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Kathi Burns 0:00
Hi there, I'm board certified professional organizer Kathi Burns. I'm really glad you're here. This podcast is designed for busy entrepreneurs just like you who want to take better control of your business and move forward with less stress and more success. If this is your first time listening, then Thanks for coming. The organized synergize podcast is produced for your enjoyment, and show notes are found at the podcast dot organized and energized com. Come back often and feel free to add this podcast to your favorite RSS feed or iTunes. You can also follow me on twitter at organized energy and Facebook. All links are in the show notes. Now let's get into the show.

I'm so excited today because I have a friend of mine named Anita AC Clinton, and she's an author a speaker, a purpose strategist is the go to person for all types of trying to figure out what's your purpose. She's passionate about helping purpose seekers find happiness, fulfillment, and make money doing what they actually love. Anita is the founder and president of be great global, and the host of the be great global podcast, make sure to check that out as well. So she also is author of a desk of a book called destiny starter, how to discover what you're called to do and do it. She's a woman after my own heart. And thank you, Anita for being here. I'm so psyched that you're part of the summit.

Anita Clinton 1:23
Thank you for having me. I too am excited. Yeah.

Kathi Burns 1:27
So okay, let's talk about purpose a little bit. I know that as entrepreneurs, we all kind of start our businesses, typically, because we have that little thing in the back of our mind, we think this is what we're supposed to be doing on purpose, right? So how would you define purpose, since you're the purpose expert,

Anita Clinton 1:44
I love it. So this is the reason a thing was created, or exist. And so when I think about purpose, and specifically purpose in life, I think about why are you here, I believe that we all were put on this earth for a unique reason that we are here to be the solution and the answer to at least one problem in New York. And so it goes back to why are you here? What is the reason for your existence? And everything that you need to be successful in whatever that is? You've already been equipped with it now you can sharpen the saw and perfect a couple things, but the foundation of what you need is already there.

Kathi Burns 2:28
Hmm, I love that and I so resonate with that. I like what you said that, you know, if you know, we have at least one thing built into us that we can solve someone's problem we can solve something on earth. And I think that truly that is that's perfect. That's the best definition I've heard so far.

Anita Clinton 2:46
I love it. I love it. There's a there's a quote by Myles Munroe, the late Dr. Myles Munroe and he said when purpose is unknown, abuse is inevitable. And if you think about it, you know, even if you just look at it from the standpoint of relationships, right, when the purpose inside of a relationship is unknown, abuse is inevitable. And I think about so you know, I do quite a bit of volunteer work. And in instances where you're volunteering, you know, people need help. And so if you're good at something, they will pull and pull and pull and pull some more and pull some whatever, try to pull out all that they can, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But once you understand the purpose, or the reason why you're doing what you're doing, it just makes life so much better. It makes it easier to say no the thing and especially if you're someone like me who have a hard time saying no. Right now I'm very clear with what my purpose is. And when people were calling and asking me to do stuff or to help with this or that. If it aligns with my purpose and I could fit in into the schedule. It's Yes, if it doesn't align with my purpose. Unfortunately the answer is going to be no right but it makes it so much easier to make those decisions.

Kathi Burns 4:07
That is in alignment I say all the time you know, if you don't know what you should be doing, you don't know what you shouldn't be doing. Exactly. You don't know the purpose behind what you're doing. You can't say no to things that might not align with with where you're trying to go in life. Right? In that funny how we all say the same message in different words. And you know, that's what we resonate so much. But you know, the majority of people on this podcast, you know, we're seeing similar things just in different ways. So that's why I just love having all the different experts on because everybody's gonna resonate with different people. I think that's fantastic. Okay, so how do you find purpose in life? What do you think is the ticket there?

Anita Clinton 4:50
Yeah, you know, so I have something that I call the zone of greatness. And so the zone of greatness is this sweet spot where there are three components. The first component is passion, right? So What are the things that you're passionate about that you're excited to do? You know, I say all the time, it's the things are thing that you would do whether you were compensated to do it or not. Now, that doesn't mean that you're compensated it, it just means that you enjoy doing it so much that you would do it for free, if you had to write. So that's the first one. And then the second part is genius, or skill or talent. And so you think about, you know, what are your skills? What are you good at doing, and it could be natural talent, and or it could be skill, the knowledge that you've acquired over time, through institutional education, through working in your job through volunteering, you know, at the local nonprofit? What are those things, and Albert Einstein has this amazing quote that I love. And he said, Everybody is the genius. But if you judge a fish, by its ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life thinking it's stupid. Now think about that for a second, you have a fish, you put a fish in water, in its element in this atmosphere, it can do some thing, but just take that same fish out of its element, and lean it against the tree, it has no clue what to do there. And the same is true for us. If we can find our element our atmosphere, we can do some amazing things. But when we are in the wrong lane in the wrong environment, and the wrong business in the wrong career, we can sometimes feel like we're stupid, as if we don't belong, they're never placed for you, there's a place that you are gifted and talented to operate in. And when you find your atmosphere, your zone, great thing happen. Here you genius shows up. Love in the third component is service, right? I believe that we are all here to positively impact the lives of others, to use our gifts, talents, knowledge, skills, to impact other people, the place where the three of those Connect, that's where you belong.

Kathi Burns 7:09
That's the sweet spot. And that that leads to happiness and joy and fulfillment and peace and energy. Right very inner you're energized because you you can feel all that coming together into the perfect mix of who you are.

Anita Clinton 7:24
Absolutely. Yeah, there's there's nothing like waking up every morning excited to do whatever it is that you do. Right. And that's different for everybody. Like it could be for a mother, right? Who have a friend who loves her kids. Now, I know most people will say, most mothers love their kids. But she enjoys being with her kids like so much. I told her I said, You know what? Your purpose inside of being a mother, maybe to teach other women how to be successful and effective mothers. Because she has mastered this day. She got like four. And at that time they were all like under the age of 10.

Kathi Burns 8:07
That's a lot. That's a bevy of kids to wrangle, right?

Anita Clinton 8:11
Yeah. Everybody has a lie.

Kathi Burns 8:14
Yeah, you know, it's pretty because you can see some parents who are just, you know, natural and some other parents who is really difficult. Yeah. Yeah, so that's definitely her zone for now. And I love the idea, I bet she really grooved on that of teaching other women how to be better moms.

Anita Clinton 8:30
Today, she was like, you know, that's something to consider. Like, if you just think about it, you know, all of the kids that are in Child Protective Services, I think that some of them to be back home with their parents, if their parents understood, you know how to effectively manage their kids how to parent, their kids, like it makes a huge difference. Like I used to say, like, I don't have kids, but I say all the time that you know, in the hospital, there should be some type of training after you give birth. Right? Oh, how do you effectively do this thing?

Kathi Burns 9:01
He really we have to get a driver's license and learn how to drive but we don't have any lessons to learn how to raise kids. I mean, I mean, kind of, kind of strange, actually. anything about it? So let's talk about family. So purpose within family? How does that look? And how do you? Is it like a family purpose? Or is it your purpose within a family? Or what's the spin on that?

Anita Clinton 9:27
direction, but I think of it more of, you know, what does our family stand for? You know, what are our morals? What are our values, and make those known so that everyone's in agreement with, okay, this is who we are as a family. And this is what we do or don't do, right? And so I give you the perfect example, I was watching a television movie, and I don't remember the name of the movie, but in the movie, it was a young lady who had been given this amazing gift a thing now she could really, really thing and mourn her birth, her mother died. And our father kind of he went into alcoholism because he couldn't handle it. And so the what ended up raising the little girl. And so the I, you know, she raised her in church, she, she raised her with what she knew. And so the little girl is just singing in church. And then she gets out and she becomes a country singer. And so throughout her entire life, the odd gave her three kind of rules of engagement for their family. And the first one was, always be honest. The second one was, always be fair. And the third one was always keep your promises. And so before that little girl went to sleep every night, she will say to her, now remember, always be honest, always be fair, and always keep your promises. So as she grew up, that got instilled in her. So when she went away to Japan, when she went to Nashville to become a country singer, she failed on the three thing. And in the movie, everything just kind of crumbled for her. And she had to kind of get back into it. But that was instilled in her she still remember that though. And she recognized when she was falling on those three in those three areas. And so she had to come back around and you know, make things right. And she did, and she ended up she lost her voice for a little bit. And then she ended up getting it back in the movie. But I thought that it was a perfect example of how can you create purpose inside of your family. So as a family, this is what we believe. And this is how we choose to operate or to not operate. You know, there are some families that do family crest, or codes of arms. All of that is defining, you know, who our family is, what's the purpose for our family.

Kathi Burns 11:49
And I think now it's more important than ever, to do this with everybody in the house at the same time. 24 seven, you know, during the sequester, if you have the overall purpose, and you it's kind of like guidelines of how to behave. And if everybody follows the same thing, it really helps. I always encourage my families to have family meeting nights every Sunday as part of their time management is you know, let's check in let's have a family meeting. Let's see what's going on. It was more important when people had to run around and do all different types of things. But it's I think it's really critical now as well, because it's what's like my I see my husband, and it's like, we just took a walk. I'm like, I feel like I never see you and he goes yeah, we're we're together. 24 seven, I'm like I know, but having quality time is you know, it's now it's way different. Now

Anita Clinton 12:39
it is and the other thing that you can do inside of setting and creating purpose inside of family is each year set a goal for the family. You know, this year, we want to do what I'll never forget years ago, I was listening to a podcast, so I'm not married, but I want to be married. And so I decided that I would find this podcast it's called marriage today. And I listen to the podcast because it's given me advice on how I can be a great wife to my husband whenever he comes. And so one of the episodes the husband and wife team was having a conversation and they were talking about each year they set aside time and they go away and the entire time is devoted for planning out what they're gonna do in the upcoming year. And I thought that that was absolutely amazing because they set not only define the goals for the year, but they created the action items to go along with those goals. So by the end of the year when they came back the next year, they could check off those items that they had achieved what

Kathi Burns 13:41
a great idea I love I love that so that leads us into business and purpose and you know I think that we kind of hit on it a little bit if you think about it from a business perspective it's the same thing the goal settings but what else would you add about finding your purpose in business as most of the people here listening are entrepreneurs?

Anita Clinton 14:00
Yeah, so I'm for business business and no career but for business I think that whatever you're doing so whatever the work that you're doing should align with those three things that we talked about right so passion, genius, and then service or impact. And you know, there's a perfect example where there are several companies that are great examples but there's one example that I've been talking about and kind of researching a lot and it's a company called bombas. And they used to only make socks but now they make more than that. But when they first started the initial goal was to they created socks right? So they had a Y and there y was they wanted to help homeless people and because they found out that socks was the number one requested item in homeless shelters socks became their What? Okay, so back there why became we want to help homeless people make a difference, and then socks became their way and so they created these amazing Thought and so there are your platform is advertised and marketed around the greatest stock never sold. The greatest thought never thought because every spot that a person buys they give one sock away to someone in a homeless shelter. Right and so they've given away 10 million socks if they've given away your socks, that means that they've sold and million now do the math on that and eat right $27 right in million. Wow. They've given to homeless shelters. 10 million bucks. The number one requested item for homeless shelters. I purpose in business. Yeah.

Kathi Burns 15:54
And that is going to plant that wind in my mind too. Because for a long time I've been on a water kick. I've been you know, distributing water a lot. And you know, socks, another good thing. I like to get like to shop for stuff.

Anita Clinton 16:07
Yeah,

Kathi Burns 16:07
excuse I got

Anita Clinton 16:09
bought some socks. That's great. Yeah. All right. So you better believe I'm now buying socks from Bombus. Right? Because I love what I love there, why I love what they're doing. Anyway, why not go and support this amazing company? That's having this huge impact in the people in the lives of people that mean? How do you spell that? b? o m? b A f?

Kathi Burns 16:35
bomb? Okay, yeah, I've seen them. I just didn't i didn't know about the backstory. That's huge. That's huge. Okay. We're winding down. But I want to I want to talk a little bit about you know it, well look who I have a visitor visitor and he asked to be on screen, come on up, pop up. Love it. He's got my giant cap. Anyhow. So starting today, you know, if people are feeling fuzzy on their purpose, what what do you feel is the step that they can take to start getting the clarity. Maybe they've lost their way from their purpose?

Anita Clinton 17:12
Yes, I have one little small activity, right. And hopefully it's not, you're not going to find it challenging, or weird, because it could be a little weird. So I like to say that this one somewhere, I just can't remember where I got it from. But I like to say that we all have a start date. And we all have an end date. And in between is this little dash. And so the activity is take some time to sit down and determine what you want your dash to represent. Right? When you're gone. What do you want people to say about you? What do you want the world to say? He or she did then in the world? Write it down? Think about it, right? So you know, sometimes I've heard people say that sit down and write your obituary, why write what you want people to say about you inside of your obituary. And then once you have that, then take a step back and look at all of the things that you're doing. And see if it aligns with whatever that thing may be. And if it doesn't align, start making the necessary adjustments to get into alignment. So that when you get to your end date, you have accomplished whatever you want it that bash to represent.

Kathi Burns 18:27
Hmm, that's brilliant. All right, I'm gonna be thinking about my dash for sure. That's such an easier way to see it as well, you know, easier way to kind of get it together. Okay, Anita. So I am so happy that you've given us your time and your information. I'm totally jazzed and actually pretty inspired. I was always speaking with you. And so what are you going to give a look why he wants to be in YouTube? What do you want to give the gas as your free gift for listening?

Anita Clinton 18:59
Yeah, so I'm super excited about it. So I have put together the seven steps to kickstart your life's purpose. And so if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling like, I'm not quite sure if this is giving me the fulfillment that I'm looking for, then definitely download the free ebook, the seven steps to kickstart your life's purpose. And we'll get you right in alignment with where you need to be super excited for you and super excited to see what you bring forth into the world.

Kathi Burns 19:27
Absolutely, because we all have that gift to give and you're the perfect person to to help people find that out. So I really appreciate your time. And thank you Yang for being part of this interview.

Anita Clinton 19:40
Thank you for having me.

Kathi Burns 19:44
Hey, thanks for listening to this podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you want to hear more, feel free to subscribe on the platform of your choice. Also, if you feel so inclined, I would truly appreciate a good rating from you to me have a stellar day.