Are you ready to live your life according to audacious commitments?  We ended last week’s newsletter with this question.  Audacious?  Bold word.  Commitments?  Sounds like a lot of work.  Let me share with you the story of an incredibly successful man who is living his life according to commitments he has made to his clients, and has found incredible freedom through living audaciously.

Imagine.  You meet a guy.  His name is Ron.  He runs a professional service company.  His agents are bringing in $1 to $2 million dollars a year.  He is successful.  He is living the good life.  He wakes up one day.  He blows up his company.  He lets all of his agents go.  He starts all over again.

What happened to Ron?  Did he dive off the deep end?  No.  He chose to jump into an audacious commitment.  Ron decided that he owed his clients much more.  He decided to take on living according to his true passion.  He committed to a Heroic Cause. 

What is a Heroic Cause?  A heroic cause is your burning desire to have a specific effect on the world.  In theatre, a Heroic Cause, or a Super Objective, is how the director moves his company towards standing ovation.  A Heroic Cause is the quest of the director to arouse a specific emotion of the audience.  In theatre this quest is the momentum that pulls the actors and the audience together to create a bold, collaborative relationship. 

In business a Heroic Cause is the quest or journey that a company takes with its employees and customers.  A Heroic Cause is based purely on what the employees are passionate about.  A Heroic Cause is the commitment that the director, president, and employees hold themselves accountable to in determining their actions.  By living the Heroic Cause they relate to each other is such a way that they create long-term relationships with their customers.

Ron Hoefer is the gentleman who fired his $1 to $2 million dollar cash machine.  Ron is the gentleman who created an insurance practice based on a model that had never been thought of before.  Ron bucked the trend of 99.99 % of the insurance companies in the country.  Ron dedicated his life to his Heroic Cause.

Ron committed to his passion to see his clients achieve extraordinary success.  His Heroic Cause was to be a catalyst, not a salesman.  As an insurance salesman, he could only offer insurance products.  Insurance products didn’t change the behavior of his clients, it only reduced their liability.  NO FUN THERE.  No explosion.  No WHOA!  No participation in something that has never been done before.  No passion.

Ron’s quest was to impact his clients in such a profound way that their effectiveness and results would accelerate.  Ron reshaped his company.  He now employs safety experts, OSHA compliance experts, HR specialists, coaches, and leadership experts to build his clients’ businesses in addition to protecting their workers and their assets.  As a result of living his heroic cause, Ron’s clients will never leave him.

What is the secret of a Heroic Cause?  The secret of a Heroic Cause is that by committing yourself to a quest, you choose to have a different relationship with everything in your life.  Your life is a commitment to finding out whether you are having the desired impact.  A Heroic Cause is a commitment to be “Impact.”  To have that desired impact you must be curious about your actions, your words, your clients, your employees, your industry, and your competitors.

A Heroic Cause is a commitment that you declare you will have on the world.  When something is challenging, you ask whether you are having the intended Impact?  When someone doesn’t agree with your actions, instead of anger and disappointment, you ask, how might you enroll this person to achieve your intended Impact?

Heroic Cause is the game you script for your purpose of being on the planet.  It is the game of staying steadfast to a goal that is outside you.  It is the game of personal integrity.  As you take on the game of Heroic Cause, you find out that there is no success or failure.  There is only the result that is in alignment with the Heroic Cause or out of alignment with the Heroic Cause. 

Living inside of this new relationship, there is only your furthering the Cause or not furthering the Cause.  This structured way of being creates curiosity, experimentation, determination, and freedom.  When you commit and hold yourself accountable to a Heroic Cause, the Cause drives your actions forward.

Ron’s Heroic Cause and mine are very similar.  Our lives are a commitment to uncover, unleash, and provoke leaders to develop transformational leadership skills to enhance their personal and professional success and the success of their employees. 

What does stepping into this Heroic Cause require?  It requires that we have uncomfortable conversations.  We demand of people actions that test their commitments.  This requires that we often make requests of people who say, NO, I DON’T WANT THAT!  THAT’S TOO HARD.  I CAN’T DO THAT!  Living into a Heroic Cause requires that we hold people responsible to have a new relationship with every element of their lives.

Imagine.  Imagine if everyone you work with declared their Heroic Cause.  Imagine if the people you worked with held each other accountable for their declared Heroic Cause.  Imagine if you communicated your Heroic Cause to your clients.  Imagine if you became partners with your clients to mutually achieving your Heroic Cause.  Imagine if your employees sat down every week and restated the company’s and their individual Heroic Cause?

Next month I will share with you the nine questions you should ask yourself to determine if you are living according to your Heroic Cause.  You can determine, are you living a life of freedom, are you living according to your imagination, are you living a life of high performance, or are you living just to make it through the day?