By: Harvey Miller, Red Rock Publishers
Every creator knows the feeling: the numbers climb, the brand deals arrive, and the work still feels hollow. Dr. Vanessa Ervin has a name for the problem. In Purpose Before Position, she argues that a title is only as strong as the calling beneath it. “Position without purpose is a chair with no legs,” she writes, “unstable, unsustainable, and destined to collapse.”
Ervin, President and CEO of Carobell, a North Carolina care organization, wrote for leaders and grounds her advice in Christian faith. Her ideas travel well to anyone building an audience. She separates holding a position from holding influence: “Position forces people to obey; influence invites them to follow.” For a creator, that is the gap between followers who scroll past and a community that shows up.
Her starting point is voice. Ervin says hers grew in stages, through imagination, small opportunities, and correction, and she urges readers to speak in small rooms before larger ones. Her warning applies to anyone who has ever deleted a post to avoid backlash. She once believed silence was safe. “That silence felt respectable,” she writes. “It looked humble, but it was actually cowardice disguised as caution.”
The book organizes its message around five foundational principles: Stay the Course, Relationships Matter, Ignite Your Passion, Pursue Your Dream, and “Don’t Delay, Obey.” The second may be the most useful for creators. People follow when they feel “genuinely valued, not just utilized,” Ervin writes, because they know you see them “as people, not just productivity units.”
The fifth principle names the biggest threat to a creative career: hesitation born of fear. Ervin calls it a “Destiny Stealer,” her term for anyone or anything that distracts a person from their true purpose. For a creator, that might be the comparison trap, a trend that has nothing to do with your mission, or the pressure to say yes to every sponsor.
Her filter is a single question: “Does this serve the calling?” She suggests asking it before expenses, hires, and policy changes. A creator could ask it before a partnership or a pivot. She pairs it with a one-sentence statement of purpose, a small council of people who think differently from you, and a willingness to invite critics into a listening session. If the criticism exposes a flaw, fix it. If it is noise, answer calmly.
The book’s final theme will resonate with anyone who has weathered a flop, a burnout, or a public stumble. Setbacks, Ervin argues, can become comebacks. The foreword, by Dr. Anne L. Matthews, puts it this way: “Your greatest comeback isn’t about returning to who you were but becoming who God always meant you to be.” Ervin says it more simply: “Adversity doesn’t define you. It reveals you.”
Creators ready to build influence that lasts can find Purpose Before Position available in paperback and hardcover.
