That holistic perspective is impact. Impact is where your unique self and business meet the world and make it better for all of us. Having impact isn’t an accident. It’s a commitment, every day. A commitment to bring out the best in yourself. To bring out the best in your business. A commitment to show up, every day, in an intentional way. A commitment to contribute positively. I’ve been an entrepreneur for quite a long time, almost 23 years. The most successful years I’ve had were the ones that focused more on impact than on profit. B-corps, Conscious Capitalism companies, and benefit corporations have that impact focus, and the ones that implement it best, on an ongoing basis, are thriving. Patagonia, Eileen Fisher, and Panera Bread are just three examples. Having impact is a decision to take that extra step that impact requires: to infuse impact into your company, in your strategic planning, marketing, and operations. What would that look like, for you? Look inside your business for ways you can have more impact. How are you showing up for your clients? For your team members, for your suppliers? How are the people who interface with your customers showing up for them? How can you all show up for the people who partner with you to deliver your product or service, so you can together have more impact? How can you show up in your marketing, in a way that reflects your unique voice? How can you authentically be present for those you serve? How can you help them have the impact they want to have? I invite you to look outside your business and see the tremendous opportunities there, for yourself and your business to have impact. Whether it’s contributing time, energy, and expertise to a non-profit, implementing sustainable environmental practices that affect your community, or starting a global movement. Your impact isn’t limited to your business and the influence your business has. Your impact is about your whole life. How are you showing up for the people in your life who matter to you? How are you showing up for the issues that are important to you? Are you showing up in a way that honors your best, that honors the deep impact that only you can have? As you do, you powerfully align with your intended impact. You step up and out into the world and contribute your best to others. Having impact, being a positive influence in the world, touches a deep human need to contribute and change lives for the better. You can influence how things unfold at that level. And the ripple effect of all of us taking positive action means we can collectively influence the future for the better. So I invite you to be the change you wish to see in the world, every day. It’s your time.