“The middle is messy but that’s where the magic happens” Brene Brown
I love ice cream any time of the day and I especially love an ice-cream on a hot summer day.
Today is one of those days, 88F /31c (here in Cairns, Australia) with 95% humidity, so it feels very hot and sticky.
As I sit back and enjoying this simple pleasure of eating an ice-cream my mind wanders back to happy childhood memories and dreaming about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember liking trucks; wanting to be rich and become someone important.
Like most people I had no idea what this meant or what I really wanted to do.
After finishing school I held down several casual jobs, travelled and did what I did to make ends meet. Ultimately I found myself in a job that got me onto a career path and I continued that path trying to rise through the ranks.
This was until I found my sweet spot.
The sweet spot being the merging of my passion, talent and money. All three being essential ingredients in tasting and experiencing success.
Why is finding your sweet spot so important?
Because success in whatever we put our time, money and energy into takes more than just that, it take passion as well.
Our passion is definitely our “secret reserve tank”. It gets us through the impossible, however passion alone is only a “hobby”. Furthermore if we have money and no talent we fail and if we have talent and money but no passion, we lose interest to soon.
So how do we find our sweet spot and how do we know what it is when we’ve found it?
Passion
We each have something we are most passionate about and I believe it doesn’t just show up. Rather it’s something that is innate within us and something we’ve always known we’ve had. I’ve also heard our passion described as our core values and principles. Something which remains in our mind even in our natural state of rest.
A simple and effective tool to help discover your passion is asking yourself “What’s important to you and why?” Following you answer by asking that same question based on your last answer. For more see Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Talent
Building on your passion; are you passionate about your talent?
I passionately wanted to be financially independent. I also had a knack for saving money and learning how to grow it.Witnessing my results fuelled my passion and the results were my evidence of my talent. Furthermore I was able to transfer my passion and talent into a career change; from working behind the bar, to working behind a teller at a bank From Little Things Big Things Grow.
Finding what you are good at and what you are passionate about as useful as a two legged chair, we need one more leg to assure our success is well footed.
Money
No Money, No Honey! What?
In my spare time I write this blog, I also research and write about Extraordinary People however even though I have a passion and a talent for this I classify them as my hobby. Why? Because they make minimal/no money.
People do pay me to help better clarify their goals, what’s important to them, help them to implement what’s best for them and help them stay on track; making their goals a reality.
The money they pay me allows me to run a sustainable business model, while continuing to improve, add value, assist, and implement their needs in value adding ways.
Sweeeeet!!!
Discovering our sweet spot requires us to step out of our comfort zone. Most of the time All of the time this is scary, however successful people know that this is where growth and rewards come from. The flipside risk is complacency, ultimately which erodes our passion.
One final insight when your found your sweet spot; remember that just like an ice-cream success tastes sweeter when shared with good friends.
If you are stuck in a funk or you’re lost in a cloud of complexity talk with someone you can trust and who wont judge you. Most often in life we just need someone to talk things through and to lighten our load a little.
This post was written by Peter Horsfield, as such they are his personal views.
Originally published at www.peterhorsfield.com.au