Not All Passions Die
I’ve long believed following your passions is one of the best ways to begin moving toward your authentic life. Your passion comes from your heart, which is your direct connection to your spirit, and initiates the connection of spirit, mind, body, and money. Following your passions will help you learn more about your Self, what you like, and where you should be directing your energy.
Like most things in life, passions leave us to be replaced by new ones. But, sometimes a passion doesn’t die and leave us as we continue on our Pursuit. Sometimes, it evolves with us.
I recently experienced this and just made the connection to my passion evolving with me this morning.
Last month I spoke at a conference in Scottsdale, AZ to a group of financial advisors, CPAs, attorneys, and other professionals who help their clients sell and exit their businesses. I was asked to give a talk about leveraging personal brands and when I accepted I was stoked to have an opportunity to bet on stage and talk about a long-time passion of mine.
As the day of my trip came closer I began to regret signing up for the trip and leaving my family for a couple of days. The reason my excitement diminished was that I felt the subject matter no longer aligned with my authentic life—while I will always have a passion for branding, storytelling, and everything that comes with a personal brand, giving a talk to a group of advisors on the subject did not move me in the direction of spirit, mind, body, money and the Pursuit of authentic living.
At least I didn’t think it would.
I arrived at the hotel early in the morning the day before my talk and I spent most of the day reading and working on my talk. I took a break and walked to the hotel coffee shop and heard two people talking about subjects that piqued my interest. I heard them mention “life design” and “The Alchemist” and I knew I had to join their conversation.
Thanks to 45 minutes of talking with two strangers, who just happened to be at the same coffee shop at the same time I was talking about subjects that align with spirit, mind, body, and money (not a coincidence), I had a fresh new take on my talk—thanks to their insight and encouragement.
After getting in a quick workout and a little more reading I began to rework my talk on how the group could leverage their personal brands for a greater purpose than growing their already successful businesses.
Here’s the actual talk:
I walked off the stage on a natural high. I knew (and still know) that was the best talk I have ever given and the feedback I received was amazing.
I also walked off the stage knowing I had just lied—I don’t think that is the last time I give that talk or one related to personal branding, but I didn’t know that until I had finished.
Prior to the coffee shop, my talk on personal branding had nothing to do with living an authentic life—I had a brief section on being authentic but the takeaway of the talk was about growing business by leveraging one’s personal brand. The final talk, the one you hopefully took 18 minutes to watch, had everything to do with living an authentic life.
In fact, it was a talk about living authentically disguised as a talk about personal branding—a talk that aligns with my mission to help people find and live their authentic life. I’m going to look back at my talk at the Exit Planning Summit in 2023 as an important moment in my Pursuit—a moment that I wasn’t excited to experience leading up to it.
I’m so thankful I didn’t try to back out of my commitment, which never was an option for me, that the Universe led me to two strangers in a coffee shop, and that I decided to rework my talk the night before giving it. This experience allowed me to have a great time on stage (and hopefully inspire a few people) and allowed one of my long-time passions to evolve and carry with me into this next chapter in my Pursuit.
I thought my time talking about personal branding was over, or at least confined to one-on-one private conversations, but I was wrong.
I will continue to talk about and explore personal branding through the lens of how it can help us all live more authentically and connect to our spirit, mind, and body–moving me further along my Pursuit and living my authentic life.
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
