Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Kevin McCarthy, founder of On-Purpose Partners, located in Winter Park, FL, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

How meaningful is your work? How profitable is it? How does it make a difference? A successful business may satisfy your pocketbook, but will it make your soul soar? I want you to be a profit-maker: a business owner who makes a difference by adding meaning and value to your customer, team, and life. It starts in your heart with knowing your purpose.

Tell us about yourself

Since elementary school, I've been an entrepreneur. I love the creativity business provides to bring an idea to life. But my skills needed to be honed, and I needed to understand the business better, so I added an MBA to my undergraduate degree in business.

As a young adult, I saw how miserable many people are with their life and work. Work, however, is not the source of meaning. Authors and speakers would write about the importance of knowing your purpose, but no one told me how to find it. I set out to find my purpose, and since I've guided thousand to know their 2-word purpose in life and to build lives and businesses aligned, i.e., being on-purpose.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Starting in the late 1980s, I pioneered, planted, and promoted the personal and organizational concepts of purpose and being on-purpose. Today, if you're talking about purpose, chances are my early and ongoing efforts are touching your life.

When I began researching, writing, and speaking about purpose, only a handful of people grasped purpose. On May 9, 1990, I introduced the early concepts of the "On-Purpose" approach to life and worked in a workshop for real estate brokers. It was so well received that I felt compelled to write a book.

A year later, "The On-Purpose Person" was written and self-published. In 1992 was published. In 1998 "The On-Purpose Business Person" was released. Each book is even more relevant today than the day they were released simply because more people are interested in purpose than ever before.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

Focusing on getting a working business model, stick with it to increase profitability to gain the financial freedom to expand your services and products. Then, chase the next idea from a position of better strength in finances, systems, and knowledge.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Know your purpose in life, and integrate it into your business.
  2. Work from a simple plan, so you have a benchmark for continuous improvement.
  3. Build relationships with complementary business owners with existing customer bases to cross-market in order to expand your reach.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

Since April of 1990, I've invested in being a member of a facilitated, peer-learning group of CEOs that meets once a month. Initially, you'll wonder how you'll find the time to participate. Eventually, you discover you don't know how you could have made it without your group.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://on-purpose.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.w.mccarthy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevinwmccarthy/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinwmccarthy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinwmccarthy/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.