By Denise Michaels, Author, “Testosterone-Free Marketing”

Living life on purpose means making conscious choices about how to spend your time in business and in life – every hour of the day. These are lofty words but I felt it would be valuable to give our women business owner readers a sense of how to keep living on purpose when stuff happens. Because when you get rocked off your foundation and dragged off on a tangent it can shake your confidence. The opposite of feeling empowered.

About ten years ago I got a big “a-ha” when I was working with a mega-bestselling author. Someone wanted to do a certain business deal with him. He didn’t want to do it. He said to the person at the other end of the phone line, “I’m not going to do this deal with you. And it’s not because it’s not a good proposal – it is. I’m confident you’ll make a lot of money with it. But here’s why I’m bowing out: over the years I’ve discovered it only makes sense for me to get involved with projects and ideas I’m really passionate about. I can see you’re passionate about it – and that’s good. But I’m not. So I’m going to pass because I want to keep my energy, resources and everything else focused on the things I’m really good at. Those few things I have a deep passion about.”

Overhearing that conversation turned me around. I got clarity, focus and started thinking differently about all the business deals and opportunities pitched to me by other women. As if we all have unlimited time and can keep stuffing more and more into our already over-stressed, over-stuffed lives. We don’t. It’s a great example of making a conscious choice and living on purpose.

How many times have you been approached by someone abuzz with a network marketing company or direct selling. They say something like, “If you love the product you should consider becoming a distributor.” Or here’s a good one: “You can do the business in your spare time.”

My reply, “What spare time?” I’m already having a tough time fitting in an hour to go to the gym and maybe spend a little quality time with my husband now and then whom I love dearly. How am I supposed to fit in time for another business?”

It might make perfect sense to a lot of people, but now that I have the clarity from that experience – it’s about the dumbest stuff I’ve ever heard. After all, I might love Prego Spaghetti Sauce but that doesn’t mean I’m interested in selling it as a business. Please don’t take this as if I have something against networking businesses – I don’t. Many people enjoy satisfying and successful businesses in MLM and that’s fine. I’m only speaking from my experience.

For women who are promoting a business – if you can show your prospects how your product, service or business opportunity IS the highest and best use of time and is in alignment with their core values – you will build your organization much faster. I use this approach in my own sales and about 75-80 percent of the time they happily say “yes.”

So keep your eye and our focus on what really matters, we can more easily judge what we want to put our valuable time into. We can discern that which feeds our passions and provides us with satisfaction no matter how much money we’re making – and which detracts from our lives.

PS: Visit http://www.EmpowerUAcademy.com and get my free marketing and empowerment tips today. Fast, free and delivered to your inbox.