"Be who you were created to be and you will set the world on fire" -- St. Catherine of Siena
When I talk to people about what I am doing as a health coach, how I set off on this path about a year ago and enrolled in IIN and now have launched my own business, the first question I often get is: "Aren't you scared?" or "Aren't you worried that you don't know enough?" or even "How do you know you can help people?" My answer is astoundingly NO. No I'm not scared, no I'm not worried I don't know enough, and no, I don't always know that I can help someone, but I KNOW that I can try. And the truth is, I'm not scared and I'm not worried and I know that I can try. In fact, I am so sure of these things that I feel it in my bones. I feel it from the bottom of my soul and it's kind of hard to describe. I think this is how I know that I'm finally on the right path in my life because I have never felt so sure of anything in my life. And it's an amazing feeling. It's what all those people talk about when they say that you have to find your calling in life. Back in business school, I took this personal leadership class where we talked about a "calling vs. a job" and I think back then I was just confused. I wanted to find my calling but I had no idea what it was. I wanted to be so passionate about what I was doing everyday that the line between work and life was barely there. But I wasn't passionate with my previous job, and I wasn't passionate with my job after that. It wasn't until a series of life events occurred, and this fire in my belly of always wanting to be an entrepreneur and work on my own kept derailing my "career" plans, that I finally figured out what that calling was. And I feel so fortunate to have found it in this - in helping other live their best life possible.
Today, I heard a lecture from the "Food Babe," Vani Hari. She's a famous food activist who started with just a blog and quickly became one of Time's most influential people online. She said, "What have you been waiting for? The only person in the way of your own path is yourself." And she is so right. The only person who was ever in the way of me finding my path was myself. It was my previous belief in what success meant, which included going to an Ivy League college, working at a top 10 Investment Bank, going to a top 5 business school, getting a high paying job at another well-known brand name, and so on and so forth. But truth be told, I was never happy. I never felt fulfilled. I never felt passionate. The flame of the FIRE was missing. Until I finally had that moment where I realized that THIS is what I needed to do...THIS is what I am meant to do. Yes, it means not having that cushy corporate job with flexible hours, health care benefits (but hey- hopefully I won't need those as much living this healthy life), promotions up the corporate ladder and the easy answer to "what do you do?". It means that I am going to work the long, hard hours of building my own business, and it means that I may have a very long road ahead of me (I'm already 35...but in the grand scheme of a healthy life, that is actually pretty young). But it also means that I get to fully feel that passion from the bottom of my soul...every single day.
It also means that I am being who I was created to be...and one day, I too will set the world on fire with this passion, and hopefully make a difference in some peoples' lives along the way.