This is our first blog post since our son Andrew joined The XLR8 Team as a coach and director of business development. Our daughter, Molly, while employed with another company, is trying to bring the concepts expressed in this blog to her life and current job. We would like to share our journey as individuals and as a family business to live our vision “for all of us to find the courage to awaken to the magnificence of our limitless possibilities!” Fundamental to this concept is living a passionate life. To quote Napoleon Hill, author the seminal book on success in 1937, Think and Grow Rich: “cherish your visions and dreams, as they are the children of your soul, and the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.”
As we begin this journey together, we are reviewing our top five passions, using The Passion Test by Attwood and Attwood as a guide. It became clear to me that passions are the source of courage for all of us. It has guided me through two very important life transitions – starting The XLR8 Team in 1996 and delaying my retirement to help my son and daughter more fully realize their passions.
Andrew reminded me of this in my Father’s Day card. He called me “the most courageous man he knows”. The example I set in 1996, quitting my high-paying executive level job (with a family to support and without a safety net) gave him the courage to quit his job and trade a paycheck for the uncertainty of chasing his passion of following in Elaine and my footsteps to create his version of The XLR8 Team. It was this vision or passion if you will, that fueled this high risk / high reward move in 1996. I wish I started at 23!
The most recent transition was delaying my retirement due to my strong passion to coach/mentor the next generation of transformational coaches. I actually re-wrote this passion about two years ago, but it wasn’t until recently that synchronicities occurred making the timing right for Andrew, which included a change in his relationship status, a dynamite new emotional intelligence assessment called DISCflex, and a burgeoning “movement” called Conscious Capitalism.
You will be hearing about all of this from different viewpoints of our family who range from 23, 30, 50 and 65. It should be a fun journey, so enjoy and please participate!