Good morning!
I hope you had a great weekend. We’ve had some setbacks with my son Evan, so it has truly been an opportunity to practice what I teach. I will tell you, sometimes it feels impossible. His illness and brain damage causes him to rage in a way that is unimaginable for most. At those moments, saying “It Is What It Is” isn’t always realistic. If you have something in your life that is causing you challenges, give yourself permission to be sad, scared, grieve, or whatever you need to do. The real test is whether or not you can get up the next day and keep pluggin’. I think that is why it so important to find things that you love, to help get through the tough times.
Do you remember the commercial that had a cute little boy wearing an over-sized suit and said, “When I grow up, I wanna claw my way to middle management and be a yes man.”
I remember almost falling out of my seat laughing the first time I saw it. At what point in our lives did we say, “I guess I’ll just settle”? I have the privilege of meeting so many amazing people, and too few of them are living up to their passion, their purpose, or their potential. Why? With all of the phenomenal resources at our disposal, why would be possibly allow ourselves to settle?
In “The Four-Hour Work Week“, author Timothy Ferriss is speaking to the importance of loving what you do. He tells a story about sitting in a hotel lobby and checking his email on a vacation. Two women got off the elevator, looked at him and whispered, “Isn’t it sad? He can’t even have a vacation without working”. He said to himself, “Isn’t it sad that these two women have to do a job they hate for 50-weeks a year and only escape for 2-weeks”?
What do you love to do so much that you would do it on vacation?
My mom is 61, decided to be a flight attendant for Southwest Airlines when she was 51 (and just won flight attendant of the month), and informed me today she was going to take singing lessons because she wants to do professional jingles! (Sorry mom, it was too good not to share.) This is all in addition to her court reporting career and helping me raise Evan. If anyone can do it, it’s her. I’ve never seen someone live more passionately.
If you can’t take what you love and translate it into a career, take a class, read a book, learn more about it, explore it as a hobby, but give yourself permission to do it. You deserve to enjoy your life. It is the ONLY one you have.
What do you love to do, and how will you re-charge yourself by adding it to your life?
ANNE GRADY GROUP
(512) 821-1111
Anne Grady is a Speaker, Author, and #TruthBomb Dropper.
Anne shares practical strategies that can be applied both personally and professionally to improve relationships, navigate change, and triumph over adversity. And she’ll make you laugh while she does it. Anne is a two time TEDx speaker, and her work has been featured in numerous media outlets, including Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fast Company and Inc. magazines, CNN, ESPN, and FOX Business. She is the best selling author of 52 Strategies for Life, Love & Work and Strong Enough: Choosing Courage, Resilience and Triumph.
Anne, what a lovely post – and so true. I love the part about your mom. Hooray for doing the joyful things that are in you to do!!!
Best,
Julie
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Julie Wickert
True Story Communication
http://www.truestorycommunication.com
(ofc/hm) 512-459-3262
(cell) 512-914-6882
Story-based marketing writing.
Proposal consulting.
I like “Keep on Truckin'” from the ’70’s, as I have fond memories of being around so many loving people and how everyone laughed every time they heard it. We used to tell our then 4-year-old to “put on your truckin’ boots ’cause we’re going to the “Saturday Morning Fun Club” (circa 1974 – cartoons and old movies at Bates Hall on UT campus. You just had to get there early to sail paper airplanes overhead).
Now that same girl is training for a marathon. Now that’s truckin’! Love from her Mom
OMG – I was at UT 1975 – 1978 and LOVED Saturday Morning Fun Club! I woke up thinking about it for some reason this morning. Good times!!
Anne, thanks for this great post. All of us need to find joy in what we do every day! And I loved your Mom’s story–she’s not letting anything stop her.
Best regards,
Nancy
Great post! It is amazing how quickly we can loose who we are. Thanks for the reminder!
You’re absolutely right. Just as we have to work at friendships and relationships, we have to continue to work at continuing to keep our life fresh and fulfilling. It’s so easy to get in a rut, but as I was once told, a rut is a grave with no ends! Thanks for your comment.
I think it was Mark Twain who said the secret of your success is making your vocation your vacation. Oh, passion, that oft used and little understood word (sort of like love, friendship, common sense, etc.). Yes, it is so hard for people to FIND their passion much less live it!! Thanks for telling about your mom (and you mom should tell something about you too!).
It is funny, ALL my clients and co-founders are required to tell me what the believe is their passion about their business (not what are they trying to solve, or new widget’s features), but what gets them up in the morning and says I HAVE to DO this and why? You would be amazed at how few people really know why they are doing something!
Carpe Diem
“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson