Communicating Hope

This is a great post I read today by Jeremie Kubicek. Do you know who you are an what God created you to do?

Communicating Hope

On a recent trip to Washington D.C. I had the privilege of meeting a great driver named Harvey. He picked me up at midnight to drive me 45 minutes to my hotel. We had an amazing conversation.

Now I realize that some of you are not into conversations with strangers at midnight while trying to get to a hotel. On this night I was in the mood to talk.

I simply started to connect with Harvey and to my appreciation he worked to connect back. What happened was amazing. We spent 20 minutes or so talking about why Georgetown basketball was amazing and if Shaq should retire or not. While I am not a basketball scout I do know enough to have a conversation, which is why it is important for influencers to be well-versed.

That said, we spent another 10 minutes getting into his world. He then asked me a great question, “How did you know what you wanted to do?” The final 15 minutes shifted to building a plan to help Harvey figure this question out.

Harvey, if you are reading this I wanted to finish the conversation to help you further. I hope you go for what we discussed.

Here is how I answered the question…

To know what you want to do you must first understand who you be. I know that is not proper grammar, but it works. It means that you must know who you are before you know what you want to do. So the obvious question came from Harvey: “How do you find out who you are?”

Here are 3 ways to find out who you are:

1. Listen to What Others Say - What do your parents, teachers, siblings, mentors, co-workers, etc. say about you. If you asked them “Who am I?” what would they say?

2. Experience Through Practice - I knew I was a pioneering encourager for years but it took me going through trial and errors to get to a confidence of who I was.

3. Get to Know Your Father - I am referring to our Heavenly father here. When we know God as our father and view ourselves as sons and daughters we will begin to ask him who we are and He tells us.

Think of it this way…

Adam knew he was God’s special creation. Out of that came his vocation - tending the garden. The problems started with that tempting apple. When Adam was cast out of the garden he had to work three times as hard to get food, so he shifted his focus on what he had to do in order to survive. Thus, Adam forgot who he was and focused more on what he had to do.

The same thing has happened in our culture. We always talk about what we do, but rarely spend time talking about who we are.

Harvey, ask your friends and family to tell you who you are. Then look back at your experience and ask God for clarity. After that you can start building a plan around the best vocation possible.

From my perspective you were amazing at connecting with me and, thus, I assume you can do that with many people. You have a high Emotional Intelligence so start looking for a vocation (whether you start a company or work for some one). Do the hard part of finding out who you are and then work on what to do. 

Wishing you the best!

Posted on March 04, 2010 in Personal Growth