The following interview is an excerpt from EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) and their interview with Nick Leighton taken in Hyderabad India.

EO Interviewer: How can business owners identify their purpose? I know you talk about when you first meet with a business owner, what are the first questions that you ask is why you are in business? Is that kind of a key aspect to helping someone kind of understand what their purpose is and what, why is it so important for them to understand what their purpose is?

Nick Leighton: Absolutely, and often people misinterpret the question of “Why you're in business” to “How did you get into business?” I know the answer to how you got into business - I mean either you did it by choice or by situation. You chose because you had this great business idea and you got a business plan and maybe go some funding and now you're out there - you're doing it and if you're in EO, you're successful. Or you're forced into it. Maybe you couldn't find a job. You needed to make money. Maybe you were born into a family business. So, we knew you were going to go to that pub. Maybe your employer retired, and you found the business in that way.

But the question is not how did you get in - it is why.

People lose this. They forget what their passion is, so we need to identify that again, so we do this by writing up two things.

We try and find a personal vision and a business vision. We can go through a series of about 25 questions and look at various elements of your life by answering these questions.

You can literally write out a 100-word vision statement for your personal and for your business life.

Now, if you can do that and achieve that just by answering 25 questions, you can you print that up in your own words? And you look at that every day. That's going to say, “good direction.”