Epiphany: Following Your Passion (Great One for Students and Recent Graduates)
May.25.11

“If you have a passion for something and do it with excellence, you will prosper. Money and career will follow.”
– John Lehman

John Lehman was 19 years old when he had his epiphany about what he was passionate about and what he wanted to do with his life. He was in college and at a family picnic when his father asked him what he was going to major in. When he replied he was pretty much decided on international relations, his father asked him the classic fatherly question, “How are you going to make a living at that? At that moment he had his epiphany.

“It was this moment, right then, that I found clarity on what it was I wanted to do. I told him I wanted to help make policy. My dad went on, “Well, that’s great. You should follow what you are interested in, but also think about how you’re going to make a living. Are you going to be a career civil servant?” I said, “Absolutely not. I want to change the government. You can’t do that from inside the bureaucracy.” So I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I never wavered. I never had any doubts.”

John went on to design his life to study international relations and economics and got his masters and doctorate in those areas. He also joined the Navy Reserves and flew for 25 years with them. He met Henry Kissinger through a professor of his while studying at the University of Pennsylvania and Dick Allen while studying at Cambridge. He ended up working for them in the White House and eventually became Secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan from 1981-1987. John Lehman was integral to the team that helped end the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

“It was a great honor and satisfaction to be a part of that team…My epiphany and the trajectory it set me on let me play a role when President Reagan was making a huge change in the world by winning the Cold War. It was great to fulfill my ambitions and realize my convictions by being a part of that.

From all these experiences, I learned that it’s extremely important to follow our instincts—assuming we’ve thought about it and learned enough to understand what we’re deciding about. If you know in your heart that’s what you want to do, you should do it. Whatever your passion is, even if you don’t know how you’re going to make a living at it, you should still pursue it. If you have a passion for something and do it with excellence, you will prosper. Money and career will follow. If you have an insight that you are going to be happy doing something, and you don’t do that because you think people will think less of you because of it or won’t approve, then you’re making a mistake. Happiness doesn’t come from what other people think, but what you have a passion for, from what’s in your heart that you know to be true for you. As Shakespeare wrote, “This above all, to thine own self be true.”

Adapted from Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage and Transform, the Callings section.

 

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Sometimes You Just Gotta Laugh…(Or The Day Funny or Die Saved My Life)
May.24.11

The other day, I was in a funk and in HUGE procrastination mode and was grudgingly going through my emails. As I forged down the list, I went ahead and hit Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project daily email to see what her quote of the day was. (I’ve talked about her book and site, The Happiness Project, on here. Huge fan. If you like smart, positive, funny, sort of quirky people and projects, check it out.) So anyway, I opened the email and I rarely follow her links on these daily emails because I go to her site often, but this morning I went because I didn’t want to do my other work. This led me to an entry where she said she loves videos and she puts a link to one of her favorites. Of course, being the incredibly efficient procrastinator that I am (I don’t mean to brag but I am perhaps one of the best in the field), I followed that link which led me to a cute, clean, harmless fun vid of Jewel playing a prank on Funny or Die. After I watched that one, I noticed Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis (yes, the weird, bearded guy from The Hangover) and thought, hmmm, I should check that out…and…SO funny. At least to me that morning. (And now actually.) And then that led me to Jimmy Kimmel…and so on, and so on, and so on…until next thing I knew, I looked up and over an hour had gone by. Yes, over an hour of me just screwing around when I have 10 million things I need to be doing. But I had been laughing. And you know what, I felt energized. And I wasn’t in a funk any more. And I proceeded to get a lot done for the rest of the day (eventually.) So, okay maybe my title is a little overdramatic – Funny or Die didn’t save my life, BUT it did save my day.

The moral of the story is this: when you’re in a funk and feeling discombobulated, try doing something or watching something that makes you laugh, something that absorbs you and takes your mind somewhere else completely. Truly, give it a rest. And if that means you take off 5 minutes or 60 minutes to watch mindless Funny or Die videos, so be it. Because sometimes, you just gotta laugh.

I added the vids below as well (and if you like those, here’s a link the classic and one of my all-time favs The Landlord by Will Ferrell.) Big thanks to Funny or Die!

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Epiphany: Why Worry?
May.20.11

“Half the things we worry about don’t happen;
the other half happen whether we worry about them or not.”

This epiphany was the reason I started sleeping again while going through a difficult time in my life about 10 years back. Now, when there is a “crisis” at hand, I think of this statement. I also think about the very worst case scenario that could happen. When I do that, I find that the worse case scenario is always bearable, manageable and usually just not all that bad. The bottom line is that worrying and stress are not necessary most of the time. They deplete our overall happiness.

So in the immortal words of Alfred E. Newman, “Why Worry?” : )

– Kelly B., Austin, Texas

 

 

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What was Osama bin Laden’s Epiphany? Lawrence Wright on The Colbert Report
May.13.11

There is always so much news about our amazing Epiphany contributors that I can’t keep up with it all. But my former intern just texted me to tell me that Lawrence Wright was on The Colbert Report last night so I thought it’d be fun to share this little bit of pop culture about a contributor that happens to be very special to this project and what he shared with me about Osama bin Laden when I interviewed him.

Lawrence Wright (Larry) was the first person I ever interviewed on the phone for Epiphany, thus sparking the epiphany for me that went something like this: “hmmm…sometimes getting interviews on the phone is much easier than organizing a shoot.” This realization ultimately gave the book project the edge over the film version happening first. (I did go to Austin and film Larry’s interview eventually though.) Larry also wrote the play, Sonny’s Last Shot, where I played the wonderful role of the West Texas cowgirl, Lola, through which I had my epiphany that led to my asking people about their epiphanies. So Larry has played a significant part in this project, and I’m not quite sure he even realizes that. You never know the effect you will have on someone’s life – just by something you say or do or by your work alone.

When I interviewed Larry, I asked him if he could ask anyone in the world about their greatest epiphany, who would it be. (I began asking everyone this question – even you – it’s still out there if you ever want to contribute!) Larry responded that he would like to know Osama bin Laden’s epiphany. (Larry is a leading, if not the leading expert on Bin Laden, having written the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Looming Tower.) He went on to say that he just wondered what made Bin Laden as a very pious, religious man, go against the very tenets he supposedly believed in with what he had done and was doing with terrorism. What was that tipping point moment, that revelation, the epiphany for him about that or was it even an epiphany moment? Would Bin Laden have even answered the question to, “What is your greatest epiphany in life?” with anything to do with that? Obviously, we’ll never know. But on a lighter note, here is Larry being interviewed on the Colbert Report last night!

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Terror, A New One – Lawrence Wright
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive
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How Collecting Epiphanies Can Happen: Amazon + Facebook = Epiphany of Self-Respect
May.13.11

Once upon a time, I had just finished interviewing a very interesting psychologist named Kristin Neff and mentioned that I wanted to reach out to leaders in the Positive Psychology movement to hopefully interview at least one of them for this project. She said to me, “Every time Amazon accidentally sends me an extra book, I always wonder and wait to see who it’s for,” and she disappeared into a room and came back and handed me a book called Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson. I opened the book, realized she was the Positive Psychology person for me, and the rest is history.

This is another story of Amazon kismet with a little Facebook magic mixed in and a beautiful epiphany about self-respect…

On March 22, 2011, I responded to a friend request on Facebook from someone I didn’t know nor did we have any mutual friends:

Elise Ballard March 22 at 6:05pm
Hi Brian. I always like to at least say hi to whomever I become friends with on here. How did you run across me, pray tell? : ) Thx for reaching out! Best, Elise

Bryan L. March 22 at 7:37pm
To answer your question, it was a random act combined with great timing. Let me explain:

I put in an order for a number of books through Amazon and they replaced one of the books I had ordered with your book. To be honest, I had no intention of reading it, but was kinda intrigued; at least enough to open it up and see what the first couple of pages had to offer. Before I knew it, I was 100 pages in and hooked. I’m going through my own “life transformation,” if you will, and have been having a number of epiphanies of my own since last August so the book really hit home.

I looked for a fan page on FB by typing in your name and saw that your profile pic was the same the picture in the book, so I added you. (I found the fan page after that). The book rocks, I’ve bought it for a number of friends and have pasted the website link on FB a number of times.

Well, I’m Bryan and that’s my story, and hope all is well 🙂

Elise Ballard March 22 at 11:25pm
are you kidding?! a random Amazon incident?? amazing!! Thank you so much – you have no idea how much this means especially on this particular night at this particular time, and I’m so happy it has helped you in any way. Truly, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this and I must hear your epiphanies one of these days, please.

Bryan L. March 23 at 12:03am
I would be more than happy to share my story and how my major epiphanies over the last six months have changed everything about me in the ways that I think, act, live, and approach life.

Your book is powerful in that almost everyone has an epiphany at some point, it’s just that not everyone acts on them. And your book uses a very diverse group, both in the individual and in the experience, to illustrate the power of acting on whatever “it” is that is trying to tell us that it’s time to change, move on, or push forward and what not. Reading the stories helped affirm in me that the changes that I am making (whether they end up being for the better or for the worse) are worth making just for the sake of the lessons learned – just another brick in the foundation.

My Background

I am 28 years old (29 on the 16th of April). For the last 4½ years I have been working in the equipment finance industry. I have always been a hard working, semi-motivated individual, but mostly an underachiever. It took me eight uninterrupted years to earn my degree (damn those south swells that bring beautiful waves to our beaches and big winter storms that fill our mountains with snow), and since my junior year of high school, I smoked pot on a daily basis.

The Beginning of My Epiphany

In August 2010, I attended The Outside Lands music festival up in San Francisco with some friends. As it would turn out, the trip was a failure by most standards and when I got back from the trip I developed a very melancholy view of life. My work environment was extremely negative – a place where the managers would manage through fear with threats of losing your job or not paying your commissions.

I clearly wasn’t happy with a number of things in my life and for the next three weeks my life started to fall apart and my work suffered greatly. It was at this point where I was called into my managers office to explain why things were going the way they were and to discuss what I was going to do to fix them before I got fired. In this meeting, I broke down and explained to my boss that I just didn’t care any more: I didn’t care about making him or the greedy owner of the company another dime. I didn’t care about losing my job. I didn’t care about not being able to pay my bills. You see, all I cared about was not inflicting harm on others or myself because I was dealing with thoughts of ending my life.

My boss immediately recommended that I go to the company’s healthcare provider’s website and seek out the help of a therapist. So I did. And to be honest, I wasn’t that interested in going to a therapist or talking to anyone – these were my problems and I needed to deal with them. Boy, was I wrong. I have been going to see my therapist for eight months now and have no intentions of stopping any time soon.

Turns out, along with some other things, I have been battling depression for as long as I can remember and with the help of my doctors and therapist, I have increased my quality of life ten-fold in dealing with this issue.

In seeing my therapist, one of the major issues she wanted to address was my habitual pot-smoking. With the increase in the stress levels that were occurring at work, my consumption rate at the end of 2010 was at an all-time high.

I have known since the first time I smoked pot that it was not conducive to the life I want to live. My therapist would remind me of this on a weekly basis. But the reality was that with the stress loads at the office, smoking pot was an easy escape for me.

My Epiphany

So here I am in October 2010: 28 years old, making good money but miserable at work, smoking lots of pot, and I haven’t had a girlfriend for seven years. I had dated plenty of girls, but none that I would have ever considered girlfriend material.

Through a friend at work, I was introduced to one of the most beautiful girls I had ever met both in terms of physical beauty and beauty as a person. She was a teacher by trade and loved kids, was kind and companionate, and unlike other girls that I had dated, I could trust her.

So we started dating and I was elated, smitten if you will. Here I was dating this girl that was what I considered to be the complete package and things were going well for us. At this time I was well on track in managing my depression, and although work was stressful, I was having a career year in terms of funded transactions and income earned. What could go wrong?

After discussing the situation with my therapist and my friend, it was clear that this girl was not going to be pleased with my pot-smoking habit – a habit that I have had since the age of 16 and one that I was afraid to let go of but didn’t understand why.

Well, the day before New Year’s I told her that I smoked pot. We were in Phoenix for the holiday and her response was worse than I had anticipated. She wanted nothing to do with me, and I found myself alone in a hotel on New Year’s Day, drinking at the bar, trying to figure out what my next move was – including getting home.

Then came the moment that I will never forget. I was sitting at the hotel bar and had already consumed five pints of Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale when with absolute clarity it hit me: How could I have expected this girl to respect me and someday potentially love me if I didn’t respect or love myself?

For years I have known that the life that I want to live is not possible if I were to continue to smoke pot. But that was just a small part of a bigger problem. I started to think about everything that was going right in my life and everything that wasn’t, and then wrote down everything that I want out of life. Looking at the list, I realized that there was one common denominator that was preventing me from achieving what I want to achieve in life: ME. I was the only reason I wasn’t succeeding in the ways that I want to succeed.

Then, clear as day, it hit me. The solution was simple: Get out of the way. Instead of getting overwhelmed by how tough it would be to figure out the solutions to each individual problem, I realized the simple solution was to get out of my own way, which applied to all of my problems. No one was forcing me to smoke pot – I was preventing myself from stopping. No one was forcing me to work in an environment that did not support the lifestyle I wanted – it was my being lazy and making excuses preventing me from making the career change that I needed to make. As I went down the list, I realized that it was me: I was my biggest problem. I was the only thing holding myself back from living the way I wanted to live, and I needed to get out of my own way.

And so I did. I quit smoking pot that day. When I got back to work after the holiday, I quit that too. I have surrounded myself with the people that embody the personal characteristics that I want to embody. I have joined the personal and professional organizations that support the lifestyle that I want to live. It is within this paradigm of life that I am learning to love and respect myself, and it is within this newfound love and respect that I find the strength to make changes that need to be made so that I can live the life I want to live.

As corny as this may sound, I can’t thank God enough for having introduced me to what I considered the girl of my dreams. And I can’t express with words how thankful I am that that girl would not allow any person that did drugs into her life and sent me packing. She still wants nothing to do with me and I have not talked to her since that day in Phoenix, but that’s ok. Regardless of the outcome, her gift to me is one that I will always be thankful for.

– Bryan L., Yorba Linda, CA

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