Enhance ReadabilityAt The Passion Institute, we believe it is our highest purpose as humans to live with focused commitment to our inner growth. We teach and support eudaimonic contentment, which is the deep, sustained and foundational contentment we create for ourselves when we forego immediate pleasures—such as the next shiny object, materialism, consumerism, mindless sex, drugs, and alcohol. These are typically subconscious fear-based behaviors away from pain, sadness and loneliness.
It is our highest purpose as humans to live with focused commitment to our inner growth. Tweet This Quote
When passion is actively chosen on a eudaimonic level, our behavior is love-based. We focus our business and life on deeper values and efforts that bring true fulfillment, graduating from merely choosing a superficial state of happiness to embracing the full human experience.
As we build inner skills such as perseverance, resiliency, courage, empathy, vulnerability and an understanding of healthy ‘we’ balanced relations, we finally become our own best advocate. This also allows us to choose the work, people and opportunities that support our long-term purposeful and passion-fueled business dreams.
Below are excerpts from an interview I gave to Caitie Goodard, co-founder of the youth entrepreneur leadership academy IC3, that further explains the work we do.
Q: What is your passion, and how did you identify it? Do you have any recommendations for those looking to find their own?
After several years, I realized my passion is helping people connect with their passions, simultaneously helping them find a deep contentment through their work. I also want to help drive a values and paradigm shift towards conscious business, where we measure success in a number of ways: inside ourselves, through positive impact on the world, and through sustainable profitability.
Even though we often say “find your passion,” there is no such thing; it has always been inside of us. We need to learn to listen and trust our inner voice. Tweet This Quote
But even though we often say “find your passion,” there is no such thing; it has always been inside of us. We need to learn to listen and trust our inner voice. Then, we must learn to follow it, which requires trust, enormous will and courage to say no to all other things. Initially, we unlearn old behaviors and simultaneously learn new skills. It is the toughest and the most rewarding process.
I recommend that you take your desire to find your deeper passion and purpose in life seriously. Make it your top priority. Be a focused goal digger. Enjoy the journey to get there, and most importantly, find good mentors who have walked the path. You will not be able to get there by reading books and articles on your own. I have had some incredible mentors in my life, and I continue to consult with them on a regular basis.
My focus on growth and transformational leadership is the reason I created the Passion Warrior Conscious Leadership eCourse. It is a six-week online course with teachings, depth processes, reflective work, visualizations, body movement integration, micro meditations and yoga. These are all meant to support executives and entrepreneurs in their process to connect inward and learn key leadership skills to step forward and upward in business. We are all blind to our own sabotaging behaviors. That is why we need trusted mentors.
Q: The Passion Institute was born from another organization, Refresh Agency. Both have similar missions, with The Passion Institute focusing more on the individual. What inspired you to move into this space?
During my work at Refresh Agency over the past 14 years, where I work closely with companies and leaders focused on sustainability, social good, health and wellness, I learned that the leadership driving the business needs to have certain conscious leadership skills; it is absolutely pivotal to success and the well-being, productivity and engagement of employees.
Doing business as a force for good requires a leader who is highly authentic and self-aware. Tweet This Quote
Business happens at the person-to-person level. A business owner can have the best intentions and visions, but if they lack the skills to engage their team to lift the vision in a common direction, dreams fail or fall short.
Doing business as a force for good requires a leader who is highly authentic and self-aware; someone who engages their world in a ‘we’ space, encourages imperfection and uplifts others. A good leader embraces passion and higher purpose.
I didn’t move away from the business aspect; I simply added more services because my clients were asking for advice, internal communication and purpose workshops, and for me to take on an executive advisory role. It was a natural progression of my own personal inner work to add transformational leadership to the palate.
A good leader embraces passion and higher purpose. Tweet This Quote
Q: The term ‘conscious leadership’ is used a lot around The Passion Institute website. How can that be applied as an entrepreneur or within an organization?
Conscious leadership is also called authentic or transformational leadership—inner and outer personality skills developed in a leader to bring his or her vision to reality. It’s when leaders consider what kind of person they need to be to achieve their business goals. Growth in business, as in all other aspects of life, comes from closing the gap between reality and what is envisioned.
Conscious leadership…is when leaders consider what kind of person they need to be to achieve their business goals. Tweet This Quote
Being a successful conscious leader and entrepreneur requires a series of specific inner personality skills, the majority of which are not commonly taught in our standard education system, or even through experience in a company.
These skills include resiliency, consciously working with courage and fear, high emotional intelligence, boundary setting that respects all people involved, assertiveness, vulnerability, conscious decision making, authenticity, intentionally seeing each person on the team, creating environments of honesty…and the list goes on.
The solution starts at the individual level. Stop the war you are waging on yourself. Start to think positively about yourself—not from an egotistic and narcissistic level, but from inherent goodness and humility. Start serving yourself with nourishing food, exercise frequently, and treat your brain well with adequate sleep, nourishment and continued learning.
Once you treat yourself with love and care, you can treat others similarly. Tweet This Quote
Communicate your needs and feelings, and stand up for what you need. Surround yourself with people who also want this for you. Learn to focus your thoughts on the positive and release the negative. Become your own best friend. Once you treat yourself with love and care, you can treat others similarly. That’s the ultimate goal of conscious leadership.
