[00:00:00] All right. All right welcome back to another episode of The Company We Keep Podcast. I'm your host Jason Pearl. This is a podcast for every day business owners, entrepreneurs and leaders who want to think differently about growth. Think differently about success and want to achieve better balance in both business and in life. And really excited to have you back for the third episode of season three and this episode is sponsored by John MacDonald Harbortown Financial group. John and his firm, work with individuals, families and small businesses to build customized financial plans using their holistic goal based approach. If you want to contact John, uh, and his firm, all the details are going to be provided on my website, jasonmpearl.com. Um, under the podcast tab, in the show notes you'll find a link to his email, a link to his phone number and all the information you need to contact John and Harbortown financial group.

[00:01:05] Today's episode is exciting, it's something that's near and dear to my heart. We're going to be talking about living a life of service, both personally and professionally. You may be saying to yourself right now, wait a minute Jason I can't even think about doing anything outside of my full time job and personal responsibilities. I can't give away any more time, I have zero margin. I totally get it, I've been in your shoes, I've been there before. it's not a fun situation to be in, Um, trying to give somebody free time of yours when so valuable and time is one of the few things you can't buy back in life, I totally understand that.

[00:01:42] In my late 20's and early 30's I had all these big ideas, that I was going to help out, I was going to do all these things. And I just could not get out of my own way, I wanted to help. I- I had all these ideas and I thought, wow you know love to be able to do this, or give back here, give back there and quite honestly I hardly did anything. And it's because I didn't prioritize it, if helping other is a priority to you, you'll make it a priority in your scheduling, right. it's just something that I've learned over time. I prioritize service, as you guys know faith and family come above everything.

[00:02:11] Part of my faith is, I'm called to serve, I'm called to serve, and be able to go out and show, the people in the world exactly what my faith speaks to. and that's why I serve. But, for me personally right now I'm serving in a number of different areas. I'm a board of trustees member of a K through eight school, that my children go to. I'm a small group leader for a high school Christian boys ministry. I'm the head, uh, track and field coach for, uh, K through eight school, the same one that I'm the board of trustees on. Uh, I'm a children's ministry volunteer, birth through fourth grade. I do pro bono entrepreneurial mentorship, with some businesses. I am the lead communicator and speaker of a high school ministry. I also speak, um, I travel around and speak, faith based messages, for different churches around my area. And I'm a community volunteer helping out a number of different facets. So that's not me trying to just like, hey self gloss, I'm awesome. these are things that are near and dear to my heart. These are all things that I care about. These are all things where my skills as a leader, as a communicator and as a professional are able to translate into service opportunities

[00:03:16] So as we continue to move forward, people say you know what exactly is service? if you just look at it and try to define it, service is the action of helping or doing work for someone right? At our core, service is very mission driven. so if you're thinking about service you should ask yourself what is your mission, right? What is your mission in life, and why do you want to serve others? If you don't want to serve others and you just want to do it for a feather in your cap, or to- to get a leg up in business, it's not going to work out one of- one of my favorite quotes that was actually introduced to me by a dear friend of mine CJ Maurer it's called, "We rise by lifting others." It's a quote by Robert Ingersoll. And, CJ Maurer introduced me to this quote, I don't know maybe seven or eight years ago and it just always stuck with me. And it was actually right when I started to dive deep into serving other people. So we rise by lifting others is just something that has always run around in my head as I serve others. And- and why it's so important. but when it comes to serving, you have to look at your motivation and your ability to serve. So obviously one of my cornerstone teachings is, head, heart, and house, right? So when you're thinking about head, heart, and house and applying it towards living a life of service both personally and professionally. There's a few things you should think about, uh, number one in your head what is- what are you gifting? What are your skills? How do you communicate and how do you plan things out? In your heart it's what is your mission What is your heart mission? What are the causes you care about? And what level of commitment, can you give to these types of opportunities?

[00:04:42] And then what's going on in your household is your availability, your responsibility and then availability obviously you can't- if you don't have the time to serve, you- you can't life- you can't drive through it, You can't be fast food drive through. I'm just going to go do this real quick, and then in and out. Because it's not going to be intentional and it's not going to be heart filled so you've got to make sure you're available from a responsibility standpoint, I- I see so many people fail when- when they want to serve because they- they truly believe that it's right to serve, but they don't prioritize it. So they serve in a way that maybe makes even more work for others. They're just so I'm busy so I can do this and this but nothing is finished, or the task is never finished. And then proximity is, obviously all about making sure that, you fit it into your schedule. It's always good to normally serve some place locally that is easily accessed for you.

[00:05:31] But when it comes to serving I always say there's a check and balance that you have to look at. service is about helping others, it's not about you Service should be selfless. Service is not for ego, service does not get repaid in money. But service does take energy and focus, So again with the responsibility side of things we talked about, if you're going to serve you need to make sure you give forth the right energy and the right focus. Service means giving it your all, right? And then when you look at it, I think there's a few different buckets when you're thinking about service, both in business and in life, So there's a level of service which is just like volunteerism let's call it, And that's when you're just like volunteering your time. Maybe it's being a school monitor Maybe it's, um, whatever you do at your kids school. Or if it's just, showing up and maybe being a, a crossing guard or doing something like in your personal life, that's volunteerism, that's' time.

[00:06:24] When you talk about mentorship and- and volunteering like via mentorship and- and serving via mentorship it's always around your gifting and your skill, right. we all have a very unique skillset, all individually we all have our own individual gifts and we all individually are very good at something, We all have god given gifts. but often times when we serve we should use our god given gifts, in that mentorship role. So obviously as a professional, know I help different businesses as we've talked about for years on this podcast here. Of- of different ways I can help them understand concepts in- in ways that they can get more out of themselves and more out of other people. So when I look at mentorship that's where I like to focus on.

[00:07:00] And then there's the financial aspect of things, right. there is service in- in your giving. There is service in, in your financial capacity to give. And that doesn't mean that you always have to do that, and you don't have to do all three of these, whether it be volunteerism, mentorship, or capacity of your financial giving. But it's all- they're all different ways to serve. there's some places that are out there that really, the main they need, they don't need your time, they don't need your gift in your skill. They need your- they need your funds, they need your money. And- and that is a- a way of service as well. as you go through and, and think about these things, there's a number of different areas where we can focus on. when it comes to how do you identify opportunities of where you can serve? I get that question often, like well Jason you serve at a number of different places, like how do you find these opportunities? There's a number of different ways you can find these opportunities. if you're on LinkedIn you can actually put a pro bono section of like, that you're open to giving like free consulting or pro bono work. so there's technology ways that you can look at that.

[00:07:54] Or you can look at your personal circle of influence. Is there something- is there a family cause you care about? Is there a personal cause you care about? Is your, family been affected by something that you want to give your time, effort and potentially your money to? And then obviously as we talked about, there's the gifting side of your skill and your alignment, who could benefit from your skills? Often times in my situations people that are younger than me, they're getting into business that I can help coach and mentor. But then there's also the gray area of deed, right? The c- in your community the less fortunate, things of that nature.

[00:08:21] So there's certainly no shortage of- need service, need volunteerism, and need, financial giving. But there is a few ways that you can go through and identify some opportunities, when it comes to that. And again you can look into your personal influence, per- personal circle of influence, great areas of need in your community with the less fortunate. And then your gifting and skills. And then it comes to balance right? The biggest thing in our world right now is how do you balance? And this podcast, one of the things we talk about is, achieve better balance in both business and life, And being holistic, from A to Z when it comes to your life, service should be a part of that. but you have to make sure that it's balanced, right? If you're going to do something, like saying yes as we talked about, saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else or saying no to one thing and saying yes to something else. So you need to make sure that you look at it, you talk within your household of like, how is this going to work? How am I going to split my time and what do I have to give up to serve, maybe it's mindless scrolling, right? Maybe it's binge watching Netflix, whatever the case may be. when it comes to figuring out what's the right service opportunity for you? You have to look at that and you have to figure out how you balance. when it comes to service one of the things I tell a lot of people about that are looking to serve more, I talk about sustainability, right. to pour out to others you need to fill your cup, So service should not take away from the activities that are filling your personal cup up, right? Because when you serve, when you volunteer, when you share your gifts, you're pouring out for others. and your cup, proverbial cup, you, internally there's only so much you can pour out. So you have to be able to fill the cup back up.

[00:09:53] So I always say- when it comes to sustaining a life of service both personally and professionally, you need to look at both ends right? You need- you need to make sure you're filling your cup often, so you can continue to pour out. Two, you 100% can not over commit yourself. I've done this before, so many people are so eager to just ump in and be like oh I'm ready to- know, I'm ready to volunteer, I'm ready to give some time. I' ve got a heart for this. And then all of a sudden what they realize is their service opportunity has just become a full time job, And their actual job, that they get paid for, that they run their household on is now suffering because of that. So you have to be really clear in your boundaries as to what you're willing to commit and what you're not willing to commit. It's okay to say no to certain things because it's better to say no, than say yes and halfway do that volunteerism, Or that service project. Then three you have schedule and organize yourself, your household, your calendar right? You have to intentionally carve out that time in your life to serve. So obviously as I've talked about, a lot of my service is- is very faith based So Sunday's are- are service days for me. Wednesday nights where we run our high school ministry, those are service time frames for me. And they're on my calendar and they're blocked out. I've made commitments, so everything else is a no. I'm a huge Bill's fan right? Sunday's are service days for me. it just so happens that services normally end right before 1:00 o'clock when the Bills kickoff. With that being said, for about 7:00 am till about 12:45 I'm normally serving in some way shape, or form. it- but I carve those times out and I say no other things because I've committed to that time.

[00:11:21] And then the other thing is and- and- and the fourth point I want to make on the sustainability side of things is, just easing yourself into these service opportunities Burnout is real, over committal happens. So make sure that if you're looking to take on a new service opportunity, start small. You can always ask for more, But, don't, try to eat the apple whole as they say, Take a bite out of the apple. You eat the apple one bite at a time, right. So ease yourself into service and- and don't burn yourself out. one of the things that I have said when people have asked me like, you're- my stance on service, I'll say if you want to freely give and make a huge impact, you must be fully present. This is only achieved when you're the best version of yourself and be- being a free giver of your time, of your resources, of your gifting is amazing, but it only really works when you're the best version of yourself, So that's why it's so important to run through all the things that we discussed here So wrapping up here, when it comes to living a life of service, both personally and professionally, there's a significant amount of things that you want to make sure that you work through, In addition to this, um, I think it's a great example Because when you look at the things that you're skilled at professionally, when you go take those skills and you use those outside of your technical profession or whatever, whatever your day job is let's just say. You actually learn how to do your professional job better. You become more well rounded, you become more open to what else is out there in the world. And service has such a humbling aspect to it, right? there's certainly nothing wrong with humility and there's certainly nothing wrong with basically putting others in- in front of yourself. as long as it's done the right way so there's long term sustainability when that happens.

[00:13:07] So I know this is a podcast where we often talk about growth and finding different ways to make sure that you can help businesses go from A to Z and- and make sure they have a lot of success but, I'm a really big proponent, I believe that when I became the most well-rounded version of myself it's when I started bringing more service into my life. It opened my eyes, it created new opportunities for me. New ways of looking at things and quite honestly it made me more creative. certainly doesn't hurt, makes you feel good as well especially when you see the fruits of your labor when you're serving somewhere but I just, um, really think that we live in a world right now where there's a ton of opportunities out there and there's a ton of need.

[00:13:47] As we conclude here, been really enjoying having you with us. as I talked about last week, there are a number of new updates to Jasonmpearl.com the website- one of the newest updates to it is the fact that, I've added a- a coaching section to my website where you can go on and you can click a link and you can book time for either 45 or 90 minutes to help you work through any problems that you're having in bus- in your business or in your life. there's access to my calender there, there's a form to fill out. There's all sorts of stuff that I can do to help get you guys back on the right track.

[00:14:18] As we continue with season three, in a few more weeks we're going to have some great guests, we're going to be talking about some really important things when it comes to growing yourselves as individuals and growing your businesses. But, um, until next time make sure that you check out jasonmpearl.com. I really appreciate you keeping me company today. And until next time, I'm out, peace.