The journey begins By the beginning of 2004 I had started to feel a strong urge to discover my purpose. I invested in a number of resources and started to get an idea of how I would go about this. The key things I learnt was that, it did not happen overnight, you're always excited when you think about it and when you begin to dream about it - it blows your mind! At this time I did not have an inkling of what that looked like.
Around this time there was talk of a restructure within the team. Now risk taking isn't my strongest point so when I decided to step out of my comfort zone and take the redundancy package instead of the restructured role on offer, I felt that this was indeed divine intervention. Formal notice was given to me in April and I was scheduled to leave at the end of May, it then hit me that for the first time in about 14 years, I would be unemployed, voluntarily!!
I was surfing the employment sites one night when I came across an advert for a business executive role. It was for an American company that was coming to set up a UK branch. I felt a strong urge to apply for the role even though I was grossly under qualified. The day after I put in my application, I received a call from the project manager who went through an initial telephone interview with me. I was told that if I was shortlisted, I would be invited to attend a briefing meeting in Central London on May 1st. I received an email about 2 weeks after and attended the briefing meeting were I met with 11 other short listed candidates. I felt a bit overwhelmed, because I was the youngest, the only ethnic minority and the only member of my gender in the group.
After the meeting we were told that the project manager's PA in the US would get in touch to discuss the rest of the formalities and agree a start date. The PA contacted us round about the end of May and amongst other things informed us that she would be joining us shortly to set up the London operation, which would be in July some time.
And then the drama began..... The start date would never come. But we wouldn't know this until December that year.
In the meantime, it was a flurry of meetings in prestigious hotels around the country. Emails flying back and forth, all of us planning and marking out territories. I remember a particular design company, young company that had invested thousands of pounds worth of time and money preparing for the design of our supposed offices. The intention was to take up the top floors of the County Hall in central London, overlooking the Thames. At one point we were even asked to choose either a Benz or BMW for company cars. I was so pumped over the entire experience. I even encouraged two of my other friends to apply for roles in marketing and events, which they did and well... that is another story!
To cut a long story short, it was a very challenging time for the entire group. The very foundation of people's faith within the group was rocked. This was because after all said and done somehow, we were told a very exaggerated version of the truth. And there was much talk of praying and 'hearing from the Lord', yet things just did not add up. A good example was the fact that we could never get anyone on the US number given to us or the fact that the address given to us in London as a contact address, when visited had no signs of the company in question and the people on reception did not have a clue who we were talking about. However people had gone ahead and made plans and projections based on what we were told only for it to amount to nothing. I think we just could not believe that anyone could talk so much talk, in God's name, but couldn't even deliver a sausage. This went on from July to November 2004. Marriages, livelihoods and people's faith were badly affected.
Even though this was a very challenging experience, the 6 months grew me. It entailed me liaising, planning and preparing with very experienced people that accepted me as a valid member of the team which made my confidence soar. During this time I had started to take on temporary assignments, mainly in investment banking to bring me in some change. I was very blessed to have a husband that was a true believer of 'seeing is believing' (because the package I was offered was double my twenty something thousand current salary). During my temping, I was even offered a permanent role which I turned down. On December 4th, I made one last call to the Project Manager, and said this would be the last time I would call him and that if I did not hear from him by the end of that week, I would be moving on. By this time, I had a very challenging financial situation, I had just found out that my third child was on the way and finally I came to the realisation that my dream job was in fact just a dream, it wasn't looking good!
Where do I go from here?
I continued my temporary assignments until a month before my son was born in the summer of 2005. During those 7 months or so, I sat down and tried to make sense of the whole situation. I pondered and pondered - where had I missed it? Did God say something, but I was just too wrapped up in my own self to hear it? Was I way too ambitious? I just couldn't phantom what had gone wrong. The only thing I could take away from the whole fiasco was that God really wanted to use me to impact people's lives and had used this situation to bring it to my attention. Also the following had happened:
(a) The Project Manager's PA informed us that there were over 200 applications and I was a definite first choice for the final shortlist;
(b) I had planned and prepared with senior managers and business owners as an equal for the past 7 months;
(c) I was treated as an equal by the members of the team and other contacts within the organisation, even though the majority of my experience to date was administration.
I could only conclude that these were one of these challenging situations that God will allow (this word is key because it means that He doesn't stop some things from happening to us because He knows it will be a useful growth tool) in order to bring you in line with His will.
But for now I had a baby on the way and bills to pay.
admin2day is born
By September 2005, sourcing childcare was very challenging and sitting at home doing nothing was not very appealing. At this time the virtual administration business was beginning to be popular and I started to take on small assignments here and there. At the same time I had not let go of the revelation from God that He wanted me to impact people's working lives by enabling and empowering them. At this time I had the name 'BusinessDivine, but I still sensed that there was still some more growing to do.
So I decided in the mean time, I would team up with a good friend of mine to establish admin2day. We predominantly got call answering assignments which just really bought in pittance. By the early part of 2006, my friend decided that she needed to start something totally different, however I continued with admin2day and took on 3 long term contracts that would continue through to March 2008.
It begins to make sense!
During my time as a virtual administrator my core services were office management, call monitoring, book keeping and accounts, audio transcription and word processing services. However I found that I was continually drawn to going beyond just providing these services. I found I was more about problem solving, target setting, challenging my clients not to settle for the status quo and above all ensuring that they understood why they were in business.
I also found that I was speaking to people about their careers. I would help them with transition, management and placement in their careers. I also helped them with their CVs, job applications and letters and preparing for job interviews. My aim would be to help them understand how to these as marketing tools, help them draw on experiences that even they thought were irrelevant, help them understand their motivations, interests, skills set and how all of this would serve in achieving the sort of work life they were expecting.
It was at this time that I realised that my passion did not lie in delivering solutions as such, but in helping people understand how their chosen career or business could propel them into destiny. It was at this point that I realised that my passion was purpose.
My tool box
In mid 2007, I discovered coaching and recognized that this particular technique would be an effective way of helping people on their journey of discovering purpose. This is because coaching comes from the premise that every individual has what it takes inside of them to achieve their set coaching goals, and the coach can act as a facilitator of said change.
By 2008, I knew I would have to step out of my comfort zone and close down admin2day. By this time the name PurposeDivine had been revealed to me. I also decided that I would also offer tutoring for undergraduates, motivational speaking for groups and organisations and consultancy for those I had coached and wanted to turn their actions into reality.
Today my focus is on helping people discover purpose, helping them pursue it and helping them to use their work life as a vehicle to drive their purpose.
Today more than ever, we all have to discover purpose, you owe to yourself to step up because it is what you were made for!