Love What You Do
I just finished a three and a half hour long presentation. I was presenting specifically on social media strategies; how you need to understand the impact that you’re having on people first and then understand who it is that you’re trying to impact in order to be able to deliver marketing and sales messages that are going to work. The best part of the presentation was that I loved every minute of it. I loved the interaction with people. I loved the questions I got from people.
But for a long time, I didn’t do what I love to do. I did stuff because I was good at it but not because I loved it, and I was miserable. I wanted to rectify this so I scaled back some of the agency work that I’d been doing. I still do some of it, but I’m really picky about who I work with. But mainly, I spend most of my time making presentations. I had one on Friday, and even though I had a really, really rough morning that day, that presentation made my day. I can’t even begin to tell you the positive feedback I had from that presentation, and it just lifted my spirits again. I do coaching because I derive such incredible pleasure from it, and I would do this every single day. I have the pleasure of being able to do so.
Whenever I go downtown Toronto and I see the never-ending streets of skyscrapers, I always think I can hear the sounds of people’s souls being sucked out of their bodies. It’s a very frightening thought for me. I worked in cubicle land for years, and I promised I would never, ever do that to myself again.
I’ve created a virtual company, so I do have people who work for me, and they work from wherever makes them happiest and most productive because happy people are productive people. I want to be a happy person too, so I have to make sure that I’m doing the things that also make me happy at the same time.
If you’re in a nine-to-five and you really don’t love what you’re doing, you could either find a better nine-to-five – because there are some really good ones out there. Or you can go out on your own, which is not an easier option, but it was definitely the right choice for me. Going out on my own, I feel I’m able to completely control my life. That was a facet of life that was so incredibly important to me that it overcame the risk associated with running my own business.
I have coaching practices. My Life on Fire program and my new Destination Mastermind will help people to sort out what they need to do. I’ve helped lots of people convert from a nine-to-five into their own businesses and find a life that they really, really want.
The main lesson I am trying to express here is that you need to make sure that you understand what it is you want out of life. If you don’t know what you want, life isn’t going to give it to you and you’re not going to get there. You will always be upset and you’ll always feel slightly undervalued. You will feel that life is passing you by and you’re not entirely sure why or what you should do about it. It’s usually because you haven’t said to yourself, “This unequivocally is what I want out of life.”
When I met my now husband, I asked him some very clear questions. One of them was, “Have you had a vasectomy?” This might sound too direct for a first date, but I’d been through a divorce, been through a breakup, and I didn’t want to have any more kids. If you want something out of life, you must ask life to give it to you.
I needed to say to my husband Marc, “This is what I want,” and God love that man, every question I asked, he had a very clear answer. By the time we finished our conversation, I knew that he was the man I wanted to marry. This is crazy to think about because I had sworn to myself I would never marry again. But that’s the magic of unequivocally asking for what you want out of life – you really can get things you never thought you would dream of.
Demand things from life that you want. Don’t just let someone say, “Well, you don’t deserve that. You don’t need that.” Forget that. You know what you want. Go and get it. If you’re not sure, go ask people who know the information that you need. If you don’t know how to start your own business, there are people out there who can help you.
When you ask things of life and when you clarify for yourself what it is you want out of life, your actions will allow you to lead you to a path to make that your reality. That’s how things work. It seems ridiculous. I didn’t believe it until I went through it myself.
I hope you found this really helpful. I am challenging anyone who is in a situation that they don’t like to think about what they do want. The clearer you are on what makes you happy, what environment you like to work in, what kind of people you like to work with, what kind of clients you like to have – your path in terms of what you need to do will become clear. If it’s not, you can go ahead and you can message me and I would be more than happy to go over some of the specifics with you and set you on the right path.
I hope you have a fantastic day. Be good. Ask of life what you want from it, and then don’t take no for an answer. Never take no for an answer. No is just “not yet” to me.