Are You Living Your Unique Blueprint?

Are you working hard at something you love, and are feeding your passion?

Or are you working hard at something you don’t care about, and are feeding your stress?

In this episode, we review how your passion impacts your work performance, and  your regrets in life. 

And, we provide you with simple tools that will help you look within and tap into your greatest gifts, your passions, and your purpose — your unique blueprint. 

Here's a hint....apply the triple E and the triple D test to your work, or any area of your life.

• EEE Test: 
  • Ease
  • Energy
  • Enjoyable
• DDD Test: 
  • Dull
  • Difficult
  • Depressing

When you complete the test, notice how the possibilities open up for you, and envision a work experience (or any life experience) you desire.

Follow your desires. They will lead you to your purpose. 

Transcript

Hi all. Welcome to empowerhouse life coaching the podcast, my name is Amanda Escobedo, and I'm you life coach pro conscious design expert, master of mental blockers and upgrading your thoughts. I'm the founder of the empowerhouse life coaching, and I'm your host. Welcome to episode five! Per usual, I've got a burning question for you. And my burning question is, how many of my high achievers out there are working hard at something you love and are feeding your passion, versus working hard at something you don't care about, and you're feeding your stress? 

If you're feeding your passion. Awesome. But I have a feeling that's a small percentage of you. Why, because the stats don't lie. 

Statistics show that only 13% of US workers are passionate about their work, which means a whopping 87% of you are not. Yikes.

Today, we're going to review how your passion, impacts your work performance, and your regrets in life, and we're going to provide you with simple tools that will help you tap into your greatest gifts, your passions and your purpose. But before we do, let's define the three components, unique gifts, passions, and purpose, starting with gifts.

When I looked up the definition of a gift, it's a thing given willingly to someone without payment. It's a present. It can also be a natural ability, or a talent. 

Now for the sake of our conversation and speaking to your unique gift, I think it makes sense to combine the definitions. And for me, that looks like your unique gift, it's your natural ability given or shared with someone, and your natural ability, your unique gift is adding value to someone else's life.

Steve Harvey says, everyone has a gift but not every person recognizes what his or her gift is. Being able to identify it is the key to fulfilling the unique purpose of your life. However, don't confuse a gift with a talent. Anyone can learn a talent, but a gift is something you're born with. 

When I think of myself in my gift I actually have a really hard time naming or articulating it. And what I ended up with are multiple gifts. One, I'm a naturally curious person. I'm curious in the sense of other people. Two, I have the ability to build trust, rapport and create a safe space with people, new people fairly quickly. And three, have the ability to really listen and hear what is not being shared. And the results of these gifts are when people leave a conversation with them, they tend to have a better understanding of themselves — why they do the things they do. 

For example, I had a friend, which didn't like Trader Joe's. And because I'm such a fan, I could not let it go, and needed to understand why. So I asked what is it about Trader Joe's, that you don't like. Wiith each vague response he provided, I asked more questions to get us closer to the answer. And we finally got to the point where he recognized for the first time, he doesn't like Trader Joe's because there's only one brand of everything, whereas at Vons there's like 15 brands of sharp cheddar and he's familiar with most of them. And the one brand that Trader Joe's carries, which is Trader Joe's, he's uncertain if he'll like it because he's never tried it for him. If he were to go into a Trader Joe's store and get an entire basket of groceries, that's too much uncertainty, because what if he doesn't like anything he buys, that's a lot of money wasted. Now, this is extreme. I know, but that's how he's brain processed the whole newness of the store, and I remember leaving that conversation, and him saying only Amanda Escobedo would unpack why someone doesn't like Trader Joe's, and I was like, well, now you know why you don't like Trader Joe's so you're welcome. That's my gift.

But this specific example is so important to reference because you don't only use your gift at work, you get to tap into and apply your gift wherever you are. Now, let's get into passion. What is passion. When I looked at the definition, there were quite a few definitions related to passion, but there were two in particular that spoke to me the most in reference to our topic. 

Definition one, passion is an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. 

Definition two, passion is a strong and barely controllable emotion. 

To me, passion is about the emotion, and it's about you. Passion is about doing something that not only makes you feel good, it fires you up inside. Denny Diderot, he says, only passions, great passions, they elevate the Soul to do great things. 

Now for me, I have a couple of passions. One, I love deep conversations, deep conversations for me, they allow me to see you, therefore connect with you, and when I connect, I get energy and I feel juiced. Alternatively, when I have a surface level conversation with someone, I feel uncomfortable and it drains me. Number two, I have a passion for coaching. I'm so passionate about this work because coaching has been life changing for me. I almost feel like I have the secret sauce to life, but I don't want it to be a secret anymore. I want to share the magic sauce with as many people that will listen to me. Additionally, coaching, it allows me to share my gifts with others, which is helping them better understand themselves. And it feeds me —it allows for me to have those deep conversations. 

Having said that, life coaching is a made up industry, along with technology, manufacturing. So many of our industries we're involved in, and for the modern day. I share that because it's important for us to not get so caught up and attached to our industry, the company we're working at or our job title, your job title or industry. It's just a vehicle for your gifts, your passion and your purpose. There are so many vehicles, which can take you where you want to go. And shoot, if you don't like the vehicles out there, you can innovate and create your own vehicle. That's the beauty of life, the beauty of your power. Everything you see out in the world, the chair you're sitting on, the headphones you're listening to me, there was a time they didn't exist, and someone had an idea. The only difference between their idea and your idea is they didn't ignore the idea. They made the decision to take action and figure out how to create it. Now, your purpose. What is purpose? Again, when I looked at purpose, there were a couple of definitions but the definition which resides most with our topic today is purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. That to me. This means your purpose is your why and your purpose is what gives you clarity and direction. 

Simon Sinek says, everyone has a why, it is the purpose, the cause or belief that drives every one of us. 

And Jack Canfield says, clarify your why. What is the why behind everything you do. When you know this in life or design, it's very empowering, and the path is clear. 

So for me, my purpose for coaching, my why comes down to my beliefs. I believe everyone has a truth. Everyone has a purpose, I believe everyone is destined for greatness. I believe I was built with the intent to share this philosophy and help others, unlock their greatest gifts and pursue their passions with the clear, strong and unshakable mind. I believe this mission I'm on it's bigger than me. It's actually not even about me, it's about my audience, the audience I was built to serve. 

Kevin Hall says your gifts are not about you. Leadership is not about you. Your purpose is not about you, A life of significance is about serving those which need your gifts, your leadership, your purpose. 

My why is so powerful, that it's what helps me bulldoze through my obstacles. You've heard me mentioned time and time again, building a business is tough, it's all trial and error. There are so many brick walls of frustrations. When you slam into the wall that many times, it's exhausting and painful. But when you have a why, a why that’s bigger than you, it's almost like the why is the gas station. It fills you back up and keeps you going. 

John Maxwell says when you find your why, you'll find your way. 

So to recap, your unique gifts versus passion versus purpose: 

Your unique gifts— they are your innate abilities which are used to add value to other people's lives. 

Your passion— it's about the emotion. Doing something which excites you. And that feel good feeling is for you 

Your purpose—it's your why and it brings you clarity to your path, it's your direction. 

So now that we've defined these components, why does passion matter in the workplace? Well, when you have a lack of passion, it blocks you from accessing your creativity. It has you complicating the simple things, it has you pushing the solutions to your problems, just out of reach, which then creates a lack of motivation and makes it more difficult to get the important things done, which causes you to work longer hours and become even more exhausted. 

My friends, passion is the key ingredient for sustaining long term performance. 

So now that we've gone through that, let's put work aside for a second and I want to focus on you. If you were to continue to work hard at something you don't like or potentially even hate, and are feeding your stress, what might life look like six months from now. How about a year from now, three years, five years, 10 years from now? What kind of opportunities might you miss out on or what kind of issues might arise. 

Now if you're thinking, Amanda, I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead. 

Well, let's have science bring you some insight and a look into the future. So scientists out of Cornell, and the New School for Social Research recruited hundreds of participants to uncover their regrets, and they divided their regrets into two categories. One was the ideal self who you've dreamed of being or becoming, and the other is the ought to self, which is meeting expectations, or ideals of others. As you can imagine, regrets of not living your ideal self won by a landslide. 72% of participants have regrets concerning not fulfilling their ideal self, or what I call living their unique blueprint.

Additionally, there was a Kellogg School of Management professor who conducted a similar study. And he found that people also regret things they didn't do far more than the things they tried but failed at. 

Now because I want to help you sustain your peak performance, and I don't want you on your deathbed, with regrets, today, I'm going to provide you with two simple tests that will help you identify your unique gifts and discover your passion and your purpose. 

What's great about these tools is they can be applied to every area of your life, not just work, and they will help you look within and unveil your play by play, your unique blueprint. That said, let's get into it. 

For a moment, I want you to think about work. Think about the organization you're at or the business you're running. Think about your duties, your day to day responsibilities, think about the different people you're required to interact with to get the job done. Does your work, give you ease. Does it give you energy, is it enjoyable. Now this is the triple E test — ease, energy, enjoyable. 

Now, ease doesn't mean easy. When something is easy, you might feel bored or disengaged. But when you have ease, you're in flow. And for energy, what you want to think about is does this overall experience bring my energy up or down? Do I feel heavy or light? And for enjoyable, you want to apply the 80/20 rule. The reality is we aren't going to like everything about our job or the people we're interacting with as an example, but the goal is to enjoy the overall experience, the overall work experience at least 80% of the time. Now, if your overall work experience passes the triple E test, then you'll likely feel like you're doing meaningful work, it will feel natural to do. Time will fly. It will be something you look forward to, you will feel good about yourself and the work we're doing. If you didn't pass the triple E tests, or you're unsure if you pass the test, flip the coin and apply the Triple D test — dull, difficult, depressing. 

Ask yourself, does my work feel dull? Does it feel difficult? Does it feel depressing? If you said yes to any of these questions, the next step is to get clear and specific. For example, if the job feels dull, what part? Is it the company the industry the position? If it's difficult. What part? Is it a specific responsibility within the scope of your role, is it the whole role, is it the people that are difficult. Is it the amount of change because it's a startup? And if it's depressing, again, what is depressing about it, is it the amount of hours you're putting in, is it the workload, is it the compensation? When you get clear on what isn't working, think back at previous experiences, previous jobs and ask yourself, did you ever have a job or general experience where you felt at ease in flow? If so, what did that experience look like when your energy was up and things felt light. What did that experience look like? Has there ever been a time where you enjoyed your work, the organization, the people? If so, what did that look like? And whether you've had those experiences or not tap into your imagination. If you had a magic wand and could create your ideal work environment, position, a business for yourself, what would that look like? What we want to do is open up the possibilities for you and create your work experience with intention, whether that's in your current position and organization or in a new position or organization. Let your desires direct you. Your desires, they are the compass to your purpose. 

So to recap, to identify, express and fulfill your unique gifts, passion and your purpose in your work, or any area of your life, apply the triple E and the Triple D test. And your triple E test is, does this give you ease, energy, and enjoyment. And your Triple D test, does this feel dull, difficult or depressing. 

Now, I know, tackling all of this on your own can often feel overwhelming to the point where it's just easier to stay where you are, but I want to let you know you don't have to do the work and figure this all out on your own.Llife coaching not only empowers you to create a vision of possibilities and create absolutely anything you desire in your life, but it provides you with support and accountability. And the first step in the process is raising your awareness of what you really want in your life, what you want for yourself. If you're interested in learning more, I highly encourage you to go to www.empowerhousecoaching.co.  Once again www.empowerhousecoaching.co and schedule your free inner game strategy session, with me. In this 45 minute strategy session, we'll get clear on a powerful vision for your next chapter, we'll uncover what may be stopping or slowing you down from elevating to new heights, and we'll provide you with a step by step plan that will have you steering your ship with confidence and control.

Iif you found value in today's episode, please reshare this podcast with three friends, family members, co-workers ,or anyone you know that would benefit from mastering the mental game. 

Alright folks, I'm Amanda Escobedo and you've been listening to empowerhouse life coaching, the podcast. If you haven't yet, go to Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast, subscribe, and review this podcast. Join me next time in another conversation about removing mental blockers, unlocking your potential, and elevating you to new heights. Thank you for listening.