Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life Read Free Page B

STOCK OF YOUR WORK AND PERSONAL HISTORY
    Look deeply into your experiences, and try to identify positives, negatives, and common threads. Maybe you’re really good at public speaking, or organizing people, or working with computers. Make a list, and keep working on it over days and weeks; as you do, pay attention to your heart, and listen to the thoughts that emerge in those rare quiet moments. If it doesn’t happen overnight, don’t worry, and don’t push it. Chances are you will see a pattern emerge in your experiences, one that will lead you to discover the innate passions that drive you, fulfill you, and make you happy. Again, at the end of this chapter you’ll find a section where you’ll be able to work on this, as well as additional questions to nudge you along the right path.
How One Person Found Her Calling
My close friend and personal yoga instructor Heidi Rhoades provides us with a perfect example of how destiny takes its course when you stay open, listen to your heart, and cultivate your passion.
Back in the late ’90s, Heidi was a confused teenager (like most of us were as teens) attending college at Penn State. At that point in her life she had no idea what she wanted to do over the course of the next week, let alone the rest of her life. Being smart and practical, Heidi met with a counselor. This counselor suggested she go into marketing. Here wasthe logic: “If you go into marketing, then you’re not tied to anything because you can do marketing in any field.” Great plan, right? Just be utterly noncommittal and maybe one day happiness will find you. Oy.
So years later Heidi was a very successful and very unhappy marketing exec in the music industry. She had the right clients, the right office, the right clothes, the right car, and still … she was miserable. None of it made sense to her. She had followed all the rules and achieved what she thought was the American dream. But she hadn’t achieved the ultimate and seemingly elusive goal of finding true meaning in her life.
She diligently slogged through her days like a good soldier, believing that being able to pay her bills and live comfortably came at a price. The price of happiness. Granted she had friends and loved ones she cherished who brought her joy, but professionally she was sucking it up. Now here’s where the story gets interesting.
One day Heidi’s company decided that they wanted to start healthy initiatives for their employees. One of which was having a yoga instructor come to the office and teach classes for the company staff every Tuesday and Thursday after work.
Heidi, however, allowed these perks to go unnoticed. Months went by and she didn’t even pop her head in, let alone attend a class. This is not because she wasn’t athletic. In fact, Heidi had grown up as an athlete. She had done gymnastics, danced, played soccer and softball, was the star of her high school track team, and to illustrate life’s irony, in college she was actually an accomplished yogi. Now, however, she was an adult. She had meetings to run and lunches, dinners, and drinks to attend. “What focused professional would have the time to be frivolous and take a yoga class?”
Well, on one Thursday, after a heated phone call withanother industry exec, and having already put sixty hours into her workweek, she suddenly felt as though her heart were going to pound out of her chest. She broke into a sweat, her breathing was constricted; she felt lightheaded, and the room was spinning. She was having a major anxiety attack. Heidi immediately went to the office kitchen to grab a glass of water, and who was there prepping for her class? I bet you already guessed it—the yoga teacher. She sat with Heidi for a while, helped her regain her composure, and ultimately convinced her that yoga would be a great way for her to destress and maintain some semblance of calm in her life.
At this point, feeling particularly vulnerable, Heidi was ready to listen. She scooped up