Purpose Beyond Profit

Let me start by saying, I love profit. You love profit. Everyone wants to make a profit. It is why 99.9% of us get up and go to work each day so that at the end of the day we have earned enough to have food, shelter, heat, and a little bit of fun along the way. Yesterday I was driving through the town of Monmouth, Maine. I hadn’t been to that area since I was a young girl bouncing on the school bus to the community theatre in town, happy to be out of school and on a field trip. This town is adorably charming. It feels so authentic and cozy as you pass through the town with the small business store fronts and American flags lining the main street and blowing in the wind. As much as I enjoyed my trip through small town USA, what I saw on the outskirts of town is what got my heart and my brain rumbling. On my drive out there I saw several farms raising cattle, growing corn, and caring for the land. It saddened me to notice the poverty that the farmers are living in. Homes are run down, roofs likely leaking, and not a single vehicle starts on the first attempt. But have you ever spoken to one of these farmers? In my 12 years as a registered nurse I have met a lot of them. I’ve worked mostly in inpatient orthopaedics, so I met them when they were physically injured from their work. Typically they would be in their mid 70’s-80’s, happy, generally healthy, and eternally grateful human beings. They would be injured because they were still out on the farm working to scrape by financially but never complaining and always justifying their work with, “it keeps me going” . These are the do’ers of the world.

I pondered this for a bit and contemplated why farmers, loggers, and most of agricultural business people tend to be at the bottom of the socio-economical scale. The farmer, lobsterman, logger, etc have enormous risks both safety wise and financially. Don’t they and their employees deserve a fair share of the market that simply wouldn’t exist if not for their work? Ask most in the agriculture business why they do what they do and they will say “it’s in my blood.” That’s it. Most of them do this work because it’s in their blood. These people are committed to their cause during the good times and the bad times because there is more in it for them than the money.

When I hire someone or give them my business I always try to find the one who has a purpose greater than profit and I am willing to pay a little extra for it. For instance, I always hire the person or company that actually answers the phone with a real human ready to help. I seek medical services from private practice physicians when possible who call me “Chrissy” instead of “Christine". And I buy my meat from the farmer’s wife with coolers in her garage stocked with the beef and pork they raised themselves. Randy and I may be on the edge of the “millennial” generation but that doesn’t mean we value technology over people, relationships, and customer service. Like I said before, there is absolutely nothing wrong with financial profit, but we must also ask, does getting the biggest return only come in dollar signs? Or do we profit by being moral and ethical humans working collectively to achieve a goal? That’s a profit I can sleep with at night knowing that the farmer, grocer, and consumer can all benefit fairly from the meat. I don’t want my lobsterman to live in a shack so that I can save a buck on a lobster and I don’t want my farmer to worry about his fuel bill so I can get a cheap filet.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to make money and I’d really like to make a lot of it because I have financial goals and even material goals (like a pool in my back yard!) I’d also like to give my employees not only livable wages but good wages and benefits. To us, profit means pursuing a mission far greater than finances. Profit is also a sustainable forest, well-paid, healthy workers, happy returning clients, and contributing to our community. I have always been taught that companies that perform best in generating value are the ones who focus on building relationships and providing honest, reliable service. If that doesn’t win, then I don’t want to be a winner. If you look at the history of businesses, those whose mission is purely profit tend to be poor at achieving it. All of this is achievable for the agriculture and forestry chains when we work together instead of beating each other down so that one guy comes out the winner and the rest the losers. There is enough meat to go around as long as everyone takes a fair bite.

Oh and here is a cute baby picture to make you smile today!