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These past four weeks, we’ve focused on passion. We’ve gained a clearer understanding of what passion is, what our passions are, and how it rallies around purpose and supplies leaders with energy.

At the end of the day, our appetites matter just as much — if not more than — our aptitudes! What we are passionate about, fired up about, driven by, is much more important than what our skills are…because passion will drive us to move forward with a force beyond our wildest imagination, if we allow it to!

Before you can lead with confidence and force, you must first understand where you want to go, and why. What consumes your thoughts? What grabs your attention, tugs at your heart, and won’t let go?

Once you discover your passion, nurture it. Life will assault your passions, disappointment will assault your passions, and responsibilities — and, yes, self-limiting beliefs and self-imposed constraints — will try to crowd it out and keep you from pursuing your passion. I encourage you to be strong; refuse to bury your passion under life’s many challenges. Passion is the key to finding fulfillment in life.

Consider what Henry David Thoreau said:

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

I encourage you to not let this be an apt description of you. Take the time to discover your passion. Then nurture it, feed it, allow it the time and space to grow. Harness it to your leadership and the song you sing will outlive you.

Having only recently (within the last few years) allowed my passion to be fully acknowledged and developing my dream and plan to move forward into my potential and my vision, I can say from experience, it’s an amazing, exciting, energizing, reinvigorating, fun adventure. I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

So, what are you passionate about? And what are you doing about it?

As we are nearing the end of our month of exploring our passion, where do you want your passion to take you in your life?

Are you able to describe a a dream connected to your passion?

There’s a lot of power in getting it down on paper. Having recently gone through this process, with The Deeper Path Coaching Cohort I participated in, I can say it’s an eye-opning experience! If you allow yourself to really work through it, it can change the course of your future.

What role does your passion play in your personal and professional lives?

What effect do you want your passion to have on others?

How are you doing this month, with clarifying your passion?

I want to tell you a story. One you may already be familiar with, perhaps…but maybe not some of the details.

I daresay we are all familiar with Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook. He had a passion for connecting people, and his passion carried him down an unknown road, many years ago. He was studying at Harvard, but decided to end his college education to pursue his dream…a budding on-line social network. He moved to California, lived in dingy apartments with his friends/co-founders, and worked at engineering Facebook, essentially penniless!

As you know, the web site took off at full throttle and grew by leaps and bounds. Zuckerberg and his friends worked hard to keep up with its growth.

As Facebook blossomed, it began to attract attention; a lot of attention! In fact, Yahoo! offered Zuckerberg $1 Billion (yes, that’s a “B” not an “M”!) to buy his site, he said, “No.” To many of us, that response might seem inexplicable. What could he possibly be thinking? A billion dollars is an enormous amount of money; more than most people ever even dream of, let alone possess. So, why would he turn down the offer?

Simple…Passion. Mark Zuckerberg is passionate about connecting people; he believes when people connect something powerful happens and he wanted to continue to help facilitate those connections.

While one may argue over how Facebook is designed and operated, some in favor and some against, it’s hard to argue that the company hasn’t been successful. And it’s beyond reason, at least to me, that something could be that successful without some passionate person (or persons) driving it forward.

Passion is the driving force behind life’s fulfillment. Thus, passion must be exercised and nurtured. During the course of your leadership journey, will be tempted along the way — and probably more than once — to sell out for comfort or security (or a number of other reasons). I urge you to not settle for less than the full extent of your dreams.

Take a few minutes today to reflect on a time when you were tempted to give up on your dreams. What happened? What did you do to keep your dreams alive?

You see, I believe you did not succumb to the temptation; if you had, you wouldn’t be here, today, reading my blog or other blogs exploring similar topics.

Who supports you and cheers you on as you chase after the desires of your heart?

What else do you need to keep your passion alive?