The most poignant part of the movie Stepmom for me was when a dying mom takes her young daughter horse riding in the middle of the night and asks her child to do something very profound. Knowing she won’t be alive to see some of those intensely precious moments in her child’s life she asks her to please carry her along in what will be the special moments in her daughter’s life.
“Take me with you,” she pleads with her daughter.
I think of that movie now and I wonder how many of us, while alive, leave ourselves behind. How many of us have these special moments of our lives but are not present to enjoy them? I urge you to take you along. Carry You with you in this journey.
There’s an exercise in my Personal Branding Program that often reveals to my clients where the bulk of their time and life’s energy is spent.
It’s a telling exercise that for the most part shows that far too often we abandon our dreams in the rat race.
During the program some of my delegates have spoken flawlessly about the roles they play in the organisations they work for – but when I ask them to tell me about (what they say is) their passion- what they enjoy doing – they can hardly string one solitary sentence together.
Some people suffer this state more than others. But for the most part many of us at one time or other shelve our dreams, pack away the things we love and dedicate every ounce of our energy in building empires for other people.
I received my new batch of books yesterday – I haven’t read a book in over two weeks – an absolute travesty! So to open my box of new reads – it was a joy I deliciously savoured. Why was it such a sublime moment for me? For the past couple of weeks I have switched off from me. I have been pouring myself in so many other things that Hannah had taken a back seat for a while. I’d rolled my dreams and ambitions in a camp bag and tucked them away.
I’m rolling into the weekend with a nudge to not forget about me. To realise that my own empire is just as important – in fact more important than anyone else’s.
I encourage you to value your dreams the most. Be as fluent about what you want to achieve in the course of your life as you are about the role you play in someone else’s ambitions. For the most part most of us work in what essentially is someone else’s dream.
My empire is what matters to me. It’s the legacy I want to leave behind. It’s the story I want my son to tell one day. Inspiring people to build their own is part of my empire. Abandoning my own construction is to hock my most priceless gift for paper that has an ever diminishing value.