Connect to Your Passion By Paying Attention to the Whisper | Adriana Girdler | TEDxHickory

thank you so much is an honor to be here just a show of hands how many of you have a really busy life lots of things to do yeah I'm not surprised right so much so that that common saying we have hey how you doing what do we say oh I'm so busy right we don't say I'm fine anymore I have a second question for you at any point during your busy life have you ever said to yourself I'm missing something no you don't have to answer that I want you to think about it because we get back to that a little bit later I'm here today to share with you something I believe in deeply and I'm extremely passionate about and that is every single person has a purpose and it is our job in this lifetime to connect with that purpose and live our passion now some of you in this room I know are connected to your purpose and you were so blessed but it's interesting because with the companies that I work in their employees people that come across my own friends even family members society as a general as a whole I find that I'm hearing I'm too busy I'm not happy there has to be more to this and I ask myself why why we do not grow up this way okay when we're born we're born with it's clean slate no outside influences and in fact so much so that we actually are connected with our passion we actually connected with their purpose it's like a whisper and kids do an amazing job of listening and they play and their imaginations are big and they are soaring high and it's a beautiful thing to watch that's why we love watching kids it's magical but as life moves on so do we and we grow older and we get social norms start making our decisions we get pressure with expectations from our parents friends other family members even more so today we're connected right we have this outside connection with social media likes the bings the dings so much so that we're so focused I like to call it this external white noise the white noise of life and we're always focused on this external outwardness so much so have you ever been in a restaurant saw two people at a table and they're not even talking to other but they're on their phones okay of course now interestingly enough we're so busy on that external we are sometimes forgetting about our own internal that purpose that passion we could get on the ILA patil pilot very easily with our routines have you ever driven somewhere and wonder how you got there I have right and of course life starts to get busier and we start to lose that connectivity to original passion that we had in much younger age and of course we have obligations we ever to-do lists but they're all important because we actually have obligations where family members are friends professionally we are supposed to get things done what's happening more and more that I'm seeing is that we have this checklist and we get lulled into thinking that we're doing by performing all of these tasks externally and as a life moves on in the famous words of John Lennon life is happening to you while you're busy making other plans I was like that I don't know maybe some of you are as well but you have to understand something about me I'm an organizer planner that's just who I am in fact the work that I do is continue to improvement I'm constantly looking for something how do I do it better so I was doing this checklist tasks getting things done but there was something deep inside me that I really wasn't feeling that I was connecting with so I did a vision board because I was told I might not do a vision board it will help you I love the visuals that resonated but I really found it was just as superficial it was still that external nough so when I was in business I thought hey vision statements companies do it all the time I did my own personal vision statement that was actually better I was really grateful for that because it me think but still it wasn't enough I still felt like I was on this the cyclist hamster wheel of life do it a lot but getting nowhere doing a lot but getting nowhere so what I recognize and realize is I have to do something about this because it's driving me nuts I need to move forward but how do I do it so I do what I do when I need to figure things out and that is I start doing research right how do I go home I do how do I get better I'm a continuous improvement person I'm all about the next thing and how do I get better at it so I started reading journals and I started reading scientific papers and a lot of things that I knew before definitely resonated and part of that was where visual learners write most of us are about 65% of us and that really resonated with me I'm like yeah I totally get that I'm connected with being a visual learner I also read that the way we process we process visually a lot faster than we do text it's like okay that's cool now I really came across this cool study which talked about art and how if you have deep information you want to actually portray it and how the power of art can help you retain information I went wow that's that's really cool now what I'm trying to improve and get better I also realized I got to go back to definition so I had a benchmark I said okay so what is it that I really wanted want a vision I want to get better I knew those are the things we're gonna help me so I went and I found this definition that truly resonated with me and I thought wow okay vision is an inspiring description of what you would like to achieve in the long-term future just serve as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action and that was amazing I had some lightbulb moments but totally went off for me and went whoa my first aha moment and that moment was telling me that Adriana you were on the right path you had to go deeper you forgot about your passion you forgot about your purpose you need to figure out what that is doing this external stuff wasn't getting you anywhere guess what I got to go inward I also found that my vision is not just something to be out there something use my compass my GPS my Google Maps the ability to say yes and no to things so that I know that whatever I'm doing is aligned with Who I am what I love and that's exactly what I did I went okay I'm gonna take the power of visuals because there's something there right really cool I'm gonna line it with the power of going in-depth more so than just a 30 second elevator speech that vision statements can give us I want a something had more meat and potatoes so I did these very specific exercises that made me analyze who I was it was a little bit scary right I had to ask some hard questions some of them I didn't want to answer and I think the busyness covered it up for so long but when I did I got something really powerful and I want to share that with you right now my own personal visual vision statement so here are the words to be authentic and everything I do by honoring and empowering myself and respecting and listening to those around me through love and guidance Adrianna griddler that's me now 30 second elevator speech not enough but as soon as I started adding colors and symbols and icons I've had stories all of a sudden I had this powerful tool that was going to allow me to truly make decisions use it as a compass so much so with the research I did I went wait a minute this is powerful stuff it's really resonating with me I need to now totally be surrounded with it so that I know what to say yes to when the doors of opportunity come a-knockin so what I did is I turned it into artwork I actually have it on my computer screen this is in my office my home office mouse pad phone Facebook you can my web page look I'm serious I have it I have it everywhere because I want to be able to see it I want to connect with it what I love about this is until I went in depth and I asked hard questions there's a lot of stuff on my personal visual vision didn't even think about I want to bring your attention to the musical notes I did not realize how important music was to me until until I started the process of creating my own visual vision statement music feeds my soul I did not realize that when I was younger I actually played piano right and then I got 16 it's like I want to play panning more I would hang with my friends I don't want to practice so I dropped it right those pressures the busyness of life started to kick in and about 12 years ago I made the decision to take up guitar and start singing no I don't have a guitar here I'm gonna start singing for you although I do push myself to do stuff like that and with those musical notes I want to bring your attention to this because there's a story behind it my second aha moment which was powerful for me and that is I had a friend of mine Adam Michael amazing musician and what he would come over to my house help me with jam have a good time so but a few years back he said you know what Rihanna I think you're ready to record your own song felt really good compliment too because he's like an amazing musician but and there's always a but right but you have to write your own song hmm barriers went up I gave him every excuse Under the Sun no way no way can't do it I'm Way too busy and those were all legitimate excuses and they were true I was really busy I had a lot of client work on the go I had some traveling kids activities all of that stuff and I said no so he walked out of my house right I walked in my basement I go to my office store open it and this is what I saw and you know what I said but bleep bleep bleep ah I got angry it's like oh no I have to do it it's getting aggravate that I had to follow my own vision pick up the phone find out I'm fine yes Adam I'll do it I'll do it I'll do it I'm getting agitated at Adam because I'm saying yes to my vision I found that interesting I found that in really interesting because I was afraid I was afraid now when you are connected to your purpose and you take the time to find out what your passion is and you live it you'll be amazed to how quickly things flow the very next weekend I created the lyrics to my own song we actually went and Adam and I did the instrumentals and we went into the recording studio and it was the most amazing experience ever in my life so much so that I feel I created my own personal theme song which was really cool now when I was in that recording studio I was like holy smokes there's something here you know when you get that intuition and those boost bumps in certain situations I like I had no idea what it meant I just knew something was here so at the same time what was going on my spinning I have a big project with a client and we were doing our what we call after-action reviews for those of you who do that stuff when we're saying yeah everything was cool good I said you know what cuz I'm also good friends with them I want to share with you something really I'm excited about I created my own song I kind of considered my own personal theme song do you want to listen to it they said yeah yeah so I place on my iphone because you know I carry everything with me right it's everywhere it's on my iPhone I play there listening to it and as they're listening to it literally this whisper from my heart says ask them if they want a corporate theme song and then I had a lump in my throat which was fear song and did they were like wow that was great I knew it literally had a split second to say something and I said do you want your own corporate theme song and they looked at each other they said oh my god this amazing idea we were just saying how our team who was working on that project the rest of the group really wanted to get involved and this would be a cool way to do it I said well I'd never done one before let me figure it I'll get back to you and they ultimately said yes we wanted to record studio we found out who the musicians were in their group we found out who the singers were in the group we connected to their own departmental vision we created a song when the recording studio made a video how cool is that right how cool is that so much so guess what I now offer it as a service in my own company and if you would have said ten years ago Adrian as a productivity and efficiency expert by the way you're gonna create music videos I'd be like you're nuts how the heck that doesn't jive to me but actually it was the most perfect fit in the whole wide world now I tell you that not because of the music videos what was my answer to Adam was no the only reason why I said yes is because I saw this that's it if it was written down on a piece of paper like something on the left there's no way I would have seen it the only reason why I said yes was because I sighed and was instantaneous remember my compass my Google Maps in life what to say yes and no to so now I ask you the question how many times if you said no to opportunities we say it all the time yeah I remember when I asked you earlier on have you ever at any point felt like you were missing something in your life could those opportunities that were presented to you that we have no idea what its gonna lead to could have been something that was connecting you to your purpose but you said no to it I know it was powerful stuff for me when I got that AHA which was my second aha I was like oh my god I have only I had this responsibility now to connect and say yes to the great things I want you to do me a favor point to yourself everybody points yourself where are you pointing most of you are pointing here some of you are pointing here okay that's okay ABB's solutely okay we call this the heart center this is where our purpose and passion lies now do me another favor take your hand and put on your heart center if you feel comfortable close your eyes and if not lower your gaze now take a moment to listen to the whisper of your heart what is it telling you if you want to go to the next level in your life you do need to be connected to your purpose you need to live your passion but you also need a tool to get you there because I promise you the busyness of life will get in the way so to go to that next level you do need a visual vision you need your own personal Google Maps once you know exactly what is it that you're about and what you're passionate about because vision without action isn't merely a dream action without vision just passes the time and vision with action can change the world thank you [Applause] you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 110,110

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Goal-setting, Life Development, Motivation

Id: B5Z3goIox14

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 09 2018