Loving Vs. Liking
How loving something versus liking it significantly alters your trajectory of success and the ability to reach your full potential.
In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss the proper way to let your passions, curiosity and heart be your guide as to what and who you should pursue in life.
How a lack of passion for your job or life’s work has a negative effect on your attractiveness, vibe, health and ability to get and keep the women you desire. The importance of making what you love the focus of your actions instead of things you like.
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The inspiration for the topic I’m going to be talking about today was actually from a phone session I had with a client recently. For me personally and all the clients I’ve helped over the years, it’s something you learn to use intuitively based on life experience. I just turned fifty a couple of days ago, and the reality is as you go through life and get experiences, things that you were once excited about no longer have the same passion and enthusiasm. And that could be a job, it could be a career, it could be a car that you once thought was the most awesome car in the world, and now that you’ve had it and driven it around for several years, there’s something better that you want.
Maybe it’s the person you were in a relationship with. You were really excited the first few months, the first year or two, but now the internal enthusiasm is gone. And so you’re going to be faced with situations where the internal enthusiasm is not what it once was, and you’re not going to feel like you want to continue moving in the current direction.
A lot of time, what I see in my phone sessions is people stuck in these kinds of situations. In this particular one, this guy was very good at what he had done, and that’s one of the things I talk about a lot. Passion, and heart and loving something, because when you really and truly love something, you’ll be really great at it because it doesn’t feel like work. It kind of feels like playing to a degree.
The more your life is filled up with activities and people and events, things that you are excited about and make you come alive on the inside, the better you’re going to be in your job, the better you’re going to be in your career and the more successful your business is going to be. The same thing goes for your friendships, and the same thing goes for your intimate relationships. You’ve got to have that fire and that passion.
Think about it. You’re on a date with a girl and you’re like, “Eh, she’s kind of cute, but I don’t really like talking to her.” It’s going to be hard to carry on a conversation with her versus someone you’re on a date with who you think is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever laid eyes on, you’re fascinated by her, and you want to know everything about her. When you’re with somebody like that, you never run out of things to say. You’re excited about it even if she’s talking about a dirty pair of sneakers. You’re excited to just listen, because you really like her.
That’s the important thing. There’s way too many of us in this world that our job sucks, our career sucks, our business sucks, the people we spend our time with suck, and oftentimes the people that we’re in relationships with suck. Yet we don’t do anything about it.
So the goal going through this process is to reflect on what I went through with this particular client. He had a career issue. It’s like he kind of maxed out the position he was at, but he was getting up every day, not really excited about going to work. And because of that, he’s kind of unsure of himself, he’s unsure of his purpose, and this is having a negative effect on his dating life. Because if you’re not excited about your life and what you’re doing, it’s going to be pretty hard to get other people excited about it.
When someone says, “What do you do for a living?” and you say, “Oh, well it’s a job. It pays the bills” versus, “I fucking love what I do!” it’s two completely different vibes that you’re giving off, and a woman is going to obviously much rather be with a guy who’s excited about his life, his future and where he’s going. Not a guy who’s getting up every day and bitching about it, but not doing anything about it. This particular client recognized, “I’m not fulfilled. I’m not excited. What do I do now?”
That’s one of the things I do with a lot of people by asking a series of questions when we’re doing the phone session to get down to what they’re really into, what they’re really passionate about. It’s really hard for a lot of people to come up with these things, because you’ve got your limiting beliefs getting in the way. Part of your story that’s deep down in your subconscious is like, “Nah man, you can’t pull that off. That girl won’t go out with you. You’ll never get a job there. That raise that you want, it’s not going to happen. You’re being unrealistic. You don’t have the experience for that.” These little things that run around in our heads sabotage our success and keep us from moving forward.
There was a great quote we just posted from Kobe Bryant, who just passed away in the last past week, and as Tony Robbins said, “Success leaves clues.” If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ve heard me talking about this over and over. When you see people that are the best of the best, at the top of their game and have done absolutely exceptional things, you hear and see a common thread. So I’m going to read this quote to you from Kobe.
“The lesson I cherish the most is how important it is to love what you do. If you love what you do and it’s making you happy, all the hard work and perseverance will pay off. I once had a guidance counselor tell me that I shouldn’t play basketball, that it would never amount to anything for me.”
Remember masculine energy grows through challenge, so that guidance counselor was basically challenging him. It’s kind of like when you’re a kid and the coach is like “You suck, get on the sidelines,” and you’re like, “I can do it coach!” That’s basically what happened. His masculinity was challenged, his heart and his passion, and it made him work even harder.
“His negativity towards me made me stronger. You can’t stop people from trying to limit your dreams, but you can stop it from becoming your reality. Your dreams are up to you. I encourage you to always be curious, always seek out things you love, and always work hard once you find it. ” ~ Kobe Bryant
That’s pretty powerful. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been talking about year after year in these videos and articles I’ve written. Because again, success leaves clues.
So back to my client we were talking about. This particular guy was basically in the construction industry, similar to what I used to do. He really had a passion for what he was doing, negotiation and solving problems. Obviously, if you’re working in the construction industry, you’ve got to like mechanical things, solving problems, and negotiation to a degree because you’re getting contracts. Because he had passion for it and he was doing something that he really loved, he got noticed by other people, and eventually he had another company that heard about him, because his reputation preceded him.
Here’s an instance of a guy in his career that’s doing exceptional work and people talk about it, because we all recognize exceptional people whether we’re eating out at a restaurant, or we bought a new car and we need somebody to fix our car, or build us a house or whatever it happens to be. When they do an exceptional job, quite frankly most of us are used to seeing people not doing exceptional work. Therefore, we recognize and appreciate it when somebody is doing really well.
It’s the same thing when it comes to dating. When you come across a woman who’s absolutely fucking exceptional, you’re going to make a little extra effort to make sure your game is tight, because you don’t want to screw it up. That’s a double edged sword which can cause you to be too nice and too compliant and display weakness, because you’re really hoping things don’t go sideways, versus a woman who you’re just not that into. If you give off the vibe that’s not so much that you’re not into her, but that she’s more into you than you are into her, then that’s going to make her want to work more for your attention and validation and appreciate you more.
So, this guy was doing really well, he gets noticed, and this company offers him a job. The difference is, he didn’t go out looking for it. It’s the same thing if you’re trying to raise money for your company, and you really need money, nobody wants to lend it to you. When everything’s doing real well and you don’t need money, people are going to be like, “Hey, if you ever need me to invest in your company or you ever need some cash, I’d love to invest in it.”
Or when you’re single, and you haven’t had a date in six months or a year, and you’re trying to get a date but it’s not going anywhere, versus you start dating a girl after those long periods of nothing that really went anywhere, and now it seems like wherever you go, women like you, give you their number and express interest. It’s that abundance mentality that I talk about.
That’s why it’s so important to focus on being your best in every area of your life. That means taking care of your body. That means having a good peer group of friends, friends that often are better than you or more successful than you and in better shape than you, because being around them is going to you want to do better. Hanging out with people with better quality relationships, or that date better quality woman than most of the people that you hang out with. Little things like that help you to become better because you’ve got people around you that have high standards.
It’s important in all areas of your life to constantly be trying to get better, because that’s what masculine energy is all about — purpose, drive, mission, succeeding, accomplishing, breaking through barriers, overcoming challenges. But also recognizing when your enthusiasm is waning.
So, this particular client, he wasn’t looking for a job. A new job actually just found him because he was exceptional at his last one. But at this particular one, in the last several years, he’s quickly continued to climb the corporate ladder, when he started in the industry in a really lowly entry-level position. They didn’t pay him jack and he didn’t have much responsibility. Now he’s like one of the top producers in the company, but his enthusiasm is gone. He’s not liking the fact that he’s getting up and going to work every morning going, “Yeah. I’m not really feeling it.” He’s having to force himself to do it.
And because he’s getting up and going to work and he’s not satisfied, it’s making it harder for him to talk to and interact with women, because in the back of his mind he’s really not that excited about his life. He’s really not that excited about his career like he had been a few years ago when he got this job. The difference this time is that he’s still doing exceptional work, but nobody’s come along to offer him some other position.
In this particular case, he’s going to have to take more action and go outside of his comfort zone. So what I did with him was we made a list of all the things he really loved and really enjoyed, because at the beginning of the session he was thinking, “Maybe I need to do an absolute complete career change and do something else.” Then I went through and got all of the things that he absolutely loved. I said, “I don’t want to hear about the things you like. I only want to put things on this list that you love,” because when you put things on your list that you just like, it will take you in the wrong direction. And the more you could focus daily on things you love and enjoy, and all the things that are most important to you — which these list of things is unique to all of us. The more your career, your personal life, your social life allows you to do — all of the things that you love and enjoy — the more you’re going to feel like you’re doing what you were put on this earth to do, the happier you’re going to be, and the more fulfilled you’re going to be.
This particular guy, as we’re talking and things come out, he started the phone session thinking “I’m probably going to have to go and do something completely different, a complete career change that might require a huge pay cut to change industries.” So we get to the end of the list, and it’s obvious by the things that he wrote down that he loves, he loves the construction industry, loves building, loves all the things that go along with the industry. He loves negotiating, loves solving problems, loves working with and meeting new people.
There were some things that were part of his job that he wasn’t really enjoying. The goal is to do more of the things that you love and enjoy, so now he’s got all of this experience, he’s making a list of different employers in the industry because he’s hungry. He wants to learn more, and at the company he works for, he feels like he’s kind of hit the ceiling. There’s no more wisdom or knowledge to be gained.
This is the same thing that I went through when I was in the construction industry. When I was nineteen I was working as a carpenter’s helper. And when I was twenty two, I got a job as an unpaid intern working for a construction company just doing basic estimating. Then they hired me full time. I worked for those guys for a year and a half, and I got to the point where I learned everything I could learn from them.
I wanted a bigger challenge, so I found a developer and general contractor that did the kinds of work that I thought was interesting. I worked for them for a year and a half to two years, and same thing. I kind of hit the ceiling, and got to the point where I was bored going to work. I didn’t feel like I had any more challenges or that there as really anything that these guys could teach me, and I was young and hungry. So I was like, what’s the next big thing? I eventually went to work for Centex Rooney on a $160 million dollar hotel.
The thing that was always consistent, even to this day at fifty years old, is that when I’m not excited about something anymore, when I don’t feel challenged, I start looking for the next thing. I’m always looking for what’s exciting, what’s compelling, what’s the next step, what more can I learn, where can I use my talent, my skills, my gifts and my reserve of knowledge to make a positive impact in the world?
It’s easy to say, why rock the boat? I’ve got a steady paycheck, I’ve got bills to pay, I’ve got kids, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a mortgage. Well, the idea is you don’t up and quit your job. You keep working at what you’re doing while you look for something better. And then once you have something better lined up and they give you your employment offer, that’s when you go ahead and put in your two-weeks notice, so it’s a nice, smooth transition.
So if you’re in a similar situation where you kind of feel stagnant in your career or your business, or maybe you’re thinking you need to make a lateral move, you’re trying to figure out what your purpose is, this one of the things I help people at. Because I’ve been through this dozens of times over the course of my life, whether I was working for other people or the different companies and businesses I’ve had throughout my life.
I’ve learned to trust my heart, my curiosity, my intuition that when it’s time to make a change, whether it’s in my professional life or my personal life, I trust that. When I’ve gone against that, the results suck and they made me less happy. And I want to be happy, especially at fifty years old. I’ve lost so many people that were close to me, and the older you get the more you realize your time is running out.
With the time you’ve got left, how do you want to spend it? Do you want to spend it doing fun things that make you excited to get up every day? The reality is, if you’re more excited about your life, you’re going to be more inclined to work out, to ask that good looking girl out on a date, to start a new friendship, or start a new job. Those opportunities are out there, but you have to go out and get it.
If this client of mine was to sit there and do nothing, his satisfaction level would decrease. The lower your satisfaction, you’re not going to work as hard. And if you’re not working as hard, then you’re not the person that’s the rising star getting noticed. You’re somebody that’s in decline. So you always want to be expanding. You always want to be getting better, doing more, learning more, growing more, contributing more.
“We work hardest at and invest the most energy into things and people we love. When your life’s work makes every fiber of your being come alive with passion and satisfaction, it feels more like playing than working. When your lover sets your heart and soul on fire, it makes everything better. The more you love who and what you do, the harder you will work at making it a masterpiece. The more you value and enjoy someone or something, the more of your time, energy and resources you’ll invest to make and keep it great. Reaching your full potential is simply about investing your time and focus in the passionate pursuit of all that sets your soul on fire, so it becomes your daily reality.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne
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