My question for you today is ‘What is your TRUE passion?’
Many of you who know me, are aware that mine is adventure.
When I filmed this blog I was on the Californian coastline running; I love running, I love fitness, I love adventure, I love mountaineering – they are part of my adventures and are my true passions. However, It took me a long while to discover this and I think a lot of people never discover theirs, or they think they have but when they’re truly challenged they may find they have got it wrong. This is particularly true of entrepreneurs and business owners. I ask this question a lot in business, especially when discussing ‘Purpose’ (which is why we exist in business) as one of the elements of this is ‘Passion’.
So what is it you’re passionate about? A lot of time when I discuss this you can almost see and hear the tumbleweed going through the room! The brutal truth of business is that a lot of people are building the WRONG business and don’t truly understand what their passions are within the business.
Many years ago I was challenged by my mentor about what my passion was, and at the time I didn’t know. I had to go and discover it.
A lot of the time it may not be what you think, for example when I’m discussing it with people they may say:
‘I love building business’
To which I will reply ‘OK which parts?’
They say ‘I love building all elements of the business’
I say ‘Ok do you love finance?’
They say ‘No No!’
My reply is ‘Then you don’t love building ALL the elements of the business! Do you like hiring and firing people?’
They say ‘No I don’t’ like that either!’
I reply with ‘Well which bits do you love then? You have got to dial it in, and you’ve got to work it out before it’s too late’
Often I think some people look at me and go ‘well it’s alright for you Deri you found your passion, you found your calling’. This is true, but it took me decades to do it, a lot of hard work and a lot of failures, I think the thing that truly woke me up was the death of my father.
I know a lot of you out there will have experienced a form of death and may have lost someone close to you. My father died from cancer. I know this will resonate with so many people out there, a lot of you will have lost people the same way. It happened quickly, it happened fast, and it was brutal, to me, the family, and my mother who was left behind.
The sad thing that really hit me during that time, and which spurs me on to this day, is that my father died, but the saddest thing was he died with his dreams intact. He’d never truly found his passion, he’d never lived the life he wanted to live. He always was a ‘someday’ guy. ‘One day I’m going to do this, someday I’m going to do that’ and someday never came. That hit me so hard when it happened. When that really sank in and once the bereavement period was over (and it took a long time) I vowed that I would not go the same way. I vowed that whilst I was here on this planet I was going to live life. I was going to maximise life; take everything it had to offer.
Now I don’t know what belief you have, I don’t know if I’m coming back sometime soon after this lifetime - who does? So I’m not taking the risk while I’m here that we might not be back. If this is my one shot on this earth, and look how beautiful it is, I want to experience all it’s got to offer. That’s why I do the crazy stuff I do. I’ve run across the Sahara desert, I’ve climbed some of the highest mountains in the world, I’ve done an Ironman, and now I’m heading out to Everest. All of that stuff is not just pure ego sport, it’s spiritual, it’s a calling and I get to see the coolest places on earth. In climbing the highest mountain on every continent I’ve got to experience places from Alaska to deepest Russia and Africa, and I can tell you this world we live in is an amazing place, providing we as human beings don’t screw it up in the decades to come!
I love being out there, I love being in nature, I love re-connecting with my passions, every single day, every single week, every single month and asking ‘am I living the life that I want to live, am I truly living my passions?’ Adventure to me is one of my passions. My family, my children, everything else, there’s a number of other passions out there, but adventure to me is at its core, and if I’m not doing it, if I’m not out watching the sun rise over the beautiful ocean – then I’m not living, and there’s an emptiness in me.
So now what I want you to think about is, what is it for you? And I mean truly, what is it for you? Is it something you lost? Is it music, yoga, running, sport – what is it? There are usually clues in our childhood. I used to love adventure when I was a kid and I lost it for two decades. So I got it back. If money wasn’t an option and time wasn’t an option what would you do? How would you live your life every day? What is it you would miss? And I think the biggest one is – if you died today what would you regret? What would be the one thing you would regret that you haven’t done, or hadn’t done constantly? For a lot of people it is time with our loved ones.
But don’t just get into a full life of service either, where you are doing everything for other people. I got trapped in there for a few years, particularly when my children were younger. When it was all about the children and my wife and I lost ‘me’ in the process. By losing ‘me’ I couldn’t be fully present with them. That’s the irony - kind of a double kick in the nuts!
I want you to think, find your passions and live them. Share below what they are.
Life’s too short and this world is too magical not to explore it fully.
