Finding Your Passion and Purpose

At our February Leader’s Connect CEO Breakfast Ida Abdalkhani spoke about Discovering and Living Your Passion & Purpose. The event was sold out and we had a packed house as many came out to learn and share their own experiences finding passion and purpose.

Ida spoke about her journey from The Ohio State University’s MBA program to working as a global brand manager at Procter & Gamble. She worked on iconic brands such as Downy and Olay. Yet she felt like there was more. So, she listened to her gut and resigned from P&G. Ida then found herself exploring alternative forms of meditation and backpacking around the world. Her travels gave her a new-found perspective on her own passions and purpose, and when she returned, she started Ability to Engage, an award-winning market research and brand innovation firm. She also became a laughter yoga instructor along the way and goes around the world speaking about the benefits of laughter, as well as her own journeys and marketing.

During Leader’s Connect, Ida led the audience through discovering their own passion and purpose via a mini workshop. She conveyed three key ideas to discover and live a life of passion and purpose:

1. Moving from “doing” to “believing”

If we live out our beliefs vs simply doing, we will feel more purposeful.

2. Understanding Me + We

Passion is about you, while purpose is about you + others.

3. Understanding where you are in the 4’s and action planning against them

This represented Ida’s ideas, and graphical depiction, on gaining awareness of one’s passions and purposes by identifying Struggle, Survival, Success, and Significance.

The audience was incredibly engaged and asked great questions during the event. Here is some feedback from the event:

· lda brought fresh, inspired energy to what I often believe are over-used terms; passion and purpose. Although years of life separate us, I could relate to [Ida’s] story of transition to current purpose. I plan to use her approach to move beyond prevention to formation as “rewire” for the next chapter of my personal and professional life. It was important to be reminded that it is possible to step forward out of passion without knowing the destination.

· The statement from this morning’s exercise ‘I’m naturally good at connecting with people’ supported me and gave me belief and courage throughout that uncertain time…their affirmations and support were oxygen for me.

· Taking a page out of what I learned today…I would regret not saying thank you to [Ida] because people need to be truly appreciated for the gifts they offer the world. I think gratitude matters because every day is a gift and I should be thankful for each day and for each person who I encounter in whatever way that I can because everyone deserves to be appreciated.

If you’d like to see the “4 S’s” passion and purpose chart Ida created and learn more about how to discover your passion and purpose, click on the YouTube video link below:

Leader’s Connect February Video with Ida Abdalkhani: Discovering and Living With Passion and Purpose