Mar 05 Leverage Passion into Profit
Everyone knows that if you do what you love you will find your career more rewarding, and you’ll likely find more success. But too often what we start out wanting to do in life changes. Our curiosity wanes. We lose interest or that feeling that we are fulfilling a greater purpose with deeper meaning. Then the spark goes out and your leadership loses it luster. Your executive presence becomes mechanical and superficial instead of authentic and charismatic.
The Secret to Mastery
How do you constantly reinvent your leadership brand but keep it genuine? What does it take to bounce back with agile resiliency when things get difficult? You have to unearth and strategically mine those golden nuggets of unique YOU that are fueled by personal passion.
You have to tap into the secret ingredients that move you from merely capable to extraordinarily masterful. Connect with that powerful accelerant and you’ll automatically want to work harder, excel with determination, practice your skills, and be the best in your field.
Is Your Leadership a Labor of Love?
But you have got to make your career a labor of love, by developing a mindset that ties your daily activities to a greater vision. I’m not just talking organizational vision. I mean a larger view of you and your higher potential.
You have no idea what you can accomplish if you want it seriously enough to do the work. I say that from decades of hands-on experience watching leaders blossom and thrive once they receive the support and insight they need from someone who holds them accountable to much bigger dreams.
Who are the important people in your life? Your children, your significant other, your parents? Are there times when you lose your work/life balance and they start to feel like a distraction instead of an inspiration? Leadership is demanding, for sure, but that’s a telltale sign that you are sliding in the wrong direction.
Leadership is Accountability
But if you demand enough of yourself then it’s a healthy and exciting challenge – not a path to boredom, burnout, or frustration. Who do you have in your life to give you that push and coach you play at the top of your game?
I know that you are capable of taking greater risks and cultivating a kind of leadership vision that elevates you above your competition. You have to take action, though, because leadership is not an exercise done with a halfhearted attitude. You have to want it enough to push beyond your fears and start living your life in the dynamic growth zone, where life-changing transformation happens.
Act on Your Dreams
You must learn how to leverage your passion for life into purposeful professional success. Do that and work/life alignment will be yours forever – along with the financial security and priceless personal rewards that you deserve for having the courage to be a true leader with a legacy others will want to follow as their gold standard.
Take Away Exercise
Make a list of five aspects of leadership that drive you crazy, ones that you can’t stand. Now make a list of the five reasons you love being a leader.
- What are you doing on a daily, deliberate basis to nurture the five aspects of leadership that are your passion?
- The more you answer that question the less the other negative aspects of your career will be diminished. Your passion will help you see new solutions, or ways to reframe problems into innovative strategies.
Practice viewing your leadership through the lens of those five aspects you love. You may be surprised that soon you begin to love what you do and see the parts of your job you dislike as just challenges and opportunities for growth.
How are you leveraging what you love in life, to raise yourself to iconic status as a master in your field?
As a pioneering and visionary innovator, Sarah is a certified professional image consultant and brand strategist, speaker, trainer and author. Her company, Illustra Consulting, provides leading-edge image and brand management strategies for top leaders and high achievers who wish to take their career to the next level. She also delivers innovative and inspiring corporate workshops to assist large organizations in strengthening their corporate brand.
Illustra Consulting
Copyright © 2015, Sarah Hathorn, AICI CIP, CPBS 1-800-267-3245, [email protected]
This article may be reproduced only in it’s entirety, including the above bio.
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Sarah Hathorn, CEO of Hathorn Consulting Group, is the go-to-expert in working with leaders and companies to create successful corporate DNA. As an executive coach, consultant and speaker she collaborates globally with clients and brands such as Deloitte, McKesson, Kimberly-Clark, Sherwin-Williams, Home Depot and other leading organizations.
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