The Pow-Wow today is a tricky one and especially for the passioneers of the world. We are told when we are young, practice makes perfect and indeed it almost always does. But talk to any serious athlete or musician who pursued their passion fervently, and they will tell you that their passion was their life in exclusion to everything else. Ancient wisdom says ‘energy flows where attention goes’ and this seems to ring true as well. This is such a big topic and one I hope we explore more of here at the Passioneer department of World Wise Beauty. I think this quote can have more than one meaning for many of us. We all want to be successful, we all want to perform well and we all want to enjoy life. How we achieve this is our individual personal journey. Can you only be successful or a true passioneer if you work 24/7 and give up your life? Again the answer is complex…
“JUST TRUST YOURSELF AND YOU WILL KNOW HOW TO LIVE”~Goethe
What is work? What is a career? What is play? What is passion? The answer to these questions are different for each of us. Indeed excellence comes from discipline, focus and commitment. But then we also have to explore the idea of talent, skill set and strengths. Talent comes naturally, skill sets can be developed realistically and strengths seem to be a combination of innate natural ability, practice, and experience. When you bring all three to the table along with passion, this is where the magic is. The strengths I mentioned are important and usually surface when we also know our weakness. So the wise ones focus on and develop their strengths, and this is usually doing more of what you love with PASSION! The secret sauce right there! I may be good at doing dishes but that doesn’t mean I want to be doing dishes for life! I kid, but take that concept and apply it to almost anything.
“THE FIRST WEALTH IS HEALTH” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I would venture to say, that true passioneers aren’t thinking about success and excellence in any literal form, they are just following their passion and are lucky to have discovered their core strengths. For some of us this becomes a vocation, for others it is a career, and for many of us it can be our hobby. So what does quality of life have to do with all of this? It seems to me that without health and well-being your passion or your career can’t fully actualize, or can be suddenly cut-short if you become ill. At World Wise Beauty, we believe health and wellness is the foundation for achieving quality of life. You can only have wellness when you know yourself–mind, body and spirit. Once you have that sacred relationship with yourself, you will then know what it takes to care for yourself and live. Some people can function on 5 hours of sleep but most of us require 7-8 hours of sleep. You get the idea. What matters is that you know what you need for yourself.
‘ALWAYS KNOW YOUR WHY’ ~ Ancient Wisdom
‘Always know your why’ is great wisdom because chasing success and excellence without consideration of what it means to your overall well-being is a recipe for disillusionment and illness. On a larger scale in terms of our earth it is even scarier. Success over sustainability equals climate change. We are not loving that– are we?
The big topics of love, family and friendship is not covered here but I know for many women reading this, it is a huge consideration. Because all these things mean connection and we do know through research that connection is crucial for maintaining wellness. What do we sacrifice or compromise for success and following our passion? My hunch is ‘passioneers’ are the closest to living life fully because they are doing what they love and they have identified their strengths and what they are passionate about. So when Yo-Yo ma, Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey say ‘you can do this too”, maybe you think about the many components that factored into their success but also the passion that aligned with their skills. Am I saying don’t try something that you are not naturally talented at? Not at all. What I am saying is take time to identify your strengths and also your passion. It doesn’t matter which one comes first, what matters is they co-exist with each other. One without the other is going to be a ‘slog’ as my British friends say. 😉
P.S Slog Definition: A lot of hard work over a long period of time! Quality of life? I think not!
Add these two great books to your WWB Passioneer Library. I share one old and one new but both passionate experts will inspire you to follow your passion, most importantly on your own terms.
1- The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte
2- Finding Your North Star by Martha Beck
