Leverage Your Passion to Create a Life of Freedom
Hi! My name is Coach Jimmy and we are talking about passion today and finding your passion. It’s so funny, before getting into business almost eight and a half years ago, I found myself as a 3 time college dropout, I was a 100 lbs overweight, living back at home with my parents, and I had given up on my passion. Before then, I had had a passion…I’ve had a couple passions in life for things that I really thought that that’s where I was supposed to go.
Early on as a kid I was a huge Disney dork, a real big Disney fan, and I drew a whole lot like all day long, didn’t want to pay attention to Math class, Social Studies bored me to death, but I don’t know if you remember, and this me just really be aging myself, we used to take the paper bags from the grocery store and make book covers out of them and my book covers had the most fierce amazingly awesome cartoon doodles all over them because that’s where I would spend most of my time doing was drawing, drawing, drawing.
I really wanted to go and be an animator for Disney. I did my research and I knew that most Disney animators went to Cal Arts. I wrote a letter to Glen Keane who was one of the top animators one of the time. He was the super vising animator for Aladdin and for Tarzan and I had written a letter to him and “This is what you need to do.” It was like one of those things where I kind of went to my parents and said this is what I wanted to do and sadly we just didn’t have the money at all and I didn’t know how to get scholarships for something like that and it just seemed like this big dream.
So that was a passion and at the same time my senior year of high school, I went and auditioned for a musical. I had done some stuff in church as a kid and any of you that had ever heard my story about my third grade solo singing “Too Fat for the Chimney” from the stage, I always enjoyed performing and felt like I had a gift for getting…and it really is still to this day is the greatest addiction I have ever been around, is the addiction of getting an emotional response from an audience. It was really crazy because it was my biggest passion, my biggest addiction that gives me pleasure every day of my life, and torments me every day of my life, because when I realize that’s what I wanted to do and that I had this passion for performing yet I was trapped in this obese body and I didn’t have the funding to go get the training I needed.
Then I was haunted by another “P” word which is potential and it’s, “Oh, you have potential at this,” and there is something in your life that somebody has told you you have great potential in and it’s a compliment, it’s a double edged sword. That means you could be great at something some day, but that also means you may never realize that potential.
Passion Gives you Purpose
It’s crazy because when I decided to take control of my life and I looked at myself in the mirror, 100 lbs overweight, 3 time college dropout, living back at home with my parents, and saying something has to change. If something doesn’t change, you will never live your passion, you will always have a life that is nothing, but surviving day to day to day.
I didn’t know what the execution of that was going to be. I didn’t know was that going to mean I was going to go perform on Broadway? Did that mean I was going to have a TV show? I don’t know and maybe that’s where you are right now. We’re talking about finding your passion. That you feel like you have a passion for something, but you don’t know how to execute it. You don’t know what to do with it.
You are like, “Okay, Jimmy. I am passionate about…” I talked to somebody the other day, “I am really passionate about setting other women free that have been in abusive relationships.” Cool, but what’s the vehicle for that? What do I do with that? Maybe I am passionate about rescuing girls out of the sex trade, I’ve had people like that. I am really passionate about performers not live the starving artist lifestyle and let them know that there is a way to be an entrepreneur to create your own income and still pursue your passions as an artist.
I don’t know what that passion is for you. There is something…and 9 times out of 10 it’s a certain niche of people that you want to help reach, that you really have a heart for, that you want to champion, but then you know you are like, “Damn it, I don’t know what to do with that. I have this passion. I feel like I am suppose to do something great, but I don’t know where to start. I feel like I want to start a business, but I don’t know where to start. I feel like I want to do a podcast or YouTube channel or I want to do live streaming on a daily basis, but I don’t know what it is.”
It’s identifying that passion and if you ever felt stuck that way, do you feel like you are supposed to be doing something but you just have no idea where to start? Sometimes identifying that passion is a big key into whether or not you are going to have success in an area of life or not.
So let’s look at where I am backwards. So what did I end up doing?
How Did I Find my Passion?
Well, I ended up finding some home fitness DVD’s that helped me lose a 100 lbs and keep it off for over ten years and then once I was a customer, I found that there was a business part of this and I jumped into that not thinking this was going to be my full time gig. I jumped in for a discount, I really was…still living in New York City, hustling, going to musical auditions. My life had really been reduced to walking into a room, singing 8 bars or 16 bars of music saying, “Thank you,” and walking out, over and over and over and then getting very frustrated that I felt like I had very little control on where my career went.
But I was also sharing my journey with other people and this little business on the side ended up growing. So what I ended up doing was getting involved with a home business, with somebody like Beachbody, and it turned into something…it continued to grow as I found ways to share my story and little did I know that this passion for performing, this passion for sharing and eliciting an emotional response from other people, as social media grew and the internet grew, all of a sudden, I had another outlet exactly like you’re watching me now to literally create my own stage.
So why do I tell that story?
Am I saying then you have to get in my business…and I am not at all, this isn’t even to pitch to work with me.
Let’s look at what I did. I knew I had a passion for something and I knew that I started moving. I started moving in a direction and 9 times out of 10 that direction is using your passion to start improving yourself.
And being public about that story, letting people know I am on this journey, and I don’t know what that journey is for you. That journey to write the eBook, that journey to create the podcast, that journey to lose weight, that journey to a healthier you, that journey to get out of debt, I don’t know what that is for you, but I am telling you so many people don’t start because they feel like they have to know exactly what the end looks like. It’s going to be an eBook, it’s going to be a podcast, it’s going to be events or me on stage or whatever and so they don’t start moving in a direction until they feel like they fleshed out exactly what is this passion of mine? Who does it serve? What does it looks like?
Stop Overthinking it
They spend way too much time in the planning phase and I am telling you, you got to take action. You got to take action and what it is will reveal itself to you. That may sound a little Zen and a little hocus-pocus, but I am just telling you from experience. I did not think, “Oh, this is what I am going to do. I am frustrated that I am not a well compensated performer, so this is what I am going to do. I am going to start losing weight and then I am going to get involved with a home business and then I am going to find a way to use Facebook initially to find other people and then I am going to build the team of thousands and then I am going to get on stage and then I am going to…”
I didn’t know any of that.
I didn’t know where I was going to end up.
In fact, I am kind of at that crossroads right now in my career. I don’t know what’s next. I know what I have had success with, but I don’t think that I am done evolving. I don’t think I’m done creating something or whether that’s products or whatever and I was journaling about that this morning. That’s what made me think about this topic was, “Man, I really feel like…” and that’s where the new YouTube video that you guys are going to go watch after this, and like and comment and let me know what you think, came from.
It was, I know I am passionate about speaking life into people. I am passionate about punching people’s excuses in the face and getting them over their shit to start moving. That’s what I am passionate about.
More so than fitness or nutrition. That’s why when you follow me, you don’t see a lot of videos of me showing you how to do a bicep curl or how to a right pull up. Now, fitness is extremely an important piece of my life, but I am really not the fitness guy and God knows I am not the nutrition guy.
Am I good about my nutrition? Absolutely.
Do I know what works for me? Sure.
Am I going to break down your macros for you and talk about good carbs versus bad carbs and good fats and stuff? No, not really.
There are people in my industry that are great at that. Their expertise is in nutrition or their expertise is in all the muscles in the body.
So what did I do? I was passionate about changing people’s lives. I was passionate about getting on stage and getting an emotional response from people. Now, in the past that was through musical theatre. I would sing a song, we would do a performance, hopefully it taught a lesson in the show. Hopefully, it made people reflect on their own lives, be entertained, but come away from the performance changed.
Find the Right Vehicle
So, why do I say that? Right now I am working with a new person on my team who is like, “Jimmy, I don’t know if your business is what I want to do. I want to empower women. I want to help free women from feeling oppressed by their relationship or their family or their spouse or an abusive relationship.”
I said, “Great, let’s flesh out that vision and let’s use my business as the tool to give them control over something in their life.” So, it’s not about “I want to be a Beachbody Coach. I want to advance in rank and I want to build this network marketing business,” that wasn’t really appealing to her, but I said, “Okay, what have you used to gain control back over your life?”
And fitness played a big role in that. I said, “Okay, so if you could identify these women and start mentoring them, but give them something…” So they feel out of control or they feel oppressed in their current relationship. So she naturally migrated to fitness because it was something that she could control in a situation.
It wasn’t too different from my story. My career, I couldn’t control. Running out of money and continuing to quit school. I felt like all these things…I couldn’t control whether or not the person that cross the table hired me for that show or when I did a TV pilot that I thought was going and getting the fact that I was the…even though I was the host that held the whole thing together and I got all these great accolades from the staff. I was the only person let go before the show actually went on air.
Like that shit pissed me off because I’m like…I know for a fact that I was doing a best job on the show. Yet because of politics and other things, I didn’t control that. So for me, my fitness was something that was up to me and only me.
What went into my mouth and the exertion I did everyday in my workouts, I could control.
So that’s why I migrated to fitness, not to be a personal trainer, not to start a fitness business. So the same way with this person I am mentoring right now, this new person on my team, I’m like, “So, what’s the first steps for these women to get out of this oppressive situation and do you feel like giving them a fitness routine or something they can follow on a daily basis to feel stronger, to feel more confident, to feel sexier about themselves or whatever, do you feel like that’s a step towards what you ultimately wanted to do and your passion for these women?” and she said yes.
She said, “I completely see that.” So that’s when she said, “Okay, cool,” and I said, “Then join my team. We are going to use these tools in this business to serve the passion. The passion isn’t the business. The passion isn’t the workout programs and the nutritionals. The passion is this vision you have to serve these women, but you need tools and the other option would be to create your own product.” And I said, “What you can do, is you can create an online course and all that stuff is going to take some time. The most immediate, fastest way you can help these women is by putting one of these programs in their hands and then creating a small group of people where you are championing them and how their fitness is going to domino into their confidence and that’s going to domino into taking control back of their life or leaving their abusive situation or whatever that is.”
Finding Your Motivator
So I go back to identifying your passion, you don’t know what it is…how it’s going to manifest itself. So you need to know really quickly, what is it in your passion…who are you looking to serve? Because 9 times out of 10 I find people that, “I want to build a big business.” Okay, cool. “I want to be a millionaire, I want to like be on a yacht, and I want to like make, ‘I am on a boat videos.'”
Okay, cool. Well, I’m not saying that’s wrong. Some people are really motivated just by money, and that’s not wrong. Some people want to vilify that, that’s not wrong because I get that. I came from a household where the word ‘debt’ was used constantly, and ‘we can’t afford’ was used constantly and, obviously, I couldn’t initially pursue my first two passions in life of being an animator or going and working with the best people that I could study under to become like the best performer.
I knew I had the work ethic.
I knew I had the budding talent, but I needed somebody to help me.
I needed to be around an expert to help me form that and grow that.
So for me when I started getting into this and seeing that I no longer wanted a decision in my life to be made because I lacked funds. If it was, “Oh, I have somebody in need, cool. What can I do for you? Oh, I need to learn this skill so therefore I need to invest in this course. Awesome.” I was no longer going to be limited to how much I could grow…some people aren’t limited because they have shitty work ethic or they’re lazy. I knew that wasn’t me.
I knew that if I had the opportunity I was going to go bust my ass and so money does create options. It totally creates options. So I couldn’t just go, “I want to build a business and make money.” I needed to figure out what was that avenue, so how could I marry passions together? And it was getting and emotional response. Hopefully I am getting emotional response from you right now as you are thinking about your own life and the thing that you are passionate about.
Turn Your Passion Into a Career
What is that thing that when you start talking about it, like you lose track of time and you get really excited about it, and it could be sports. It could be your favorite sports team, it could be crocheting, it could be…I don’t know, coupon cutting. It could be something that isn’t housed in…the tool that’s going to get you there, they may have nothing to do with each other, but they can.
At the end of the day, what does my home fitness business have anything to do with being a better performer and singer? Well on the surface, nothing. But if I go to an actor or an artist or somebody that I know is struggling because they having to wait tables or work some bullshit job that takes all their time or they can’t go take that voice lesson or they can’t get to that acting work shop or they miss the audition because of that day job they are temping. Well if I came to them and say, “Look, my business is going to get you in better shape, help you lose weight, which is going to make you more marketable, and I am going to show you a way you can make passive income with your journey, which is going to allow you to not work that temp job eventually. Would these tools help you get to where you want to go with your career?”
So on the surface they look like two unrelated things, but they really do find a way to compliment each other and I think that there is…so be open to finding tools that may not on the surface look like it has anything to do with your passion.
But you got to move. You got to start moving because if all you do is stay in “What if?” mode, in planning mode, and you need to know what it looks like from A-Z before you take a step, you are never going to change your life.
I am just…I care enough about your goals to just be honest with you. If you wait til it’s all like the path is…all I need to know and my entire career as been…think of it as you’re walking into a pitch black forest and I’ll wrap with this. You are walking through a pitch black forest and all you have is a flash light, like a little light, and all you can see is down at your feet, the next step in front of you. You can’t see the rest of the forest. You may be running right into a cliff or a tree. You don’t know. All I need is that light in front of me to go there is the next step. There is a rock there. If I turn this way okay, there is the next step.
But you got to take the step. You’ve got to take the step. It’s never been easier right now, whatever your passionate about, start giving yourself a stage. Flip on your flipping phone and talk about it. Post that video. Share your story. Right now in the middle of it. It’s not a finished story. I didn’t wait till my story was finished. My story is not finish now. There is still shit that I struggled with and failures I do and I am not the perfect dude at all, but I get on here and I share with you guys everyday and hopes that in my imperfection you move as well.
So you will identify your purpose by taking action.
That’s the answer to question of “How do I identify my purpose?” Take action and it will reveal itself to you exactly what it looks like and exactly what the vehicle is going to be. Be open minded to that opportunity that somebody brings you with and say, “Well, this isn’t really what I thought it was going to be but I will take a step in that direction to see if I can marry the two things together.” Cool?
So take action today. Let me know in the comments what it is that you are taking action on. Let’s identify your passion and we will talk real soon.