When your passion, your brilliance, meets a need of the slice of the world you’re meant to serve, you can experience more synergy, service, gratitude, ease, reward, and purpose.

“If you had a secret passion, something that you rarely speak about because it’s just too big or outrageous or unlikely, what would that be?” I ask this question of my long term clients.  Sometimes we do a little digging to uncover what’s been buried since childhood or college. This is what’s in your passionate heart, not your logical, reasonable and  perhaps cautious mind. It can be big or small, and it can be single or plural.  No rules. It could be to travel to a certain place, learn an instrument, go to college, get fit, climb a mountain, go camping again, write a book, change the world in some way.

At age 12 a passion to “Discover America, It’s 3,000 Smiles Wide” was born when  I saw that written on an Amtrak advertisement.  Sixteen years later I took a leave from  my job for the summer and rode across America on my bicycle. It was now or never.  It was more than the challenge of the ride, it was seeing the beauty and connecting with the earth and honoring my brilliant passion before it was too late.  It took many people to help me make it happen.

Action

Close your eyes, relax with a good breath, and ask yourself what is my secret passion?  If you don’t come up with a response, let it be and use that question as an inquiry over the next couple weeks.  An inquiry is a coaching tool where you ask a broad, curious question and let your experiences give you many answers and take you down many tunnels.  If you’re already in your passion, that’s good.  Help someone else find and claim theirs, and get curious about what it is to live your passion, and if all the elements are in place.

What can you do this summer to bring the experience of your passion into your life? What steps can you take, what is ready to happen?  Maybe your passion is to play basketball professionally, but you’re already 40 years old.  Where/ how/when can you experience or live

the essence of your passion?  Find a team, form a team, coach a team, write about a team….? Get creative!  Well, will you?

It’s a good idea to keep it to yourself; or share it only with people committed to helping you realize it, until it takes shape.  Don’t let anyone stomp it out of existence, don’t let it die before its born..  If you’re ready, I invite you to write me how your brilliant passion is emerging this summer in the comments below.

Let a passion be part of your life every year, no matter how small it might need to be to fit in with everything else.  Let it nourish you.

Discover America, it’s 3,000 Smiles Wide

This summer marks the 25th anniversary of my bicycle trip across the United States – from Florence, Oregon to Washington, DC, and to Boston, Mass.  I’m writing to remember and see what I can learn and share from the journey.

In 1970 I’m 14 years old growing up in beautiful Iowa. One of my favorite activities is to get on my bike and ride out of Coralville (all of about 8 blocks). I roll through gentle rolling farmland and feel the earth through my tires; breathe the soft, hazy blue sky; and drink in the wild wildflower colors spicing up acres of green. Or I’d ride to Nancy M’s or Deb D’s house.

One day, I see a billboard advertisement at the local recreation center for Amtrak passenger trains. I attempted to re-create it here! Something in it speaks to me and a seed is planted. I want to discover if the United States really is 3,000 smiles wide. I don’t even think of it as a bike trip. And I don’t do anything about it but I have that feeling in my belly that I want to and I will do this. The Law of Attraction, sometimes known as the “Be Careful What You Ask For” Law begins to work.

I LIVE Here???

I grow up, go to college, meet and marry Mike, and move to San Diego with him. And I still don’t remember this dream. I ride my bicycle all around San Diego, La Jolla, and along the coast by Torrey Pines State Park. I finish at UC San Diego. Soon we move to Pebble Beach and I ride through the amazing seascapes framed with cypress, rocks, and seals. I cover Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel, Carmel Valley, and Big Sur on cold, grey winter days and fresh, early summer mornings. I play recordings of piano concerts while I ride alongside crashing foamy white waves, turquoise water, stately pelicans, sandpipers, piles of lichen-crusted rocks, and fleshy ice-plant. I’m at home on my bike – by moving and being in nature. I’ve begun to discover America.

While my work life as a tech support manager and software engineer is quite stressful and miserable (it’s not at all on purpose for me), and my marriage is a bit clumsy and unsatisfying (we are 22 with no clue, and thousands of miles from our families), my bike and camera keep me grounded and sane.   Things take a turn for the worse in ‘82, and I soon find myself taking refuge on my wheels.