Young Professional,
Several years ago, my niece was going through her confirmation for our church. As her confirmation sponsor, her support as she enters as a young adult in the church, we went on a mandatory retreat.
The retreat was filled with many activities one of which was to fill out a questionnaire on each other. There were 10 identical questions we were to answer about each other.
One question stopped me cold when my niece answered it. The question…What do you admire about your sponsor? Her answer was a single syllable word, DRIVE. It wasn’t the word that stopped me cold, but the explanation behind it. In a very matter of fact way, she said “Auntie I admire your drive I just don’t have it like you. Your work means everything to you.”
I put a lot of effort into driving my brand in business. Now I asked myself what is my Personal Brand Intention (PBI) as an Aunt? It was both troubling and fascinating to me that my niece saw my #1 priority was work. This one question spurred a discussion between us. We talked about the difference of Drive versus Passion.
I told her that day it wasn’t that work was my #1 priority, but work made me happy. For some reason I love business, I am passionate about it and developing young professionals. Sharing my life and business experiences to help others learn and grow. I told her to find her passion and the rest in life will fall into place. A few years later after her freshman year in college, she realized her current major,Marine Biology was not a fit. She could not be passionate about living life in a lab, I was thrilled she switched and followed her passion. She will make an AMAZING teacher.
I revisited a Ted Talk I saw years ago, The Happy Secret to Better Work and recently shared it with other young professionals. Lots of little nuggets of interesting information such as:
What determines success?
How do you view stress determines how well you manage it?
How do we stay positive in the “present” when life is going 100 MPH?
If nothing else listening to Shawn Achor TED X is entertaining!
Fondly,
Aunt Kris