We have been conditioned to believe that more is better and that to have a full life, we must achieve as much as we can while we are on this earth. But what happens when you follow everyone else's ideas of how your life should be and find yourself empty and unfulfilled rushing from task to task from achievement to achievement? What happens when you did everything you were supposed to do and your tank is on empty?
And it's not that you want more but that you want to get closer to what sparks and ignites your soul and it's no longer what everyone else classifies as success. You actually no longer fear failure because you don't define it in the same way. For you, failure means not trying. Because you've learned that when you fall down, you clean up your bruises and get up again. Your ego no longer gets as bruised as before because you have discovered that language matters and living someone else's definition of success no longer serves you.
In our world, we create meaning together. Our news sources have told us what is important and what we should pay attention to as the latest trends, local and global events and who is worthy of our attention. And yet, this is one of the best times to be alive. First of all, because you and I are on the planet right now. And second of all, because we live in an open and connected world where more and more people are remembering our beautiful bold voices.
They tell us and often yell at us, since most social networks today are still stuck in the 20th century scarcity and competition models, how to live our lives in 7-21 steps. But how do they know who we are and why we are here. The so called "experts" are simply generating content when the real opportunity in front of us is to connect deeply with each other in two-way conversations. I am wary of the people with the mantras who have the answers for how we should love, live, work, learn and play. How do they know what is in our hearts when they are so busy trying to constantly feed our egos and what no one talks about, their own ego? We live in a world where so many people give away our power every day by not first plugging into ourselves.
Cookie cutters only work when we are baking the same cookies. In 2016, we have the opportunity to break away from becoming more efficient and productive and remembering our purpose. The people who I choose to resonate with today are not the ones who tell me how to create a "personal brand" but the ones who ask me profound questions that touch my soul and help make meaning for me in this world that I can simply share with others.
Proceed with caution when you encounter people who have the formula, frameworks and methodologies of how you and/or your business should be and ask yourself, "how do they know?" They may have created a "successful" business or life for themselves but do you want to live their journey? You may plaster their mantra on your mirror and look at it every day but is it what your soul is pining for? What if you tapped into your deepest desires? What then? What would the words that you would look at every day on your mirror say?
Talk to anyone who has left a company that treated them like a cog in the machine and they will tell you stories about how poorly the company treated them on their way out after many years of service and how many of her colleagues reached out to say how they wished they could leave but could not afford to.
Meaning matters and it is personal, as is business, in the 21st century. This is the time to remember that each of us is in the driver seat of our life and that in this era, people matter. It's time to ask the hard questions like, do I want to make a life or a living? Do I want to be in the 20th century model of being a WORKaholic, or is it time to be a LIFEaholic? Is it it time to see life as one big adventure, where work is just part of it?
Imagine that you didn't need a personal brand or a brand for your business, what would you do then? Imagine you could easily answer these questions, what would your life or business look like then:
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- Who can I create or co-create with?
Life is as simple or complex as we tell ourselves in our own stories. What if there was only right now? What would your story be? What if there is only the adventure called life and you got to make a life instead of a living? What now?
