Crisha Bowen: Finding profit in purpose

Crisha Bowen, 40, believes helping people find their purpose can build a safer and happier Trinidad and Tobago.

The HR professional – who has her own coaching business, Purpose Diaries – will host a one-day Purpose and Profit Conference aimed at helping people do just that.

It will be held on Labour Day (June 19) at the Trinidad Hilton and Conference Centre from 9 am-6 pm and will include two sessions where participants will be guided on purpose discovery, what is purpose, how people discover it and its phases.

The other half of the day will be spent on profitability. There will also be coaching and life makeovers from the experts.

As well as Bowen, there will be two local and two international speakers – sales trainer LinkedIn coach Jarrod Best-Mitchell and motivational speaker Luke Quamina – and two international speakers.

US entrepreneur, author and transformational speaker Marcus Y Rosier and US franchising consultant Michelda Johnson are the international experts.

Rosier is also Bowen’s coach and became her mentor at his company, Monetizewithmarcus.com, because she “showed up for herself.”

Rosier and Bowen met seven years ago through Instagram when she asked him to be a lecturer at her online school, Purpose University. He agreed and quickly became her mentor.

Rosier saw her passion and invested in that, she said.

The conference fulfils one of Bowen’s long-term goals, helping people find what they are supposed to do. Purpose, for Bowen, answers the "why" question about what people feel they should be doing with their lives.

She said in the phone interview, “I see a lot of people, who are probably trying to get into careers, sending resumes, trying to get a job or in a job, but it does not match anything they are passionate about, anything they desire or they are unemployed.”

Over the past eight years, she has worked to build her online business, which has allowed her to use her coaching and HR skills and made her happy.

The business began when she started sharing and detailing the steps she took to find what fulfilled her, similarly to the way people share their deepest thoughts in a diary.

The San Fernando resident did what she believed society wanted of her: went to school, got degrees, a good job degrees and a good job and got promoted.

She attended Holy Faith Convent, Penal, then moved to the US and got a degree in business administration from the Florida Memorial University. On returning to TT, she got a masters in small and medium enterprise management at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business.

For about seven years, she worked as an HR professional at the National Infrastructure Development Company's (NIDCO)’s water taxi service.

However, she quickly realised she was unhappy. While she did not hate the job, she had no internal happiness.

“I did it, got up, go to work, got up, go to work and through my own journey of self-reflection, asking myself, 'Crisha, who are you, outside of this job, what defines your life?’”

She began sharing how she felt through the vlog and the message resonated with readers.

Many shared that they were dissatisfied in their jobs and that began a community which morphed into the business.

Bowen wants the conference to inspire people and show them that they might be in a job to simply earn but that they could use their passion to start a business, get fulfilment and earn.

“That is the whole vision behind Purpose and Profit: identify who you are, get back to the place of things you are passionate about and in which you are skilled and then generate some kind of profitability from that passion or purpose.”

She wants the participants to leave with either an accountability partner or a business "bestie." Bowen wants it to grow into something where people can meet at different spaces and work together, helping each other.

“You meet someone at the event who has a similar mindset and says, ‘I am not sure what this is or if I can do this, but I want more.’ I want you to leave the event with at least one person.”

She also hoped networking “pods” developed out of it and created other such pods across TT.

Bowen said finding purpose was very important because as long as people lived they were always going to keep looking for it.

“I always say do what you have to do, until you can do what you love to do. I am not naïve to know that you have to do what you have to do, you have family, you have bills, you have things you need to do.

“Even investing in business, you need some kind of capital. I am not naïve to think we can all just find our purpose, live that and start a business.”

Purpose was not only important for personal attainment but also for a better TT.

“We need to encourage these kinds of spaces. Yes, we may have conferences, concerts, events, fetes but I think people need to see other people like them doing it.”

Bowen said this was why she always wanted to be an example.

“It was almost as if I stumbled upon purpose –but I did not really stumble upon it, because your life is designed to bring you that point. At some point, you are going to ask the question, ‘Who am I? What am I supposed to be doing? Is this the right thing?’”

She said if more people found purpose there might be less crime.

Bowen said there should be more spaces in the country promoting positive behaviours. These spaces should not shun people, but be open to everyone.

“Sometimes people feel, ‘This is a high-society thing, and I can’t reach it, and it is for others and it is not for me.’ Or it is good for them, but we need to create more spaces where we cultivate those mindsets.

“I don’t think people just wake up and decide, 'I want to do nothing with my life.' Life experiences push them to a point where they are negatively influenced or make wrong choices. But I believe we can still interject that sense of purpose and fulfilment and make a difference in our society.”

People were never too young to begin their "purpose journey" or too old to go back and find it.

“Sometimes we get so used to societal norms that say the path is education, a career and a family. We have this pre-existing path that has already been created, and everyone is trying to go down that path.

“But when you get older you realise you are either divorced or in a dysfunctional relationship just because purpose was not discovered.

Her long-term vision is to create a local “purpose centre” where there would be skilled people who can help guide others to their purpose.