From Profit to Purpose: A Billion Dollar Investor's Guide to Vocational Alignment with Florian Kemmerich

0:02John Lee Dumas:Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down from profit to purpose, a billion dollar investor's guide to vocational alignment. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Florian Kemmerich and the EO Fire Studios, billion dollar impact investor and on vocation author. Florian turns his path from profit to purpose into a seven-step blueprint, empowering entrepreneurs to align vocation expertise and transformative lasting impact. And today we'll be chatting about the rollercoaster journey, vocating framework, mobilizing impact at scale, and oh, so much more.

0:40John Lee Dumas:And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Florian and our sponsors. Fire Nation, 50 days will fly right on by. The only question is, will you have something to show for it? I created a free YouTube series called 50 Days to Something, a step-by-step path to build a real product, service, or offer in just 50 focused days. Start today for free at eofire.com slash YouTube. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support.

1:18John Lee Dumas:Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Florian, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:39Florian Kemmerich:One of the big fundamental flaws of humanity is first you make money and then you do good. And I challenge that because you should do both things at the same time. You should do good while you make money because then you're actually in your zone and then you don't work any day in your life because what you do has just a greater meaning.

2:02John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, from profit to purpose, a billion dollar investor's guide to vocational alignment. You can already tell we're off to the races. And I want to talk, Florian, about your roller coaster journey. I mean, you've described your path in the past as an absolute roller coaster. So take us through how you aligned your vocation with your business and specifically how that alignment created clarity, resilience, and of course, staying power over time.

2:29Florian Kemmerich:Yeah, the point is the following that. And when I was very young, you know, six years old, I got bullied and aggravated physically. And so my parents basically said, oh, he needs to be toughened up. And they put me into judo. And here you go, you know, small child and toughen myself up. And I did this for 15 years. I was in a national team in Germany. I was in Bundesliga. I reached a really good and high level. But again, it wasn't me. But this was just to get resilient and toughen up in life. But then at the age of 18, I said, stop it. And I actually wanted to become a stand-up comedian with music.

3:07Florian Kemmerich:I love that. And my father told me, maybe, you know, there are great artists out there not making a living. Maybe you want to do something normal first, something where you can, you know, can earn some bucks. So I studied the normal first, which was business and marketing. And I stayed in the normal. And then I went through corporate life, climbing up the ladder, trying to improve, chasing success in brackets. And at the age of 33, I recognized I got it. I was running a company, having a family and owning a house. And then I asked myself, so what do I do the next 33 years? Bigger company, bigger family, bigger house.

3:49Florian Kemmerich:And I was actually thinking, do I really live my life? And do I actually know who I am? And then I recognized that I have been the absent subject of my own education. My education gave me the means to make a living, a very good living, but not to live my life. I've learned about everything else but myself. And that is when a pivot came. And that's when my real roller coaster started. Because that's when I basically got out of the golden handcuffs into an entrepreneurial life. I did personal development methodologies to learn about myself because medication wouldn't give it to me. And this was a pivot in my life when I then figured actually out that if I don't know what I want, I'm externally oriented.

4:42Florian Kemmerich:And in today's life, even with AI, it's even worse. Because it makes you dependent. Dopamine shots you on the screen. And if you don't have your own agency, if you don't know what you want in life, early on, you don't have to wait so long as I did. And that if you find your vocation, your purpose, and you can actually make it your business, then you're in your zone. And very few people in life actually do that. And this is part of my story. but again, I'm happy to double down because that's also reflected in a book I wrote, which is called On Vocation, How to Align Your Purpose with Your Profession, which I wasn't meant to write a book and I didn't have anyone else writing it for me.

5:22Florian Kemmerich:But it was a lot of people I've actually helped and guided how to start, how I call it, vocating, when you dedicate yourself professionally to your vocation, like you GLD does, you know. That's the same. That was the pivot. And now the book is out and things are really going viral in a sense. And I'm so grateful because I want the humanity and humans specifically with AI, not to compete AI, not to be worried about AI, but actually leveraging AI for their own cause to vocate and to make a success greater than yourself.

5:57John Lee Dumas:Florian, I want to move on to the seven step vocating framework that you created. Get into it. what is it? How does it help entrepreneurs build businesses that are both deeply meaningful and impactful?

6:11Florian Kemmerich:That's a great question. So the first book is actually how to align purpose with your profession. And the second one, which I'm finalizing right now and submitting to the publisher is how to align purpose with an organization, with your business. That's exactly the same way. So if the seventh step is basically there, you have four steps, which guide you. First, you discover your vocation. Second is you actually understand what you can do with your vocation. The third is which sectors and communities are there. The fourth is then you do your personal, professional business plan. And then the next three ones are more how you measure that, how you execute it, and how can you develop the stamina, the resilience to do so and stay on course, you know, and not deviate.

6:52Florian Kemmerich:That's the seven steps on an individual one. Now, if you, of course, an entrepreneur, you can implement that actually in organizations that have been doing that also were quite successful in the past. Because if you understand, if you reposition the value, the core values of a company beyond a shareholder value, but into a stakeholder value, which includes everybody involved, people adhere to it. Your NPS, your net promoter score, goes through the roof by adhering to a cause which is greater than just having a job. And you can apply that really to many industries. And this is not to do about impact or corporate social responsibility.

7:34Florian Kemmerich:This is really understanding is what do you deliver? What do you contribute through with your company, with your product, with your services beyond that? And so basically there I took the seven steps in the second book in a context of organization. And there you start with knowing yourself. you start with using personal development methodologies to understand the team members, to understand the diversity, you know, different people, heterogeneous groups are better than homogeneous groups, you know, because you have different thoughts, different things, different characters. You also can find in the organization through that, people find their place, you know, somebody is better than in sales because that's a natural thing.

8:18Florian Kemmerich:It's not something you learn or someone will be better on, you know, on the finance side or other side. So within the functions, people find their place, egos go down, understanding goes up, and empathy is created, and that bonds, and it bonds very much, and you can create high-performance teams through that in the same context, because the seven steps help you individually, but also if you put the context of a group, an organization, they're as powerful as it for the individual itself, and that is really meaningful because it has a clear bottom line profit and benefit of your competitiveness, of the performance of your company, which is driven and lived through people.

9:02John Lee Dumas:Florian, you're dropping so many value bombs here in Fire Nation. We're really going to take a step back and walk through purpose as a strategic advantage about building something that matters and more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Fire Nation, how many different systems does your business rely on just to operate day-to-day? Your CRM, accounting software, HR tools, spreadsheets, exports, endless back and forth, just to get one clear answer. It adds up fast in time, cost, and frustration. That's where Scalar comes in. Scalar helps you unify all your business data systems into one intelligent operating system, giving you full visibility across your organization.

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12:04John Lee Dumas:access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. Florian, we're back. And as I shared before the break, I want to talk about purpose as a strategic advantage. So how does operating from purpose actually strengthen decision-making and drive long-term success, especially during times of uncertainty, which of course we're living in right now.

12:37Florian Kemmerich:The big problem is that we believe, very often we believe, that purpose is something you're given, you want to do good, but life is tough and you need to toughen up and you need to make sure that you are correct course and you are competitive. So everything we are told or educated on is to look outside. What is success outside? the financial success, the image success, the reputational success, and then you have, of course, things happening, and it's outside-oriented. But purpose is not something you find and it's just there. It's actually you build this and you implement this. This is what I invite people to understand, that a contribution you can do with your job, with your company, with the team changes the dynamic.

13:23Florian Kemmerich:And that even goes by the way you're mentioning today in some certainties, it's stressful. So if you are outside oriented, stress is actually bad for you. And there's scientific, a lot of scientific data on that. Because if you make your decisions because you react according to market circumstances or economic circumstances only, that puts anxiety, stress level, and therefore cortisol goes up and it's bad for your health. But if you say, I really want to do this, like when you're in sports and you say, I want to win this. I want to reach a certain level. That goes inside out. And purpose is found inside the person, but also inside the mantra of an organization, the mantra of a business plan.

14:12Florian Kemmerich:And you can hear a lot of business leaders and successful people telling you that. You know, if your company writes a wrong, if it resolves something, what the mantra is, it becomes much more powerful because people adhere economically, sorry, emotionally to it. And even if you understand that someone writing a check, whether it's investing or whether it's buying a product, besides, let's say, the basic products of survival, anything else on top is a pure emotional decision. So the stronger the emotions are, the stronger the narrative is, and the stronger the value proposition is, because you right a wrong, the more powerful actually the organization goes.

14:52Florian Kemmerich:And this is where I invite you to look at a strategy of a company, you know, is around the mantras about what you can actually resolve for. And that's very powerful. So therefore, if a company is oriented and focused and the entire team on a purpose, if this is understood and lived and is exchanged and people are not competing internally with each other, but really, you know, teaming up to win a championship as a team, that applies also. Again, I've done 15 years sports on a high level, but it's exactly the same thing. That last part is psychological. whether you really really go and have a full success it's a psychological component and that is when purpose is at this heart you know you're what you deliver is greater than you the meaning is greater than you life is hard and you will have problems and you have to react at it but if it's a challenge you are actually adrenaline goes up your endorphin goes up your Dopamine goes up, you know, because it's a stress.

16:01Florian Kemmerich:It's a healthy stress, not something you are exposed to. And you try to navigate. And then at the end, it will affect you in a negative way. And that is the same, whether it's a person or an organization, it's exactly the same.

16:14John Lee Dumas:Florian, as we talked about before the break, you developed this seven-step vocating framework, which was awesome. And of course, if Fire Nation wants to learn more, they'll be able to read your book and go into more details within that. But my audience loves those steps. So when we talk about building something that matters, I mean, these are for entrepreneurs who want to create real impact, Florian, but they don't even know where to start. What would you say are the most practical first steps they can take today?

16:43Florian Kemmerich:The thing is the following, especially today. First thing is you need to cut out the noise. If you don't have time, but you go and really innovate and really think certain things through, because you're just multitasking and left and right, you're in the hamster wheel and the rat race. It's very difficult to really innovate and really come out with something new. And this is the part where first step in order for you to define and choose your vocation is to cut out the noise. So you have to, and you can do this in different ways, there are different techniques to it. You can use mindfulness, one possibility.

17:23Florian Kemmerich:You can go out to the sports. You can go out in the countryside. Yeah, JLT just said, you know, we talked about the mountains, you know, here in Switzerland, the Alps. Yeah, you go high up the mountains or you at the, of course, you're on the sunny side of the ocean. You go there, but you connect moments and you need a moment where you need to pause and slow down to really come up with something new and then double down. So that's the first step. But the answer, the idea is coming inside out, not just, you know, being overwhelmed with gazillions of information through Internet, through AI or something else.

17:58That is the first step to do, because it is then a decision.

18:02Florian Kemmerich:I want to achieve this and I'm going to do this. This is the first step.

18:07John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, those first steps are so key because it's all about getting momentum. If you know you're taking that first step in the right direction, powerful things can come. And Florian, I love that quote by Martin Luther King Jr., which is, you don't have to see the whole staircase to take the first step. Like things will unfold and develop around you as you do take that first step. And it's really powerful to understand. And I want to next talk about mobilizing impact at scale, Florian, because you've helped mobilize nearly$1 billion in impact capital. I mean, that's so huge. What did that journey specifically teach you about capital, about responsibility, and about scaling this purpose-driven work?

18:49John Lee Dumas:But the key part is, without losing your integrity.

18:52Florian Kemmerich:One of the problems is, again, as I said, the fundamental flaw of saying people think impact. Yeah, impact is philanthropy. I do philanthropy. No, you can use and leverage capital to really bring a change. And that's when you do impact, impact investing. In impact investing, you have an intentionality of the capital. You say, okay, I can use this and this. Again, yes, you look at your financial return, and yes, you do your market analysis, and yes, you look at the profitability and the risk-return reward analysis because you're investing, whether it's equity, whether it's debt, all that. But if you understand that while you invest, you actually can resolve something.

19:30Florian Kemmerich:It's a little bit when you say you might have, you want to do good, you have a philanthropy, and it helps people. Nobody wants to be helped. We all want a fair chance to climb up the ladder. Helping is actually unfair from a dignity standpoint. You know, empower me, give me. And this is the same somebody in your company or with you or with money or with power. And that's the same. So this is what I have been focusing on, you know, and fundraising to it and then applying to it in different parts of the world. A lot for me in emerging markets, but also, you know, in emerging markets about this Europe or the US again.

20:02But the intention basically is if you understand that you can leverage capital in a positive sense on the financial return, again, you and your purpose, you and your zone.

20:16Florian Kemmerich:I mean, my personal leitmotif, you know, is impact life, share profits, because that's the part. Again, you would do the same in a normal business when you invest because you want to have financial returns and there's a risk reward return and sometimes you need to adjust it. But if you resolve with this something bigger than that, while you do this, then you can do VC, you can do growth equity, you can do mezzanine. I mean, the asset classes are all the same. But the fun part is when you are doing this, it is so contagious. And it's so fantastic to see on the ground whatever you want to resolve for with capital you're doing is really amazing.

20:54Florian Kemmerich:And again, I'm not talking about the poor and the rich here. I'm talking about using capital on different so-called theories of change, you know, where you trigger a change through the investments you do and with your own money and capital.

21:09John Lee Dumas:Florian, again, you're dropping value bombs throughout this entire interview. I mean, Fire Nation, hit that rewind button if you just need to hear those words one more time. And as we have our closing value bomb, what I want to know, Florian, is if someone's torn between building a profitable business and answering a deeper calling, what would you say is one truth they need to hear before they make their next move?

21:33Florian Kemmerich:Listen to yourself inside. And even though the bozos want to grind you down, people might say that doesn't work. You just don't give a shit. You just do it. Because any of the growers and big inventors and have done extraordinary things, they just didn't care. And most of them were told initially that's not possible. Yeah. And again, if you will remember, you know, it is the same effort to do something small than to go for something big. So why do small, but don't take just external references, listen to your gut feeling, to your intuition. And there's one thing I just want to make very sure you need to be very careful.