TRANSCRIPTION OF VIDEO
Now, here are two of my favorite P’s: passion and purpose. These are two areas that people have a lot of trouble figuring out in their life. Now, they’re always saying I need to be more passionate or what do I do to become more passionate? And what’s really my purpose or am I on purpose? And these are two wonderful questions.
Now, there’s some great advice you should remember that comes from the Bible. Seek and ye shall find.
And this is great advice because the more you ask these questions and the clearer that you get on what you’re here to do, the more these answers come to you and the more the teacher shows up when you need it.
A passion can be defined as many different things. It can be an interest, a hobby, something that really just gels with you. Now, it’s interesting when you look at passions because what gets you excited may not get me excited. You know, I frequently refer to the fact that I suck with mechanical things. You know, I like to talk and I get this sort of information and I know dancing, but outside of speaking and training and doing that sort of dancing performing, my skill base is pretty limited. Like, I’m not good with numbers or accounting, you know, and all that sort of industry. And I don’t really get juiced about sport, you know, typical sport like football and soccer, which you don’t really say in Australia. But for me that’s not really a passion.
I used to play a lot of it, but it’s not really something I actively go out and seek. But some other people live for it. Like it’s their thing. And you know what? That’s awesome. We all have things that we’re very passionate about.
But what we really want to get juiced on is not so much what our passions are. You see, those passions I just referred to are really interests or hobbies. They excite you because they resonate with your paradigm. They resonate with a childhood memory or ways that you grew up and you grew to love them, and that’s great.
What we want to have is a passion for our life and our work, and this is so important. Too many people are frustrated, depressed, and upset because they don’t have passion. And, you know, I’m a big believer that one of the reasons they don’t have passion is because they don’t know what they’re going for or after. And as a goal accelerator, with having a vision, with having a new self image, with having goals that you’re going to achieve, you will get a zest for life. The passion can be reignited.
You see, it’s not where you start, it’s where you’re going and where you end up that counts. And you can be a cleric or in the mail room or a checkout assistant at a shop and it’s totally irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. It is not where you start, it’s where you’re going. And if you look at any actor who’s famous in Hollywood, most of them were waiters around town. Did that bother them? Maybe for a little bit. But did it stop them? Hell no. What they did is they went, “I’m going to make it happen,” and they had passion for their industry. They had passion for what they wanted.
It’s not relevant where you are right now. It’s relevant where you’re going. Does that get you passionate? Does that give you spark? In my own life when I went from door to door TV sales, cable sales, it was a very tough time. Because I like to sell, but the thought of knocking on someone’s door and selling them cable TV on a cold basis, that was tough work. And, sure, the money was great, but wow. That was hard.
The thing was though, in my heart of hearts I knew this was getting me to my goal. I knew it was going to move me in the direction of my dreams. So I could push through the pain barrier. Now, that made me passionate, that made me excited.
People confused that and thought that I was just excited because I was selling. No, I saw the opportunity, and that’s what you need to understand. You need to recognize the opportunity. Be grateful for where you are. Start seeing where you are as the stepping stone to greater things, and I guarantee it will create passion.
See the awkward boss or the resistant boss or the challenges in your workplace or your life as a thank you platform, a platform you can grow from and launch off with a great attitude and you’ll get passionate straight away.
You see, there was a great talk by Richard St. John on TED recently, you should watch it. He went around and interviewed 500 of the most recent successes in current day life. And this reminds me of Napoleon Hill, actually, who interviewed 500 of the most successful people of his time back in the early 19th century. Granted he took 25 years to do the work.
But he… Richard accumulated this research into a huge variety of data and he listened for the key words that they talked about whether it was goals, dreams, visions, perseverance, all the different attributes in his interviews. And he literally ticked it off. He went from A to Z of some of the most successful people from accountants to actors to lawyers, to business owners, entrepreneurs. He literally went A to Z with 500 of the most successful. We’re talking Jeff Bezos from Amazon, we’re talking Oscar winning people and Nobel prize winners. These are the brightest minds in the world.
And what he accumulated was 8 traits that he found made people successful. Do you know what number one was? It wasn’t a goal, even though that’s important. It wasn’t just having a vision or being on purpose, although that’s very important. It wasn’t just a decision or having gratitude or a good attitude, although that’s very important.
It was passion. It is a passion. And I mean like an overwhelming passion for what you do. Now, what’s interesting is in this A to Z that I noticed is that in the A to Z it wasn’t all about being a celebrity. It wasn’t about all the hype that we’re all sold on that makes you happy. Because most of those people are very unhappy. It is about being passionate in the work that you are placed to do a purpose in.
And this brings me to my next point. Passion and purpose are actually linked together. Now, purpose is something you don’t decide on. Everything else in this course you’ve decided on.
Purpose you don’t. Purpose is something that you’ve been sent here to do. It is your God given reason for being on this planet. There are unique skills and talents hardwired in that you just… you just can’t change.
You know, I know people that are so mechanically talented and I, you know, I think I could learn it if I applied myself, but I wouldn’t be anywhere near as talented as these guys. That’s because their purpose is revolved around that industry.
You see, everybody has a purpose and I’m a big believer that if everybody in the world lived on purpose, we would have a totally different landscape, you know, geographically and, of course, with economically and the… a lot of the problems in the world would dissipate because of the purpose that we live on. And this is where a lot of the depression and the discord in our lives comes from. It’s because the purpose we have, we don’t live it. We don’t dare to dream it.
You know, people have told you for so long you are a great X, Y, and Z. And, you know, yeah. Yeah, I am. But just because you’ve built a skill up in one area, doesn’t mean you’re living on purpose. Some people are great managers and… but they’re not supposed to be a manager. Then they’re thrust into sales and then they become great salespeople, but they’re not supposed to be salespeople. Well, what are they? Well, maybe they’re the great entrepreneur. Maybe they’re supposed to be creating the businesses, not managing them or selling them. Do you see what I mean?
You see, there are skills and purposes deep within you. There are reservoirs of talent you can’t explain. You have literally infinite potential.
Now, think about that word infinite. That means there’s no beginning and no end. I don’t think our minds can actually grasp infinite. The fact that you can step out and totally change locations and vocations and go from scratch to being the best, you can do that in anything.
But the key is knowing if it’s on purpose or not. You need to ask the right questions to know if a purpose is… if you’re on purpose or not. Because just like the answer, it’s going to come in the quiet of the night. It’s going to come when you’re still. It’s going to come to you at the most unexpected time if you’re asking it. But nobody’s going to be able to tell you what it is. It’s something you need to recognize, but not decide on.
The beauty of this process is it can become passionate for you. It can be something that inspires more passion in your life as you start to explore. But I guarantee, if you ask the questions you’ll get the answer.
And they actually link together because when you start to go on purpose with your life and you discover what it is you’re meant to do, whether it’s teaching, whether it’s writing, whether it’s going out and influencing people with speaking, whether it’s coaching a team, whatever the skill is. It could be crunching numbers, there are so many ways that you can do your purpose. And it doesn’t have to do anything with what mainstream media says you need to do or what your spouse or your family says you need to do.
It has to do with what God sent you here to do. Your ability to recognize that is why you’re here to begin with. You need to challenge the paradigm you live with, you need to challenge the existing world you live in, and, most of all, you need to challenge yourself and recognize when the purpose becomes clear and then you need to decide to act on that as soon as you can. And by doing that you start to spark more passion back into your life.
So this is Vaughan Liddicoat. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed bringing you this extra video. I look forward to bringing you more and from now on, make a decision. Live with passion. Go out there and discover your purpose.
