The year was 2011 and I had no idea my date with destiny was about to begin.
Having started my business less than a year before, I was still trying to figure out the definition of what that business looked like. I felt lost. I was catering to clients I wasn’t passionate about because they had the money. It didn’t resonate with me AT ALL, and I felt compromised in my value system.
So what does one do when they need to figure out their business? Most would probably go back to honing their audience or creating a tighter business plan.
Me? I went to a psychic.
My friend Laurel would laugh if you called her a psychic but she is most definitely intuitive and gets messages that tend to be wickedly accurate to pass on to you. We had met quite a few times but it wasn’t until a fated coffee date with our friend Susie Parker that I realized how important she would become in my world. We had been talking about the struggles of business and she simply had said:
“When you are working towards something you are passionate about, it will never feel like a war in your heart.”
I had started to cry. Something about that statement felt like an arrow piercing my heart and left me with a nagging need to talk to her more. I set up a Skype call with her to help figure out where I needed to get my business in order. We set forth on a visualization of where I saw myself in 5 years. As I closed my eyes, I assumed it was going to be business oriented, developing a new digital product or something and being able to travel the globe with my family (If you dream it, it will come right?).
Instead, as I closed my eyes, I saw Africa. In all its glory.
Everything about the visualization took place in a school yard in Africa. I could hear the children playing, I could see my kids in the school yard laughing with them, I could touch the single level turquoise building that housed the classrooms, and I could reach out to the man who was sitting beside me on a picnic table in the yard. It was so vivid and felt so right.
Where exactly this was, I couldn’t tell you but I can share that I felt at peace, quiet and satisfied with something we had accomplished in being there. As I woke up from the visualization, we talked about what I saw. Immediately I felt relief, I felt a sense of purpose and I felt like I had a date with Africa in the not so distant future. I remember telling Laurel that I felt like it wasn’t 5 yrs away but sooner. Laurel mentioned that education and Africa would play a role in my life moving forward.
That day would be marked as one that defined a path for me. It changed my business. It helped me focus more on working in ways that would feed my soul and follow my heart to what I am passionate about.
That was 3 years ago. Tomorrow, we are leaving for Tanzania to Climb Mt Kilimanjaro and #LiveLifeIntrepid. Thanks to the amazing people at Intrepid Travel , we are working with them to help raise money for kiliproject.org, a project that helps support educational opportunities for children in Tanzania.
If you would like to support #TeamPowell raising funds on this climb, you can do so by DONATING HERE
The funny thing is, I had forgotten until recently that because of this path to Africa, I sponsored a good friend as she was in need of hitting her goal of raising funds for a MAD Climb to Kili, never in a million years dreaming that a few short years later I would be embarking on a Kili adventure of my own.
To following your passion. Who knows what kind of mountain you will get to climb.