Commercial - with Care

A colleague of mine is struggling financially at the moment. 

She works in her own business and is often very busy... her weeks are filled with lots of meetings, workshops, consulting and providing advice and help to clients. She cares so very much about helping people and organisations through change, conflict and communication.

In short, she's doing what I'd call 'important work'. And she cares so very, very much. 

A big focus of her work is with community and not for profit organisations. But she also offers coaching advice to well-salaried executives. 

Money-wise, on the 'commercial' side of the balance sheet, she is doing it tough. To shift the whole money mindset thing, Peter Cook's "The Money Workshop" would be ideal for her!

But I'm seeing an even bigger picture here and that is this model of Commercial With Care. I think every business, every practice, every entrepreneur has this model literally in front of them when they're working on their important work. 

The two axes are about commercialism and care. When people are care-less and they're not taking a commercial approach to their work, they'll be struggling for years. They're not doing good work and they're not earning a living from it. They serve no one.

If still they care-less but have a strong commercial focus, they make the big bucks but there's a trail of injured souls lying on the roads behind them. Ruthless, self-serving and self-centred - it's not a pretty picture.

Shift up to where people really do give a hoot about others, and you'll see they're so very, very care-full. They give and serve and do important work. But if they're not commercial, they'll struggle. In a sense, they will over-serve; they keep giving without due return. Whether this is their own mindset at work, the way an industry has evolved or the way a market is, it's a disappointing situation. Such great work - but not appropriately remunerated.

The goal is to get to the position of being able to serve all. You do great work, you are care-full and you realise that when you commercialise your thinking and your services, you'll be able to serve yourself as well as the people you care about. These people can be family, friends, clients, colleagues, volunteers, organisations, causes, charities.

You won't be able to serve anyone if you don't take a commercial approach to the brilliant stuff you know. You can have both. You can be commercial and do wonderful, care-full work.

Don't apologise for the great work you do. And certainly don't decide it's discountable before you've even put it 'out there'.

You end up serving no one - least of all yourself. And if you're not serving yourself, you'll never be able to do important work for others.