My last blog post was all about getting back on the horse. Walking the talk. You know, manning up.

However, today, I had a revelation that I believe will simply catapult my efforts to being my most awesome self.

As you may know, I do a lot of reading about success, growth, self-actualization, generally being the most kick ass version of yourself. The simplest and most common formula for success out there is:

 “Find your passion. Live your passion. Make obscene amounts of money from your passion”.

And when you live your passion, work is no longer work but pure bliss and every area of your life is infused with energy and enthusiasm because of this. Simple enough right? I mean, don’t we all know what we’re passionate about?  Yeah right!

Statistics show that only 5 out of every 100 people is ever going to be successful. So that means only 5% of the entire 7billion people on this planet actually know what their passion is and are living it out; not to mention successfully earning a living out of it. Chances are most of us don’t even know anyone in that elite five percentile.

As you can imagine, I’ve been super frustrated because I don’t have that “Oooh Oooh, I can’t wait to get up in the morning and go do this. I’m so blessed to have this job” special feeling that the successful talk about.

I mean even the disenchanted and rather suicidal sounding Preacher in the bible puts it like this:

 “For people and animals share the same fate—both breathe and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless! Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust.  For who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is why we are here! No one will bring us back from death to enjoy life after we die.”

So really, what’s the point in spending 12hours of your day everyday for your whole life, doing something that you don’t love? It’s been driving me crazy trying to figure out what I would love to do every waking moment of my life and not get tired of it. (Oh and travelling around the world enjoying good food, fine wine, fast cars and the company of exotic women does not count!)

So today it hit me. Why stress myself out looking for my passion when I can simply live passionately and let my passion find me?

Simple right? Alot of these successful men and women have shared that they actually didn’t start out where they are now but by simply grabbing life by the horns and living fully, they eventually found their destined path. Sure there were probably alot of false starts, bankruptcy’s, broken hearts and eating out of garbage cans but sometimes, there’s just no damned clear path with neon signs telling you what you were born to do.

Sometimes, your lucky, your blessed and you just know what you were born to do. Most of the time though, you get there after massive trial and error. Some would say it’s Gods way of testing whether your truly worthy of you destiny or your just a charlatan who would squander it away.

I think most of these people out there mislead us into believing that finding your passion is so easy, like, how you just know what you’d like to have for dinner friday night. I have come to believe its much more difficult than that for many of us. It’s more like finding your true self in the clutter of the expectations and labels thrust upon us by parents, friends, society as a whole. It takes courage, time, effort and even pain.

So here’s my advice to all of us who are struggling to find our destiny, our passion or simply work that we enjoy.

Just live your life passionately! Stop chasing passion and just be passionate about everything you do.

Be open to all the possibilities. Try things you’d never consider doing in your right mind. Do what you think you’d like to do. Embrace pain, failure and embarrassment.  Because it’s in the multiplicity of lifes seemingly random events and experiences, that we find out who we are, what we can not stand and very importantly, what we are most passionate about.

Most of all have faith in God. He will, in His perfect timing, set you in the right place and straighten the crooked paths you’ve taken.

Ahhh, I feel a huge burden off my chest now that I let go of that nagging need to find my passion. Go a head, try it. And be sure to leave a comment telling me all about your new found freedom.

Last week I laid to rest the father of a friend. A great, kind, generous and gentle giant of a man. It hurt to see all that he was, unceremoniously hidden away, under a pile of dirt. None of his money, contacts, accolades and experience could change the fact that when he died, he was put in the ground and covered with dirt.

It really hurt. Why? Because it will be the same for you, and for me.

And I began to question, what life is really all about when it’s all going to end like this? The answer came to me as I looked around me, desperate to make sense of it all.

It was the people. Everyone who was there to see the old man put to rest. I realized our lives are measured by our contribution to the lives of others. How we lived, who we touched for better or for worse and the legacy we leave is what matters. Not the cars, the houses or the fame we acquired. It’s the people we leave behind.

As a father, it’s incredibly important to me what legacy I leave for my children. Who will they be because of how I related to them? I want everyone who comes to see my pile of dirt say “I’m here today, alive, happy, successful, because I knew him. He made my life worth living”.

The children of the late were left angry and hurt with unsaid “goodbyes and I love you’s”. The right investment by him in them would have made an incredible difference to their loss now.

I intend to make a difference, leave a positive legacy.

What about you? How will you spend your life? Will you make a difference? I’d love to hear from you.

Today in my mail, I discovered a pleasant bonus in one of my weekly inspirational newsletters. The 13 absolutely unbreakable laws of success by Brian Tracy, one of my favorite motivational speakers. Here it is in simple and no nonsense breakdown of things you must learn to do to achieve great and lasting success in your life. I give you, the 13 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Success.

1. The Law of Control:

You feel good about yourself to the degree at which you feel you are in control of your own life.

2. The Law of Responsibility:

You are completely responsible for everything you are and for everything you become and achieve.

3. The Law of Direction:

Successful people have a clear sense of purpose and direction in every area of their lives.

4. The Law of Compensation:

You are always fully compensated for whatever you do, positive or negative.

5. The Law of Service:

Your rewards in life will always be in direct proportion to the value of your service to others.

6. The Law of Applied Effort:

All things are amenable to hard work.

7. The Law of Overcompensation:

If you always do more than you are paid for, you will always be paid more than you are getting now.

8. The Law of Preparation:

Effective performance is preceded by painstaking preparation.

9. The Law of Forced Efficiency:

The more things you have to do in a limited period of time, the more you will be forced to work on your most important tasks.

10. The Law of Decision:

Every great leap forward in life is preceded by a clear decision and a commitment to action.

11. The Law of Creativity:

Every advance in human life begins with an idea in the mind of a single person.

12. The Law of Flexibility:

Success is best achieved when you are clear about the goal but flexible about the process of getting there.

13. The Law of Persistence:

Your ability to persist in the face of setbacks and disappointments is your measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

Shalom