What is the way you want to bring change to the world?

What are the practical applications of your passions?

Somehow, these questions have me thinking about Dorothy on the way to find the Wizard.

Dorothy’s just trying to find her way home to her answers.  Trouble is, before too long the parade has stopped, the munchkins have left and it’s just her and her dog in a strange land that looks a little like a trippy cartoon and she’s quite certain that she should have just stayed in the plain old vanilla black and white version of her life before this nonsense of a journey to find her passion began.

Sure it seemed fun at the beginning – adventure! Lollipops!  Red sparkly shoes! and a Mayor who gives you the key to the city.  Despite the house dropping on that evil witch, Dorothy thinks, “What could possibly go wrong?”

Whoa.

What goes wrong is that everything that’s familiar and warm and even boring fades away and she’s faced with a choice of roads and she has no idea which direction to choose.  So she panics.  And she starts hearing voices.  The voice of a scarecrow in the middle of no-where is her wake-up call.  Maybe she doesn’t have to go it alone.

Cute story, right?

You know how it ends.  Dorothy (who is you) gets to the Emerald City, and learns that she still has to jump through a ton of hoops, face a big load of flying monkeys, an army of soldiers and finally slay the big limiting belief just to get to the answer she’s been seeking.  After doing all that (with the help of her trusty friends – heart, mind and soul) she finds out that despite all the fancy pyro-technics and camera-work, she had the answer all along.

You’d think she’d be ticked off.

Or at the least a tad bit disappointed that she’d wasted so much time and energy traipsing through woods and poppy fields and everything else just to end up right where she started (the bonus, as we all know, is that she gets to keep the shoes).

But she’s not ticked off, is she?  In fact, she may be physically the same (minus that bump on her noggin’) but she’s a completely new person after her journey.

She’s clear on what’s most important to her.

She’s alive with passion for the meaning in her life and I like to think that she goes forth and kicks some serious ass in that small Kansas town – making sure that no one messes with dogs or kids again.

The journey is the point that makes everything else wonderful and groovy and full of love.

You CAN take the journey alone, but …hell, wrong! I don’t think you get to take the journey alone.  Because simply NOT choosing your companions is making a choice to let go.  You’ll end up with companions on the journey but instead of the aforementioned trio you may end up with buzz-saw toting nicotine addict, a three-headed giant sloth and a slimy snail with the attitude of Don Corleone.

You’re moving forward right now and if you’re just blindly putting one foot in front of the other because that’s what you’ve always done, you’re still going to end up at a destination.    If you choose your companions you’ll get where you want to be in much less time and with a lot more fun stories at the end than if you’re at the mercy of that snail that seems predisposed to leaving equine body parts along the way.

Yeah.  I love it too.  The Journey to Passion.

Your challenge for themonth:

1.    Pick your three companions (could be a friend, a minister, a coach or your lover.  Pick them and let them know you’re recruiting them for your passion journey)

2.    Laser focus on answering the question: “What are you passionate about?”  [hint - lean heavily on your companions]

3.    Set concrete steps for either a) discovering your passion or b) living it so it makes an impact on your world

4.    Tell me about your passion, your companions, your impact-plan in the comments so we can cheer you on!

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