Have you ever found yourself in a place where you never thought you’d be? Over my lifetime, I’ve asked myself several times, “How did I get here?” Sometimes, it wasn’t a good thing either – like when I realized I’d been practicing law for nearly ten years and felt no passion for it. Sometimes, though, I’ve posed the question out of a sense of awe – like when I was crossing the equator on a boat with my family in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a three-week passage. We were fulfilling a dream, doing things we never believed we could carry off, and were in the exact place we wanted to be at that moment. It is these times, obviously, that we need to be striving for. It is that sense of awe and purpose that fuels us to be the best we can be.
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines the emotion of passion as “an intense, driving feeling or conviction”. By definition, then, your passion inspires you to act. In May 2010, Simon Sinek delivered a TED talk that very convincingly demonstrates the way to inspire leadership is to find people who have passion for what they are doing. And it’s not surprising that the premier management consulting firm, McKinsey&Company, recently came out with a study evidencing peak performance and job satisfaction when an employee at any level finds meaning in his or her work.
These are consistent with one of my favorite inspirational quotes that comes from an ancient yoga theorist, Pantaljali: “When you are inspired… dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.”
Change begins from within, from that place of passion and purpose and cause. Once you find it, you begin to live intentionally. You are making conscious intentional decisions about your life – which leads to a life lived on purpose, performing at your peak. So much more is possible from this place.
Regardless of how you got here, whether you’re in a good place or one not so great, find your inspiration, meaning and passion in what you do. And from that naturally comes more inspiration, meaning and passion. I’ll meet you there.
