Accelerating personal growth isn’t easy. Over the past 18 months, while I have been developing and testing BrillianceQuest, many people have asked me, why did you do it? Why did you create this program? The short answer is: because I needed it myself!
I was probably just like you. On the outside, I was successful. I had a great business that I owned, it was doing well financially, I had great clients who referred their friends and family to work with me. Externally, it all looked great! I even had people tell me that they envied my life. What they couldn’t see on the inside is that I was miserable. Yes, miserable.
To be clear, the definition of misery that I use is “distress or suffering caused by need.” So, while everything on the outside looked good, it felt like something major was missing for me. I NEEDED something that I could not figure out for years!
I had been teaching people for ten years how the hard-wiring in their brains motivated them, which fears built into their brains drove them, what their stress responses were and how they manifested, how they made decisions, what irritated them and which environments were best for their brain types. I discovered a small study that was mostly unknown about neuro-transmitters and how they were biochemically required for joy and happiness – and the light bulb went off! Of course, I knew all this about my brain and how it worked but I wasn’t using my brain the right way so that I could be happy! I immediately changed the way I worked and I felt better. I wasn’t nearly as drained or exhausted after a hard day’s work. With this new knowledge, my life improved, but I still felt like something was missing.
One day, I was reading a blog post by my friend Andrea Lee, who wrote about meaning and money. I started thinking about meaning and decided to look up what it meant, exactly. Meaning is the significance of something. While I enjoyed my work and it was making a difference in businesses all over the world, it was still not significant enough for me. Sure, I was helping executives and managers reduce their stress, use their brains more effectively, communicate more effectively for their audiences and direct reports, but I wasn’t making a significant difference in their lives. I was helping them and they were thankful, but I knew I could do more.
A few months later, my friend Jeffrey Van Dyk called me to offer an amazing experience. He was learning how to teach people to access their purpose and was looking for a guinea pig. I immediately jumped at the opportunity and within a few weeks, I knew my purpose – to illuminate the world because the way we are working and living is unsustainable and goes against the natural order! Wow! I didn’t know exactly what it meant, but I knew it was “real” and “accurate” because I felt it. I also felt the significance of it. A little too much. It started to feel like a burden to me. Then I freaked out – I decided to ignore my purpose because it was too overwhelming for me and I didn’t think I could be successful at it (this is common for people who discover their purpose, by the way).
Be sure to check out my post on What Happens When You Ignore Your Life’s Purpose?
Things got worse. When I ignored my purpose, I got nervous, anxious and couldn’t focus. The next few months were a nightmare. Not only did my business suffer, my relationships, my health, my self-confidence all took a beating. Then I decided that I couldn’t ignore my purpose any longer, so I set off to figure out what it meant, how to be successful at it and what else did I need to know and do so that I could enjoy it, have meaning, be happy and fulfilled.
I used myself as a laboratory. I tried several things that didn’t work. I hired coaches and teachers and took courses and programs. I learned something from all of them, but not the “holy grail” for how to make it all work. Then one night I couldn’t sleep. During the wee hours of the morning, I heard a voice say “you’ve got everything you need.” I blinked and asked, “what?” And the voice inside my head said, “You’ve got everything you need. You have the skills, knowledge, strength, wisdom, passion and know-how to follow your purpose, be successful, find meaning and fulfillment and be happy. All you need to do is put it together the right way.” I sat up in bed, stunned and shaking a little. It felt right. I did know it, but it didn’t exist yet.
I knew my purpose, but I didn’t exactly know how to make it successful. So, I added the Holistic Life Plan and I used the brain function information that I had been teaching so that I would have the right balance of neurotransmitters to biochemically set myself up for happiness. It all started to come together.
Necessity was the mother of invention. And now I’m proud to be able to share the entire BrillianceQuest process with you – if you’re ready for it!