Session One: How To Create Work You Love One: How To Create Work You Love ... a vision for your career that reflects your authentic self ... player Michael Jordan, singer Celine Dion,

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ARRIVE: Career Success Training for Maximum Wealth, Achievement, and Fulfillment © Lisa Brown & Associates 2014 www.thecouragetowin.com. All Rights Reserved.

Session One: How To Create Work You Love In a recent Salary.com survey, only 15% of people reported being “satisfied with

their work.” 65% of employees admitted to “looking around” even during a recession. Virtually every person has wrestled with the question, "What do I want to be

when I grow up?" No one likes working eight hours per day on projects that are meaningless to him. We all crave a life of meaning.

Stephen Covey says, “Deep within each one of us there is an inner longing to live

a life of greatness and contribution – to really matter, to really make a difference.” You are going to create a vision for your career that reflects your authentic self

and motivates you.

Passion vs. True Purpose

Many people get paralyzed when they mull over career or business options. They assume they need a glamorous job to be fulfilled. To be fulfilled, glamour is not necessary, but finding your highest self at work is. You may excel at many tasks, but only a few will cause you to delight in your abilities.

Passion means that you are working on activities that make your heart sing. Your True Purpose is your meaningful contribution helping people solve their

problems.

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The #1 Career Mistake Confusing Your “Passion” with Your “True Purpose”

What do most people do when they try to create work they LOVE?

Right! They list all the activities they LOVE to do – like playing sports, watching TV, singing in the shower, painting, shopping, or organizing their home.

Then they think, “Who is going to pay me to sing in the shower? My Dream Job/ Business is never gonna happen.”

The problem with this approach to creating work you love is that it’s based solely on a Passion. It leaves out your True Purpose.

What’s the difference?

A Passion is an activity that makes your heart sing. It puts you in the zone, the zen moment, the Now….it causes you to delight in your own abilities.

When you have a Passion, the activity itself is its own joy; you’d do it whether someone paid you money or not. A Passion is intrinsically motivating.

Your True Purpose is different. Your True Purpose is your meaningful contribution to the world. It is only expressed when you help people solve their problems.

Getting a massage or watching a movie may make your heart sing, but it’s not meaningful because your Passion is not helping anyone.

(Yes, for 5% of people out there, their passion and true purpose are actually one - like basketball player Michael Jordan, singer Celine Dion, and daredevil Evil Knieval. But these people are the exception, not the rule.)

Work you LOVE happens when your Passion and True Purpose overlap. When a task both makes your heart sing and helps others solve their problems, presto!

Meaning & money. So how do you find the overlap? Rather than trying to get someone to pay you for your latest Passion, you

figure out how to combine a Passion and your True Purpose.

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For this, you must go deeper. You find out Who You Really Are so you can express yourself authentically at work.

The first step is to understand what makes your heart sing.

Your Passion: What Make Your Heart Sing?

Since “What activities make your heart sing?” is a tough question for most people to answer, I’m going to give you some guidelines and case studies.

Activities that make your heart sing (and provide clues to your life’s purpose) have

the following common denominators: 1. They cause you to delight in your own abilities. 2. They put you in the zone, the zen moment, the Now. In these activities, you

are free of fear; you are neither self-seeking nor self-conscious. You are responding to what the moment demands.

3. The activity itself is its own joy; you’d do it whether someone paid you money or not. They are intrinsically motivating for you.

4. The activity is meaningful and gives you a sense of contribution. For example, getting a massage or watching a movie may “make your heart sing” because it is enjoyable, but it is not meaningful.

Step 1 – Your Passions: First Impressions

First impressions, or “free association” responses, are hard to beat. In the space below, write down all the activities that make your heart sing and meet the criteria above. Do NOT worry that they are not money-making activities right now. Also, do NOT confine the examples to the present. Think back to your whole life, including your childhood, when writing them down.

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Step 2 - Your Greatness: Delighting In Your Own Abilities

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Perhaps the most important criterion is that the activity causes you to delight in your own abilities. When zeroing in on your career purpose, you must know and understand your personal gifts and true strengths.

Where are you REALLY good? In the space below, identify activities that make you very impressed with

yourself. Do not worry if there is repetition from the above list:

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Filtering Now, cross off any activities that drain you energetically. For example, you may be very good at writing and get praise for your end product. But, when you think of writing and when you are writing, it drains you of energy. Then, cross off any activities that give you ‘feel-good’ happiness. That is, there is no sense of meaning or contribution. For example, getting a massage or watching TV may make you feel good but do not give you a sense of contribution.

Step 3 – What Themes Do Your Passions Express? The next step is to find the themes that are expressed by your passions. Here’s a quick case study for you to use as an example.

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Case Study: Jacob

Jacob was a successful speaker who got rave reviews from audiences, yet was miserable. “I’m starting to dread every seminar,” he told me. “I’m even getting fat! I’m so unhappy that I eat treats at every break in my seminar,” he confessed.

Jacob’s “short list” of activities that made his heart sing were:

1. Shooting hoops in his driveway 2. Organizing and cleaning his room 3. Being alone at his family’s cabin (doing puzzles, reading, fishing)

At first glance, Jacob’s list looks hopeless. Who is going to give Jacob a job

shooting hoops? This is where most people give up. They look at the activity itself and if it’s not a money-maker, they become discouraged.

Remember: the activity itself is not going to give you a roadmap for creating work you love. We must look at the underlying desire that the activity is expressing.

I asked Jacob, “What appealed to you about these activities?”

After some reflection, he replied, “They all involve mastery and solitude. I’m basically a geek. I like working alone; I love being organized; and I need to see results right away.”

Jacob’s first desire is introversion (the need to get energy from being alone). Jacob is a very introverted dude - he gets energy from being alone. Extroverts get energy from being with people.

Jacob had gotten into speaking because he was charming, funny, and articulate. But being with people all day long was completely sapping his energy.

Jacob’s second desire? Order (the need to organize and feel things are predictable and under control). Jacob LOVES to organize, but writing speeches is creative work- not structured at all. This was not a good fit for him because he craves order in his work.

The third theme of Jacob’s was mastery, or seeing tangible results of your efforts. As a professional speaker, Jacob never saw actual changes occur. He got excellent evaluations, but he never saw tangible results in the people he spoke to, because he never saw them again. This left him feeling like things were unfinished.

By spotting his three key desires, Jacob was able to create his Dream Job. He became “the guy-behind-the-guy” in his seminar company. He created a role that made money for the company by improving their systems – everything from how to

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get clients to training people to fill out evaluations.

A year later, Jacob was much happier. He relished the solitude of his office; he loved creating order in the company; and he got to see results immediately when a new system was implemented.

Of course your list of work desires will be unique to you. Example: the opposite of Jacob’s themes would be extroversion (needing to get energy from being with others), creativity (needing to generate and express ideas), and nurturing (supporting and helping people). You could express these desires in roles such as social work, therapy, counselling, coaching, and teaching.

Case Study: Bev

Bev was recently offered two jobs in her company and genuinely didn't know which one to take. I asked Bev to write down activities that make her heart sing - now and in the past.

Her list?

Doing puzzles, playing basketball, sharing her knowledge with others (especially in front of a group), being fit, giving gifts, singing in her car.

Now here's where most people stump themselves. They look at the activities that make them happy and think, "How am I going to get anyone to pay me to sing in my car?"

That's where they give up.

Looking at Bev's list, most people conclude, "Bev likes puzzles. Her passion must be solving complex technical problems." Bev IS a great problem solver, but that's not why she loved doing puzzles. I asked Bev, "What did you like about doing puzzles?"

Bev: "I would tell myself stories, usually fantasy stories in my head...it would absorb me for hours."

Turns out Bev is a master storyteller. She loves crafting presentations and delivering them. She's the queen of the radio station WIIFM - "What's In It For Me." She knows what interests people, and storytelling meets her need for creativity and power.

Plus Bev is an extrovert and a performer. This means she gets energy from being

with people and can handle being the centre of attention (that's why she loves singing in her car).

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Here is a list of common self-expression themes: Power (need for competence, mastery, and influence) Extroversion (need to get energy from being with others) Introversion (need to get energy from being alone) Creativity/Invention (need to generate and express ideas) Nurturing/Teaching (need to support, teach, and help people) Curiosity/Intellectualism (need to learn; thirst for knowledge) Problem Solving (need to diagnose the underlying cause of a problem) Independence (need to do things without help from others) Order (need to organize and feel things are predictable and under control) Idealism (need to contribute to social justice, including altruism and humanitarian work) Social contact (need for companionship) Tranquility (need for emotional calm) Vengeance (need for competitiveness) Status (need for social standing) Physical activity (need for muscle activity) Romance/Aesthetics (need for beauty, sensual, and aesthetic pleasure) Analysis (need to scrutinize the details of how and why things work) Supervision (need to take charge through wise supervising and delegating) Following (need to provide reliable support to leaders) Healing (need to ease the pain and improve the lives of others) Leader (need to lead) Performance (need to perform and be in the spotlight) Warrior (need to express courage through physical, spiritual, and moral challenges)

In the space below, write down the common themes contained in your list of

passions (activities that make your heart sing):

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Step 4 – Spotting Career or Business Roles

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The next step in finding your true purpose is to match up career roles with the themes you are most passionate about. Below is a list of activities one Live Your Dreams client generated (she is currently an accountant) created in answer to the question, “What makes your heart sing?”

1. Learning – I love to learn new things and throughout my life have taken

continuing education classes. Any class that I participate in I am attentive and

engaged in the learning. This is even more noticeable now as an adult.

2. I love sharing my new learnings from a course/book/conference with others.

3. Making a presentation that I am well prepared for and know my subject

4. Producing a product (i.e. the budget document, annual financial report) that is

comprehensive, tells the story succinctly, but is interesting and beautifully put

together, free from error and wins awards.

5. I love to share my knowledge and skills with others at work to help them learn

and create understanding.

6. Being approached for guidance/coaching regarding personal issues.

7. Writing a personalized letter to each of my staff at Christmas time that

appreciates them for their uniqueness and contribution to the organization.

8. Finding a simple solution to a difficult problem when we’ve been trying to make

the solution way more complex than it needs to be. We had a payroll issue

earlier this year where we were needed to re-align the timesheet submissions to

the pay date. I discovered a negative deduction which would create a long-term

receivable from the employees that we would recover as employees terminated.

9. Finding the connections in a number of concepts and being able to articulate

those connections to others.

10. Generating new ideas and in particular finding efficiencies in our current work.

Always questioning how can we do this better – raising the standards of

performance.

11. Setting a goal and achieving it.

12. I am motivated by and enjoy competition. We did a team building last summer

and divided into two teams. It really struck me that day how competitive I was,

but how much fun I had trying to find our way through the maze. I was like a kid

that day.

13. Dancing. The instructor absolutely makes learning fun and when I look at the

improvement I’ve made over a six different sessions it’s amazing and my

instructor commented about it on Saturday!

14. Travelling – exploring new places appreciating the architecture, the art, cultural

differences and landscapes

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15. Skiing on a beautiful sunny day and feeling the rhythm on my skis

16. Photography – learning how to take a great shot and then actually getting a

great shot!

17. Decorating my home, particularly at Christmas time, but I like to change it as the

seasons change.

18. I enjoy making centrepieces from fresh boughs at Christmas time and I regularly

have fresh flowers in my home. On my list of things to do is to take a floral

arranging class.

19. Scrapbooking my photographs along with the story and/or information/facts of

the photos.

20. Talking about the mind/body connection with others.

21. Working out at the gym and noticing the improvement in strength, flexibility,

speed, etc.

22. Trying a new recipe (particularly something a bit more exotic than I have done

before) and have it turn out!

23. Finding the little girl in me, doing crazy fun things and being completely free in

expressing her, not worrying at all about the judgement of others (i.e. running

through the sprinklers on the golf course and not getting wet, laying in a circle

on the golf course, looking at the stars, heads touching and taking a picture of all

of us!). There’s probably the element of surprise that I love to bring out.

24. Cleaning and tidying up, being organized – everything in its place.

25. While I spend very little time shopping, I love it when I find the perfect outfit that

is flattering and I feel terrific in it.

26. Lastly, did I mention shoe shopping! Now they are a work of art!

At first glance, this list seems overwhelming, doesn’t it? But, when you examine it

further, you can see that points 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10 are all activities that fall into a

coaching and consulting role.

Every point is about showing people how they can solve problems and succeed, as

well as supporting them in the process.

What’s more, points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 20 are all activities that fall into a

learning/teaching role. They are all about having, creating and delivering a learning

experience to others, usually in the form of a presentation. Remember, people who love

to learn usually love to teach, because it’s always a learning experience.

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The rest of the activities fall into two more categories: physical activity (dancing

and competing) and romance/aesthetics (art and shopping). The physical activity

category definitely caused her to delight in her abilities; the sensory experiences merely

caused her to delight – they gave her ‘feel-good happiness.’

When you review my client’s list, it becomes obvious that a role involving

coaching/consulting/learning/teaching is what reflects her True Purpose. (If my client

was under the age of 30, I would have encouraged her to explore physical activity as an

option too).

My client was really surprised when I pointed out these commonalities. I believe

this is because we are not objective about ourselves. That’s why you should send me the

answers to these assignments so I can help you pull together your personal themes and

suggest possible roles for you.

Here are some examples: If you have a strong need to express the themes of Nurturing/Teaching and

Curiosity/Intellectualism, then teaching or consulting are roles will match these themes.

If you add Problem solving and Healing to the mix, then being a therapist or life

coach is a wonderful blend of all four themes. If the themes of Performance, Extrovert, and Creativity are important to you,

then the role of professional speaker or actor will appeal. Add in Status, and you will want to be a celebrity as well.

If the themes of Introversion, Creativity, and Curiosity/Intellectualism appeal to

you, then being a writer will appeal. But if you are extraverted as opposed to introverted, being a journalist would be a better fit. If the themes Warrior, Leader, Vengeance, and Physical Activity make you happy, then the role of firefighter or police officer are ideal.

If the themes of Power, Independence, Vengeance, Competitiveness, and

Leader are you, then the role of entrepreneur is complimentary. If the themes of Order, Analysis, Introversion, and Problem solving get you fired up, then roles such as engineer or accountant are a good fit.

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In the space below, write down at least three possible roles that reflect themes you are passionate about expressing. (There are over 12,000 possible roles, jobs, and businesses. You can find them using a quick internet search).

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Step 5 – Resurrect Past Dreams

The final obstacle most people face is when they have already cast aside their true Purpose because of past disappointments. If this describes you, you’ll relate to the following true story from another Live Your Dreams client…

Louise, a Live Your Dreams client, gave up on her singing and songwriting Dream five years ago.

“Why?” I asked her. “I realized I wasn’t going to make it, so I put my guitar away,” she said. Louise made the classic mental error that will kill your confidence (and your Dream)

every time. And this is important, so please listen up. When you're not winning, the important thing isn’t that you are failing. The issue is: WHY are you failing? …which is exactly what I asked Louise. “I sang for the President of Universal music.

He told me he didn’t believe me. He said I tried to write a hit record for him and I sounded fake.”

Turns out, Louise’s best songs are not upbeat, ‘trying to get a hit’ ones, but songs

celebrating people she loves. And, her voice needs more training for her to be world class.

Simple stuff, really.

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Yet these insights had escaped Louise, because all she had never asked the

question, "What's wrong with my music?" Top performers think differently about failure than people who give up and lose

their momentum. People who give up think, “I’m failing. This is humiliating. I should quit.”People with superior confidence think, “WHY am I failing? What do I need to learn? Who can help me?”

Isn’t it obvious who succeeds? People who have the stomach to learn from their

mistakes no matter how humbling they are. Here’s a Live Your Dreams case study of reviving a dream. Sheila completed this

tutorial by writing down 42 activities that make her heart sing. From them she recognized five themes:

1. Introversion 2. Curiosity/Intellectualism 3. Creativity/Invention 4. Independence 5. Nurturing/Teaching

Finally Sheila transformed this list into three possible roles: 1. Consultant, Speaker & Trainer 2. University Professor 3. Travel Writer When Sheila and I had our coaching session, we agreed that #2, University

Professor, was the perfect fit. Then Sheila made a spectacular confession. "I've wanted to get my PhD for years, but I always talked myself out of it." For years Sheila has been giving herself 'reasons' - lack of money, lack of time, lack of support...she finally realized that her reasons were really excuses.

In less than a week she wiped her excuses off the map. She went out and found a

PhD program she can do while working. She asked her husband for support (he's 100% behind her). Now she's writing her application essay. When she thinks about her, it fills her with excitement and energy.

Nice work, Sheila. If you are someone who has cast aside your true Purpose because of previous

failures, your job now is to ask the question why. WHY did you fail? You might need to

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talk to an expert in your field to really understand the answer. In the meantime, record your best thoughts on the subject:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Your friend,

Lisa Lane Brown The Courage to Win®

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Session One: How To Create Work You Love One: How To Create Work You Love ... a vision for your career that reflects your authentic self ... player Michael Jordan, singer Celine Dion,