“For the most part we all need to honor ourselves more, appreciate our individual strengths, and seek and approach life with maximum passion.”
Remember what it was like when you were a kid? You were wrapped up deep in yourself. Finding joy was usually a simple thing. The thing you liked to do, you did over and over again. You laughed when you were happy. You cried when you were sad. But what happens to us as we grow up? It seems like we take on lives of mediocrity and comfort. We stuff down how we really feel.
What if you changed that scenario? What if you learned to unwrap your gifts and discover just what it is that lights your soul on fire? What if, every day, you could wake up excited and jump out of bed looking forward to the creation of each day?
You absolutely can.
Brendon Burchard calls this passionate, energized approach the “Charged Life.” At the end of our life, we will ask ourselves three questions, “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?”
What if we asked ourselves those questions now, and we changed the course of our lives so the answers are to our satisfaction?
You absolutely can. The key is to utilize passion as a guide.
Passion.
Every time I see that word, I get all fired up. Try saying it in a flat, monotone voice. I bet you can’t. /PaSHen/, baby! You can’t help but put a little “oomph” into it. That’s exactly what passion does in your life—it puts a little “oomph” into everything you do. One way to look at it is to see passion as the soul on fire. The deep burning within to do the thing you were born to do.
But…passion is also the quiet nudge within that tells you when you’re feeling blissful and content.
“Passion is something you just can’t wait to do. It’s something that wakes you up early and keeps you up late at night. When you are doing what you’re passionate about, you lose track of time because you’re enjoying it so much.”
Perhaps the best definition of passion I’ve ever come across is from Jackie St. Onge, mother of two-time World Barefoot Champion, Keith St. Onge:
“Passion is your joy. It is the essence of who you are. You have to unwrap it to find it. The mind, body, and soul become one when you find it. Passion comes naturally to a person. It’s like running water; turn on the tap and it flows.”
It seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? Discover that which “flows” within you and you’ve unwrapped your passion.
So why do we make it so complicated?
The most passionate people I crossed paths with often couldn’t explain the “why” of what they do—but they could explain the joy—the fired up feeling, the bliss, the grip of their passion.
Passion is energy. It’s a feeling, an emotion, a desire, and a purpose all rolled into one.
A friend once told me she felt the word “passion” was way overused. “You need to change the title of your book,” she advised. “It’s just too cliché.”
Are you kidding me?
When I look around and see the many souls who are trudging through life with a dull look in their eyes, I realize we need an awakening—a passionate awakening to all the possibilities of life that occur when you’re engaged in something you’re truly passionate about. We need to infuse passion into our daily lives. Imagine how much happier our world would be if everyone were passionately engaged in something he or she truly enjoys. Imagine the kind of energy that would radiate forth!
I’ve also been told I use the word “passion” way too much when I speak.
So you’ve been warned…this is a book about passion. I’m going to talk about it in depth, and I’m going to use the word “passion” a lot.
Joel Boggess, a life coach who is a great friend of mine, often finds that the word “passion” can be difficult for some people; they shut down when they try to explore their passions and their purposes.
“Passion is a confusing term sometimes,” Joel told me. “People don’t know whether they’ve felt passion during their lives so I use the word ‘excitement’ instead. It’s a word people can wrap themselves around, and it helps me initiate a conversation to analyze their passions in a deeper way.”
As soon as we start defining ourselves, we begin to set up boxes around who we are and what we do.
If you feel a desire inside to do something bigger than what you’re doing now, chances are you have a passion waiting to be unwrapped. That desire, that longing, is a prompting to discover more about yourself and what matters to you in life.
Passion. Excitement. Joy. We’re going to increase all of those terms in your life. You just have to be willing to be open to them.
Another way to recognize passion is to be aware of what you desire. So let’s try a little writing exercise here. What do you wish for?
I wish I…
How would you finish that sentence? Go ahead and write down what you’re thinking before you read any further.
Now I want you to shift a bit and think of an onion. Passion has layers—just like an onion. For some of us, the outer layers are easy to get to. We find passion quickly—or passion finds us. For others, we have to peel back the layers to reach that place of clarity. Some of us have to go through layers and layers of life experiences to reach that place of alignment.
Now, an onion is a living thing with a pretty long shelf life, but if you neglect it long enough, eventually, your place is going to stink.
So that’s how it is with this whole passion business. Ignore the passion inside of you, and your life is going to stink. Ignore your desires, your talents, your longings—and, eventually, they’re going to catch up with you in the energy of regret.
Now let’s go a little deeper. The feelings of joy and excitement are momentous—meaning that we can’t sustain them every minute of our lives. This is why passion is so much more than just feelings. Passion is energy, but energy with a purpose.
It might totally surprise you to learn that the root meaning of passion is “to be willing to suffer for what you love.” Yes, that’s right. To suffer willingly. Kevin Hall explains this in his book, Aspire: The Power of Words. In his quest to understand the meaning behind eleven powerful words, Kevin turned to the Master of Words, Arthur Watkins, who taught him the meaning of words and how they can have a profound influence on our lives.
“At the essence,” Arthur explains, “passion is sacred suffering.”
“And suffering isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Kevin writes in Aspire. “It can and should be a good thing. It’s noble. It’s sacred. It’s life defining.”
Kevin discovered a love for speaking at an early age. Whenever he stood in front of the class to speak or give a report, he enjoyed the attention he received. In contrast, he struggled with biology and science classes. Clearly, a future in those areas was not lined up with his skills, nor his passion.
Kevin’s gift with words enabled him to create a stellar career in sales, first with Yellow Pages (he became the top advertising salesman within three months after being hired) and with Franklin Covey (VP of Sales and Training in a half-billion dollar company). During his time at Franklin Covey, Kevin spent two days at the Johnson O’Connor Research Facility, being tested in all different areas to determine his skills and unique gifts.
To his great surprise, the tests showed Kevin’s strongest strength was in the area of ideaphoria. He could take a single word and come up with pages and pages of ideas centered around that word. Kevin went on to create work that focused on connecting words, ideas, and people.
“I believe it’s within our capacity and our potential if it fits with our God-given gifts; there’s nothing we can’t do and it’s up to us to do it,” Kevin says. “When you go after something with your whole heart and soul, the universe conspires to make it happen. When you make a decision, it becomes an action.”
People who are stuck in a routine or those who cease to dream are functioning from a place of fear, Kevin explains. Fear feeds the idea that we are not enough. “It creates a ‘scarcity mentality’,” Kevin says. “If you believe you are not enough, you won’t be able to achieve your dreams.”
For many years, I believed I was not enough. I was just a wife. Just a mom. Just an ordinary person. Those crazy people out there living their dreams—well, they had some kind of special formula that just didn’t apply to me.
In the last several years, I’ve been studying everything I can on the topic of passion. I’ve come to understand this:
We are beautifully unique for a reason. There’s no one else in the whole wide world just like you. We each have the capability within us to create and live passion-filled lives. In the upcoming chapters, we’re going to dive deeper into this process.
“When you expire, you cease to breathe; when you inspire, you breathe life. When we quit breathing and quit dreaming, we expire, and sometimes people do that when they are still alive.”
During one of my many web searches on the topic of passion, Jessica Semaan’s name came up. Jessica left a lucrative job at AirBnB to create The Passion Co., a business designed to help others discover their passions. Her website features stories of people who are living passionate lives. In an interview I conducted with Jessica, she enthusiastically shared her thoughts and views on the topic.
“The world really needs you to find what you want to do and do it,” Jessica told me. “There is a lot of suffering and misery and hatred in the world and you have the power in your own way to change that by taking a stance and saying ‘I’m gonna live a life that I love. I’m gonna live a life that’s meaningful, that’s gonna make a difference.’ So the world needs you to follow your passion.”
During her studies at Stanford Business School, Jessica Semaan was depressed, but she didn’t really know it. She just felt empty. Sad. Life didn’t matter anymore—she no longer wanted to be here.
The dark feelings were a surprising turn for Jessica. She had come to Stanford from Lebanon, and she had thought the move would pave the way for a happy life.
During a counseling session, a therapist asked her, “Do you love yourself?”
The question startled Jessica. Love? Herself?
“I was confused, I wasn’t sure what the therapist was talking about,” Jessica explains. “Then I realized I didn’t know who I was to love myself. When I meet a new person, I get to know them and love them. I didn’t know myself.”
That question led Jessica on a journey to discover and love herself. She began facing long-buried fears and began to reconnect with her childhood. During the process of peeling back the layers, Jessica came to realize that she had buried many of her passions, especially dancing and writing. Her creative side had not been touched in years.
Her first writing project was to interview people about passion. One by one, as the stories unfolded, Jessica found herself with a whole new energy.
“My life became exciting. I woke up feeling ready to take over the day,” she said.
She ended up interviewing 100 people and exploring how passion appears and evolves. Jessica was doing all of this on the side, finding time around her job at Airbnb. She was also fortunate to have a wonderful mentor at Airbnb, Chip Conley, whose passion is to help others find and create lives of meaning.
When Jessica was asked to speak at a work-related event, she discovered another layer of passion when she stepped on the stage.
She came alive.
That’s exactly how Jessica explains passion: it is your soul coming alive.
And like Kevin Hall, Jessica also finds that passion is rooted in suffering.
“Passion—I think of it as suffering; that’s what the word means in Latin,” she said. “I think of raw and human energy. Passion is our gift to the world. It is when we are being our most honest, inside child without fear. Passion is more than one thing—it is life.”
“So why, then, are so many of us numb to it?” I asked her.
“I think it’s because of our society structure,” she said. “Since you’re a kid, you’re told what is right and what is wrong. Do this. Don’t do that. You can’t develop the ability to go with feelings—of feeling fear or living with excitement or daring. So I think we become programmed not to feel our feelings. We don’t have that capacity to feel when we are older until something traumatic or something bad happens to wake us up. We have to learn to love ourselves and to dare to dream.”
Can you relate to what Jessica shared? This leads me to ask: What happens to us as adults that drives us to that place where we’ve learned to trudge through daily life? Why do we lose that childlike ability to explore life and honor that place inside of us that harbors our joy?
There’s a big difference between willingly suffering for something that is driven by passion versus suffering for something that is sucking the very life out of your soul. If you’re driven by passion, you will feel aligned with your path and will have the energy to tackle the obstacles in your way.
“Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish.”
Now that you know the surprising meaning behind passion, which is the willingness to suffer, you’ll probably look at passion in a whole different light when you’re deep in the middle of something you truly enjoy. You will put in the extra effort to go above and beyond when you’re on a passionate path.
Jay Heinrichs, editor of Southwest Magazine, described his suffering in intense detail when he set up a personal challenge to sprint up a mountain for his fifty-eighth birthday. In an article entitled “The Mountain of Youth,” Jay describes how he endured 330 injections of dextrose into his ailing hip in an attempt to walk normally again. To prepare himself for the fifty-eight-minute climb, Jay woke up at 4 a.m. to train an average of three hours a day. He gave up drinking, Netflix, and his social life. All for a personal quest that meant nothing to everyone else, but meant everything to him.
On the day of his birthday, Jay put himself to the test. With every asthma-induced breath, he willed himself up the path and over rocks. The higher he climbed, the happier he became. Whether he would meet his goal or not, he came to realize the effort, the conquest, and the journey were the real goals after all.
To his great surprise, he reached the end with a time of 54:53—far better than he had ever dreamt.
Suffering, Jay learned, can lead to incredible victory.
“I learned about suffering from the legendary distance runner Steve Prefontaine, who famously said that while he wasn’t the best at running, he could suffer more than anyone,” Jay writes. “He bore more, pushing his imperfect body to one record after another. To ‘suffer’ means to allow, even welcome. It moves beyond pain, because this welcoming of the overwhelming isn’t pain at all. It’s life with all the stops open.”
Life with all the stops open. Can you imagine living that way? Can you imagine the joy that comes with that formula for life?
But there’s more.
Jay believes we need more “awe experiences” in our lives. Those are the experiences where we step back and look at ourselves with complete awe—experiences that stretch us above and beyond what we believe is possible for ourselves. It’s the feeling of “Holy moly, that’s freakin’ awesome.”
“I believe that you feel greater awe when you’ve overcome obstacles to confront something vast and scary,” Jay writes.
I’ve had many of what I’m calling “Awe Moments” since getting back on the water. If you remember from my story, I was overweight and very out-of-shape when I took up barefoot water skiing again. Water skiing on bare feet is definitely not an easy sport, even for the most athletically fit. I once spent ten days on the water training with World Champions and pushing myself in ways that I couldn’t even imagine as a teenager, much less as a woman approaching fifty. I was sore. Every part of my body creaked and groaned each morning when I climbed out of bed. There were some days I felt as if I made little or no progress. On the very last day, one of my coaches set me up to do what’s called a “Back Toe Hold.” It requires barefoot water skiing backwards on one foot, with the other foot holding a strap on the handle, and both hands in the air. As you can imagine, it’s a scary thing to do. One wrong move and you find yourself doing the splits backward at 39 mph.
I could have played it safe and declined to try. But here’s the thing with playing it safe: You never set yourself up for experiencing Awe Moments.
So I went for it. I let go of the handle and found myself gliding along backwards on one foot with my hands in the air.
Holy moly, that’s freakin awesome!
It was an Awe Moment I’ll always remember.
And the awe that comes with accomplishing something you’ve worked for, sweated for, and passionately aimed for?
Priceless.
When was the last time you had an Awe Moment in your life? What is an Awe Moment you’d like to go for?
There’s a big difference between suffering for something you love or truly want, versus suffering for something that has little or no meaning to you.
Suffering for the wrong thing is like running a marathon in the wrong direction—the whole time you’re not sure where the finish line is (or it’s so far away that you’ve lost hope) and it takes tremendous energy even to keep going. Suffering for the wrong thing is like climbing up a very long ladder, only to discover you’ve set it against the wrong wall. You get the idea.
I taught American Sign Language for many years at a local college. For the first several years, I loved it. After a while, I began to dread the beginning of each semester—yet I loved speaking to the class and making people laugh. Finally, I came to a point where I didn’t want to continue. I realized I wanted to speak to people and entertain them, not teach course work. After fifteen years of teaching, I left. Several times in the years since, I’ve been offered teaching positions, but I’ve declined them. My heart was no longer in the work, so it was not my path.
When you encounter the “I don’t want to do this” feeling, you’re being moved toward something more. This is growth.
“Being passionate about something means you’re willing to be vested in it through thick and thin.”
At a One Day to Greatness workshop in Chicago, Jack Canfield talked about his own revelation of discovering he no longer had the passion to continue to produce Chicken Soup for the Soul books. He was not having fun. He was no longer looking forward to each new project. He was totally bored, he told the audience. He and Mark Victor Hansen sold their company and moved on to more exciting projects that were lined up with their passion and purpose.
When the purpose, the meaning, and the why of what you’re doing is lined up with something your heart truly beats for, then you’ll endure the suffering. Passion will pull you through it.
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl taught us, man can endure any “how” if the “why” is strong enough. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves,” he wrote. Even in the most horrific conditions, Viktor was able to choose his attitude, his thoughts, and his actions in the prison.
A sense of purpose and meaning leads to fulfillment in life. Pause here and ask yourself the “why” of what you do, or what you want to do. What’s driving you? What’s the why behind it?
“Most people won’t continue doing something they aren’t passionate about, especially when it gets hard. Putting an activity through painful practice is a great way to determine your direction in life. If you can do something when it’s not fun, even when you’re exhausted and bored and want to give up, then it just might be your calling.”
I used to think I was really weird because my life wasn’t typical after I graduated from college. I worked many different jobs while my kids were growing up. Retail, printing, substitute teaching, early intervention, writing, non-profit, sales, management, and speaking. I always felt (and still do) as if I have multiple interests and I’m passionate about many of them. Jeff Goins, author of The Art of Work, calls this multi-talent/multi-interest the “Portfolio Life.” A portfolio life isn’t just about what you do, it’s about who you are, Jeff explains on his blog, goinswriter.com. As a dreamer who constantly tries new things and re-invents new paths—this was my fit.
Emilie Wapnick, in her TEDx talk, “Why Some of Us Don’t Have One True Calling,” specifically addresses the idea of one having too many passions; she calls such persons “multipotentialites,” people who have a range of interests and jobs over one lifetime. Dorie Clark, a marketing strategy consultant, speaker, author, and comedian, has another name for those who are passionately immersed in many things: “Renaissance people.”
For many years, I struggled with my constant desire to jump into new things, new experiences, and new directions. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to pay attention during long meetings or why I wasn’t able to manage some daily tasks. I frequently forgot appointments whenever I was engaged in something that interested me. I’ve since learned that when I’m deep into something I’m passionate about, I can sustain energy and enthusiasm far beyond what some people consider “normal.” I’ve learned to align myself with projects, jobs, and purposes that I’m passionate about and to say a loving “no” to that which does not line up.
“I guess I’d define passion as what you choose to do when you don’t have to do it—the thing you enjoy so much you’re compelled to do it.”
“When what you do is in alignment with who you are, you get energy from doing it,” Suzanne Fetting, a Confidence Coach, told me. When you are aligned with your passions, coincidences and other signs will appear on the path. The key is to pay attention and be open to the extraordinary incidences, happenings, and experiences that show up. This is called synchronicity. One of my favorite authors, Dr. Wayne Dyer, explains synchronicity in this way:
If it excites you, the very presence of that inner excitement is all the evidence you need to remind you that you’re aligned with your true essence. When you are following your bliss, you are most amenable to receiving guidance from the spiritual realm. This is called synchronicity, a state in which you almost feel as if you are in a collaborative arrangement with fate.
My husband Joe and I were fortunate to attend one of Wayne’s events before he passed away. It all began with a simple question, “Do you want to go to a Wayne Dyer event with me?” My husband recalled watching one of Wayne’s shows on PBS and he liked learning from him. So we planned to attend Wayne’s event and celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary in California.
Just before the event, one of Wayne’s newsletters arrived in my email box. In it, he wrote this about passion:
Passion always trumps excuses. Keep in mind that when I use the word passion, I’m not referring to the romantic notions that this concept conjures. Instead, I’m equating it to a vigorous kind of enthusiasm that you feel deep within you and that isn’t easy to explain or define. This kind of passion propels you in a direction that seems motivated by a force beyond your control. It’s the inner excitement of being on the right path, doing what feels good to you, and what you know you were meant to do.
After Wayne’s event, Joe and I took off for Venice Beach to celebrate our anniversary. We wanted to stay in Santa Monica, but we ended up finding a deal at a vintage hotel.
“There must be a reason why we ended up here,” I said.
Why in the world has my intuition led me to pick this hotel? I wondered. I had reviewed several hotels, received recommendations for Santa Monica hotels from friends–and here we were—in an area more suited for the casual, freewheeling lifestyle.
“It’s getting late,” Joe said. “Let’s make the best of it.”
The 100-year old hotel was charming. The staff was friendly and welcoming. After we unloaded our luggage, we took off to explore the ocean walk. To commemorate our special occasion, we wanted to watch a sunset on the beach.
The energy was high (pun intended, considering the marijuana we smelled here and there.) Color and movement were everywhere. A young man came bounding up, complimented me on how “fine” I looked, and attempted to sell me a CD. The sun was beginning to hang low in the sky, so Joe and I grabbed some beach chairs from the hotel and took off to watch the sunset.
Just as the last of the light began to fade, a man walked up to us.
“Hi! I’m sorry to bother you, but I saw you taking pictures and I don’t have my phone with me. I wonder if you could send me some of your pictures?”
We were happy to share the photos, and after we sent them off, we began to talk. Francis was a psychotherapist from Boston. The topics of spirituality, theology, and yoga came up in our conversation. We told him we were celebrating our upcoming twenty-fifth anniversary and shared a bit about our night with Wayne Dyer. Soon it became too dark to talk, so we folded up our chairs and hugged goodbye.
When we arrived back at the hotel, we returned the beach chairs and struck up a conversation with the hotel manager. He gave us some history about the hotel and showed us pictures of the renovations that had taken place.
Just as we were about to head up to our room, a woman breezed in. As she put down her luggage, I spied a bright blue bag with the words, “I Can Do It.” We had the same bag in our room.
“Were you at the Wayne Dyer event in Pasadena Friday night?” I asked.
“I was! I think I saw you there!” she said.
Beverly had come from London to attend the weekend event to explore her purpose and future. It was the perfect time for her since she was no longer working and she was seeking clarity and meaning for her next step. We laughed at the synchronicity that brought us all to the same place. After all, what are the chances of three people among 3,000 attendees ending up at the same hotel miles away from the event, at the exact same moment, with one arriving and the other leaving?
When we arrived back in our room, a text from Francis popped up. As I read his text, suddenly all the dots of the journey connected. He sent us a heartfelt poem, “A Blessing for Marriage” by John O’Donohue.
It was a beautiful twenty-fifth anniversary, and looking back, I could see all the moments of synchronicity that tied it all together and ended in an extraordinary experience.
That’s the beauty of what happens in life when you are aligned with passion and purpose—things will fall into place. Moments of synchronicity and alignment will appear when you are on a path of joy.
Remember, people will come into your life and help guide you when you are on a passionate path. When I decided to become a speaker, I spent some time researching the best speakers. One name continually came up: Chad Hymas. I was familiar with Chad’s story from Kevin Hall’s book, Aspire. Chad became paralyzed from a bale of hay that landed on him at the age of twenty-seven. He turned his gift of gab into a successful speaking business—traveling over 200 days per year to speak at major corporations and conferences. I set an intention to meet Chad.
A few months later, I received an email notification that Chad would be coming to the Chicago area the next day. I contacted Chad’s office to see whether it would be possible to meet him.
“Yes,” was the response. I could meet with him briefly after his speaking gig.
I was six hours away at an event that I was working at and had planned to leave the next day. Instead, late at night, I hopped in my rental car and set out for home. Two hours into the drive, my tire blew. It was another hour and half before I could get back on the road again. I was dead tired and I still had another four hours of driving ahead of me. Yet, I was so passionately excited about meeting Chad that I willingly powered through the drive. Chad was in the Speaker Hall of Fame and he was an immensely popular speaker—I wasn’t going to miss this chance to meet him.
When I arrived at the hotel, I met with Chad in his room. Now before you get any crazy ideas, I should explain that Chad cannot control his body temperature. He was feeling dangerously cold that morning and was sitting in bed parked next to a heater.
During the next hour, we talked and connected. Chad gave me so many wonderful speaking tips and lots of advice. I could feel my confidence growing by the minute—I could do this speaking thing! Suddenly, Chad stopped and said, “Now I know why my other speaking trip didn’t work out—we were supposed to meet.”
Synchronicity in action.
Chad was set to go out of the country to speak, but when he arrived at the airport, he discovered he didn’t have the proper visa for the trip. He turned around and went back home. Then he received a call from a friend asking him to take over a speaking gig in Chicago.
And that’s how we met.
And that’s how I started my speaking journey—powered by Chad’s wisdom and advice.
When you are clear about what you want and passionate about your life—people will show up to open doors for you and guide you along the way.
Try it.
And stay open to the people and opportunities that show up on your path.
“Passion is what motivates you to wake up in the morning; it’s an internal compass that drives your decision making. Passion is dedicating your life to something. It’s not a passing fling where you devote lots of time and jump in fast in the beginning only to get burnt out and abandon it later. It’s something you can’t disconnect from. It’s always there like a constant hunger. Passion is a gift from God.”
Do you remember your early days of being a kid without a care in the world? Do you remember the feelings of excitement and anticipation when you were little?
When I close my eyes, I can remember the swings at a park near my home. I spent so many hours at this park as a very young girl. I can still feel the warmth of the sun as I reached the peak of the upswing and how it felt to stay suspended in mid-air for a fraction of a second before beginning the downswing.
Something so simple—swinging on a swing—yet it represents everything I know about passion: carefree joy and freedom.
And here’s the thing: We can get that back at any age. It all begins with the power to choose our thoughts and our attitudes. We can infuse playfulness into our lives by our actions as well.
Let me introduce you to someone who chose to play like a kid again. Theresa Rose has a passion for hula hoops. Ever since she was a young girl, she loved dancing, but as a woman carrying a few extra pounds, she never gave herself permission to indulge in it. One day, she went to a summer solstice celebration and watched a dancer using a hula hoop. “That was the first time I saw a person dancing without fear and without a male partner,” Theresa said.
She then felt encouraged to purchase a hula hoop, but she rarely touched it. A few years and many pounds later, Theresa realized she was putting life on hold. She had become quite sedentary and depressed. There was no spark in her daily activities.
Theresa picked up the hula hoop again, but this time, she fell in love. She named the hoop, “Stella,” and Theresa finally gave herself permission to play. She dove deep into hula-hoop dancing and discovered an incredible joy that resulted from her newfound playtime.
“I’m a strong advocate of abandoning exercise and embracing play,” Theresa explained. “When you start moving physically and give yourself permission to play, it re-frames your mind to be open to receiving joy daily.”
Theresa went on to explain how passion fits in with play:
Passion means unbridled enthusiasm from within—it can’t be manipulated, it can’t be held, it can’t be controlled. It’s like a language that you speak—when you first start, you might not know all the language. We are exposed to a language we already know inside; we become more familiar and explore that language—it becomes second nature and that’s the only language you want to speak. When you find people in the same passion, the same language, some amazing things happen for business or relationships in the community. So it’s wonderful to know what your passion is and let your passion guide your daily activities and guide your decisions. Passion is a really strong energy—people will feel it.
Theresa now shares her passion with others, teaching them how to incorporate play into their lives and connect with their passions. She has a collapsible hoop that she brings on the plane with her, and every single day, she taps into her mental and physical energy by stepping into a hoop and letting it fly.
So let’s stop here for a moment and reflect back on moments in your life when you were engaged in joyous play. Jot down your memories.
When was the last time you engaged in carefree, joyous play? What can you do today to experience play once again?
“Passion—the hunger, the drive, the love, the fire in the belly—is key in the achievements of any person engaged in any endeavor. Passion is fuel for success. If you don’t have it, you need to keep looking for something to get passionate about. When you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you work more slowly, less efficiently, less creatively, and people with more positive energy pass you by. Nothing great in life has ever been done without a little passion.”