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Over the last decade, I’ve seen people in my industry increasingly feel a lack of connection and engagement. When I started researching the topic, I thought I would confirm that engagement at work’s been declining. But, guess what? Engagement (likely our best measure of connection) at work is not only improving, but it’s at an 18 year high. I love that more people are more engaged and connecting with others.
The sad part, though? The 18-year high is only 34%. The average is 17%. So, in two decades of measuring engagement, our best-case scenario is that one in three people are actually connecting with their work. That really hits me to my core.
The business side of the equation isn’t much better. In Deloitte’s annual survey on millennials in the workplace, they found that: “Millennials’ opinions about business continue to diminish, in part due to views that businesses focus solely on their own agendas rather than considering the consequences for society.”
When my partners and I founded RADIX, we were obsessed with finding the true “why” of our organization. We read through Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” and “Finding Your Why.” After running through the workshop Sinek outlines in “Finding Your Why” (which I highly recommend to every business owner in my network), we landed on a why statement that resonates with my soul.
Our mission is to create real wealth for individuals so that we can live in a community where people are driven by purpose rather than necessity.
The purpose of our business is to help others find their purpose by freeing them of necessity. If Gallup surveyed our business tomorrow, I hope our people would report much higher than 34% engagement. My goal is to take it a step further to help every employee find not only engagement at work, but purpose.
So many people are a slave to their paycheck every other week. That slavery does terrible things to people. I see it all the time. Sales reps who are living for the next check see the world in such a narrow way. Every action, every thought is pure survival mode. This shouldn't come as a shock, but humans are so much more kind, happy, and fulfilled when they are driven by purpose instead of survival. When I see a sales rep finally get out of survival mode, it’s like they’re seeing the world for the first time.
Helping people create their purpose is even more important today than it was twenty years ago. With technology taking over more and more of our lives for the sake of efficiency, we’ve allowed ourselves to become sedated. Baratunde Thurston, a world-renowned futurist, said “By 2030, we may cram more activities and interactions into our days, but I don’t think that will make our lives ‘better.’” Efficiency has diminishing returns. Our ability to create a purpose will make our lives better, not more efficiency.
A world full of people driven by purpose gets me excited. And I’m gonna work like crazy to try to fulfill that vision one person at a time. If it’s through RADIX, that’s great. If it’s me influencing others in my network, that’s great as well. I hope everyone will join me in freeing people from necessity so they can live with purpose.
