Doing What You Love
We’re always hearing that to live the life that we’re meant to live, we should be doing what we love.
Easier said than put into practice.
Sleeping on the beach in Caribbean won’t find most of us getting enough income to keep the life moving forward.
Yet, every one of us has had some experience with success, with that optimal experience when we’re so sure of where we’re going that we know we’re on the right path.
Strategy always starts with our own unique position. What better way to strategize a great life than to start with who you are and what you love?
If we make a connection with where our skills are perfectly matched to the challenges that fit our passions, we’ll find that we’re already loving where we’re going.
What’s at the crossroads of your skills and your most passionate challenges?
I dare you to claim it in the comment box. 🙂
I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Connect to yourself!!
I am a mother. I am a teacher. I am the co-founder of a company that produces planners for new moms. I am a friend. At the heart of each of those roles I am a listener, problem solver, and an organizer of thinking. It is what I love to do — it is who I am at the core. I am never so passionate as I am when a student feels overwhelmed and needs strategies to carry on, or when a friend talks about starting her own business but doesn’t know where to start, or when a new mom needs a way to organize her thinking/approach with a new baby to care for. As long as I’m given the chance to listen, reflect, problem solve, strategize and help initiate a “system” I am happy.
I love your questions, Liz! Today, it’s my version of church. haha 🙂
Hi Lisa!
I’m a mom and a teacher too. And you’re so right. listening and problem solving is at the center of all of those things. It’s obvious that you help others lighten their burden so that they can see where to go. The planner is a clue to where your skills lie, the problem solving for others is where your passion crosses over it. I think your sentence it’s my version of church. says it all.
so true.
Dear Lis,
I’m a philanthropist with a passion for teaching. Your advice about marrying skills and passions and strategy always beginning with your own unique position speaks my language.
Indeed, I wish more people understood this — it’s critical to success in business and in life.
A project I’m involved with has pledged $50M to help entrepreneurs improve business literacy starting with understanding their unique selves first.
We’ve just completed the first of five stages of the project having given away just over $10M toward the $50M goal. What a learning experience it has been for all!
Can’t wait to see what happens in stages 2-5. After watching your video, we’ve been inspired to expand the application process to include even more of these self-connection elements.
It’s all about moving forward isn’t it? And sometimes, moving forward requires taking a step back. Thanks for reminding me of that!
Linda M. Lopeke
Hi Linda!
Wow! Thank you. Let me know if there is any way that I can help you!
It sounds like we’re aligned in even more ways than I ever suspected and I suspected quite a few!
Liz
In 1991 I was just about to turn 16 when the Rodney King incident happened. Got into a debate with someone who didn’t want to believe there *could have been* extra tape the media wasn’t showing. Since then, I have been passionate about bridging the gap between police communication and public understanding of what police work is all about.
Whether I’m being a mom or a wife or a writer or a PR person, then, I seek to use the interviewing and writing skills I’ve learned over the last years to understand where people — LE or civilian — are coming from, and how to help them better understand each other.
Hi Christa,
I know that your passion for bringing people and the truth together are so strongly leading you. It’s awesome to watch. Belief and knowledge fight to find the common ground where we can stand on a foundation that supports us. You’ll be the one who shows how to do that. I know you will.
I work as a photographer, a writer and as a program manager. I’m passionate about seeing things organized, caught up, on track. I love taking ambiguous things and working to establish the structure and architecture. I love bringing order out of chaos. More recently, I’ve discovered that I love seeing people put to their highest use. It pains me to see underutilized folks, whether street people living far below their gifts or corporate people, pressed away from giving all they have by bureaucracy and politics. There.
Hi Jennifer,
It’s great to meet you!
Structure and expression are indeed a beautiful combination for a photographer and a writer! It seems like you’ve found the subject that keeps pulling you back to two to put forth a compelling message. Now the next step is wrapping that up in an irresistible offer. 🙂
I have an idea of the things that are at the crossroads of your skills and your most passionate challenges, but what if I am having trouble turning that into a unique proposition in the world? What skills/tips/tricks should I be using to discover this?
I think it’s a great question and challenge, by the way.
Warmest,
Jonathan
Hi Three Money Methods,
Look for what you know, what you don’t know and what problems you can solve around the two — your skills and your passionate challenges. Talk to people about the problems their having. Listen to what you uniquely bring to the climate and terrain that already exisits. 🙂
Thanks, Liz, for your consistent and pragmatic approach to self-discovery and what I would call “self-victory.” And thank you for deconstructing the ever-selfish motto “doing what you love,” which again reminds us of the subtle persistence and toxicity of such axioms in our respective professional worlds…
Hi Frank,
Thank you for noticing. Doing what we love is work. Yeah. We have to pay attention to what we’re good at and what servers others. Serving ourselves isn’t really serving … heh heh
Finding that place that our skills and our passions are useful and productive in the world is the magic to doing what we love and making a business of it. In the end there’s still a whole lot of work still involved. Anyone who does that knows!
Thanks, Liz, for the opening and invite to explore Visible Authenticity. I love the idea about stepping back as being a part of stepping forward (and thanks to Linda too for this reminder). My friend, author Dan Millman, used to remind me that pole vaulters back way up before leaping across a giant chasm. I guess I must be readying for such a leap. I see others around who are too. The trick seems to be trusting that we are all “right on schedule” with our stepping back or stepping forward.
For me, the step back is exactly about this topic – exploring it more deeply. My passion is also all around connection, Liz. In my case, the passion is to help people see that connection with Self is the issue underlying all issues and to teach them how to Get Connected again and again – whether it’s a client with a money challenge, a weight loss challenge, a spiritual dilemma, a new business glitch, a health challenge, or anything else…it’s all about Getting Connected – and when we do, wondrous things occur – Getting Connected is a daily practice and though it often sounds a bit esoteric, it’s the most practical thing wew can do. There. I said it.