...I wanted to be a news anchor, a fashion magazine editor, an air traffic controller, and a Solid Gold dancer. (Yes – I’ve dated myself with the 1980's Solid Gold dancer bit!) But, somehow along the way that dream faded and I became an industrial engineer, a management consultant, a real estate investor and other interesting (and not so interesting) roles.
Across a decade of searching, I trudged through my career wondering, with a twinge of guilt, “There’s got to be something more than this. I HATE THIS. I really think I hate this."
With all the achievement and accolades, the promise and potential, I managed to amass all kinds of digestive disorders, stress-related chronic fatigue, a mind & body that couldn't RELAX and a rack of “gratitude lists” self-help gurus suggest you make to feel better about yourself. I worked my butt off, and I was so deliberate in applying to the “best” schools, making what I thought were the “right” choices, working for the “best” companies. By all standards I had earned a great life, and while I fully recognized that, at my core was a gnawing spirit of discontentment. As an old country song says, “I was knee-deep in a river dying of thirst.”
My problem: I was doing the work (a hell of a lot of work, actually!), but it wasn't my PERFECT WORK.
I looked very successful on the outside. I was making great money and all that, but I was bored, burned out, and completely unfulfilled. This was not what I was meant to be doing day in and day out, and it was literally sucking the life out of me.
But how do you explain having a really good life that you secretly don't want?
Some people would say that's a you-don't-know-what-real-suffering-is kind of ingratitude.
I wasn't ungrateful for my life, but something definitely had to change ...starting with me.
WHEN I WAS A LITTLE
DARE TO
…So instead of explaining, I quit. I quit the career. I quit the rat-race and I took a giant leap of FAITH to launch my first business and reclaim the passion and vitality of that little girl who wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer. It was the scariest, most challenging, most exhilarating, most liberating experience.
It was awesome...until the business totally imploded! At one moment, I had $200,000 sitting in the bank; the next moment I had a mere $1.97 - literally. Retirement was gone, stocks were gone, savings were gone. Huge wins plummeted into crushing failures, but the experience transformed me into the person I needed to become to eventually build the work and life I always wanted.
They say "40 is the new 30", and I kinda hope that's the case because it took me a while to figure this thing out! In my 40ish - year journey, I've learned that we can achieve at the heights, but if we don't consistently feel the joy, vitality and ALIVENESS that is the real fruit of our success, we've totally missed the point.
And that's where "Perfect Work" comes in...
It's creating what you want to do, with and for whom you want to do it. Perfect Work is making the contributions to the world you know you were DESIGNED to make. Perfect Work just fits, like your favorite pair of jeans, and when you discover it, you'll know without a doubt it's the mountain you were born to climb.
If you can relate to what I'm sharing, know I've got your back. The voices of doubt in your head, the insecurities, the confidence everybody thinks you have but you fear you don't...I've got you. Most people can't understand how someone like you could want even more out of life. But I understand and, if you let me, I'll show you exactly how to create a work & life you're thrilled to call your own!
I dare you to design...
- Renessa