Thursday, October 04, 2007

Finding your Purpose will Light you Up

This week I had a coaching client who called me about helping him get direction in his career, and to figure out a strategy to market his business. He just sent his son off to college and was now redirecting his energies from the constant role of father to the role of entrepreneur. This individual has great opportunities as a high level professional, however, every single time he talked about it, it was if the light in his face went out.

In my program, the Intensive Executive Workout, I spend several hours with my client hearing about their career and their vast experience. We identify their strengths and their weaknesses through assessment tests before hand, and set a goal of what we’d like to accomplish. When we talk, I ask questions that open up a lot of discussion around topics that really seem to light up the client. In this particular case, the client had spent many years traveling in a network marketing company as an executive. He was able to deliver speeches all over about the company and loved the aspect of sharing the message of the company.

Constantly, he’d come back to stories about his son or about things he learned about being a father. Throughout the day, we bounced around from professional marketing plans, to public relations to his experience. It was so evident by the end of the day, that the best way for him to increase his business was through speaking. I helped him identify some of his values that were consistent throughout his life of teaching, inspiring, learning, motivating and transformation. We then applied these values to different groups that he could inspire from kids to church to professional. The last idea that I had that came at the very end of the day, was that he’d be a great leader to other fathers, to teach them about how to be a dad.

At that moment, this man’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He grinned so big and said, “I’m just a dad who loves his son.” His words were so sincere and so beautiful and I could just see him at that moment on stage ready to deliver a message to thousands of people and how they’d love him for his humbleness and his pure and authentic heart. At that moment, I got tears in my eyes and knew, that we were on to something special.

Since our coaching, my client has said that he hasn’t had this much hope in his career for the past many years. He’s excited about the opportunities for what lies ahead. I’m so thrilled that together, we partnered to find a new purpose for his life, and one that lights him up.

What about you, does your purpose get you out of bed early in the morning and ever keep your head buzzing? Do you know that you’d do this even if you couldn’t make money at it, that you know that you have a special gift to share with the world?

My client admitted he could go get a job making great money, but inside he’d be dead. He knew that he was here to do something different but just didn’t know what it was. He’s now on his way. Are you?

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