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Finding your Passion
In my experience, finding your passion in life, and fulfilling it, has no age requirement, and really has no other similar requirements, other than being honest with yourself and having the courage to take action consistent with that honesty.
I was 45 when I found my passion and took a leap to fulfill it. I was a senior vice president with Citigroup, and was committed to doing whatever it took to produce results. But that drive became single-minded, leading to me being insensitive to the people around me. By relentlessly focusing on producing results, I was damaging the team's performance, and limiting the very results I was so committed to. In June of 1988, I was fired because of this. As I look back on that, I am truly embarrassed, even to this day. Shortly after being fired, I followed my passion and became a management consultant about 6 months later. How did this happen? Well, about 4 months after being fired, I had a "light bulb" moment (an "aha" moment) that changed my life and my career. Because of my past sports background, I had the opportunity to meet for a few hours with one of the greatest sports coaches in America, John Wooden of UCLA. The light bulb moment came when I asked him "what was the one thing you did that made you such a masterful coach and leader?" His answer changed my life: "All coaches have a commitment to winning. I had that commitment too, but had an equal commitment to relationships, never compromising on that dual commitment". When I heard that, I immediately realized that my career had not come close to that standard. It also dawned on me that many leaders I had worked with over the years hadn't measured up to that standard either. Many, like me, had that personal drive to win, or in business terms, produce sales and earnings results, with much less commitment to relationships. So I began to think about helping others who were in the same predicament I was, and after a few months of soul-searching, I realized that was truly my passion, and decided to take the leap and enter the management consulting world, to help leaders become more effective and successful. I've successfully coached thousands of leaders over the last two decades.  Authored by EXPERT: Al Ritter, The Ritter Consulting Groupblog comments powered by Disqus |