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We have selected some helpful and information articles and segments from books and magazines to add to this section of the website. We will be rotating in new information regularly so please check back often.

Here is a segment from Sarah's upcoming book How to Double Your Business in One Year or Less.

Secret 2. Tap into the power of your passion

Everyone has made a pact but may not realize it. When you say to yourself, what message would I share with the world?  How would I change the world if I were the ruler or emperor for the day?  It forces you to say, “Wow, if I could do magic, if I was in charge, if I made all the rules, what would matter to me?  What would I do first?  Once you tap into that, not only does it give your life clarity, but it gives speaking, which is the scariest thing in the world, a passion and clarity.

There are people who have spoken throughout the centuries who would die for what they stood up and spoke about. Clearly Martin Luther King did, clearly John F. Kennedy did, Joan of Arc stood up for what she believed in and was killed for it. The people who speak effortlessly are the ones who believe passionately that what they have to say is more powerful than their fear. If you have something that you feel you are meant to do that is more powerful than you fear, your brain can’t focus on two things at once. Unless you are schizophrenic, and that is always a good test. If you can think of two things simultaneously then you have serious problems. Most of us can only think of one. If our life is going to focus on obtaining the important things, the things that really have tremendous value. For instance our friend Steve Mayer is writing a book on the value zone, which is about what the value zone is in your life, what is really worth doing,

"The people who speak effortlessly are the ones who believe passionately that what they have to say is more powerful than their fear."

what is life worth living. Why do we spend 80% of our time doing the things that are 20% important in value, when we could be spending 80% of our time doing the things that have the highest value? We choose that. We say we have to make a living. That is silly; you have chosen to be doing things exactly the way you are. There is no reason on earth you can’t start to get those values into the speaking that you do. What it does is give you fuel, gives you power, gives you heat, gives you strength. There is nothing you can’t do when you feel that kind of strength beneath you. When you are feeling your are doing something you were meant to do. I don’t care if you are selling widgets or if you are talking about underwater basket weaving, whatever that is. For example, if I teach underwater basket weaving to a group of 80 year old people and I tell them that it is just a metaphor for continuing to grow in your life and not allowing the world to pass you by, but continuing to grow, continuing to find new outlets, continuing to find things that make life exciting. Not getting into a rut, continuing the education process as long as you can, continuing to be vital and energized and involved. That means that that speech is going to be a lot more meaningful to me, instead of I am just going to be teaching a bunch of people stuff. I see it over and over again. I have one client who believes that fairness and justice are so important. So he talks about negotiations. It is a huge passion for him. On those days when he gets up and he is in China on a totally different time zone and he is tired. He is cranky and he doesn’t want to be there. He wakes up and says I am going to help people get a fair deal. I am going to help people not be taken advantage of. I am going to help people do the very best that they can do in their life. It inspires him to get up and talk about that, even above and beyond just the content. He is always looking for ways to show people that deeper meaning below the content that is there for him.

What I found is that the number one thing that people need to tap into is what is that pact that they made, what is that calling that they have. It may be very simple or it may be very dramatic. You know when you are in that zone, when you feel happy and time flies easily and you are joyful. When you feel as though you didn’t do a hundred things in a day and you didn’t think you did anything valuable, you feel as though you did three things that really mattered. When you tie that to a speech, if you are going to be doing a speech and you have the luxury to creating anything you want for whatever audience and whatever way you want to, that principle becomes very important because if you are going to have a superobjective  for a speech, something you want to accomplish in that speech, it should tie to what you believe in. You can talk about self-education if you are there to talk about another topic. You can talk about how whatever your topic is helps people grow. You can talk about community and family and the importance of relationships, if that really matters to you. It is lovely to see people tying their values to their speech. It will cure 75% of the problems that people have pretty much instantly.

           Come up with what really bugs you in the world. What would you like to change, what would you like to fix?  What do you do for charities?  What do you do for fun?  Is there a theme in there? 

            Usually somebody will come up with a basic idea from that 30-second thing. They are not excited about it, their eyes don’t light up about it. It is something they think they should say. They give you the Miss America speech. Hunger, world peace. And you think, that’s nice. Then I have to say to them: What would be the best thing that would happen if there was world peace? What is the best thing about that? What is the underlying meaning of that? Or, boil that down for me and tell it to me like I am a six year old. Because some people will give you long drawn out answers where they say…  Or they can give you very in your head intellectual answers that sound good but they are not passionate about. What you are looking for is where is the passion?  Where is the fuel? Where is the heat?  When you feel that chill on your skin, that rumble in your heart or your chest, the fluttering,  When you feel that flush, when you feel that excitement and the adrenaline run through you. Then you have something your are passionate about. But most people don’t. Nobody says to you how are you feeling, what are you passionate about?  It is not a question you get on a regular basis, but it is extraordinarily important. It will give you ease of speaking. It also will from your life, which is not a bad thing too.

In terms of other ways that you can get at that, ask your friends what they think you stand for?  What would you like on your tomb stone?  What would you have written there?  Did what? I would have”…”  Another way to go about it is to look at the accomplishments that you would like to do in your life and is there a common denominator?  For example you could say somebody came to you from a magazine and you are 90 or a hundred and they are interviewing you are telling them all of the accomplishments in your life. You tell them every single thing that you have done. You let them continue the interview and you imagine the interview. At the end you look at all those things and you say, wow that is interesting. I want to start a foundation for children, I want to help schools, you look at all the pieces and if you see four or five or six pieces that all relate to helping people get an education, education is important to you. If you look at all those pieces and you say community is important to me you will start to see a pattern. Most people seem to come into this life with one thing that they were meant to learn. You can learn it through the negative ways which is to say what are the biggest disasters in your life, what are the biggest problems you have had and what are you meant to learn from those. What wisdom you were meant to impart on others because of what you learned the hard way. Life is short, learn from the mistakes of others. You never have time to learn them all yourself. So what did you learn the hard way is also a process?  What are the things you want to do in your life?  Is there a pattern there? 

            Look at significant life events for you. Significant life events are also a wonderful way to get stories. Once you have done this exercise, hang on to it for later chapters. Significant life events or turning points in one’s life are simply what you go through in life, what were the things if your life was a movie and you went back through it what would be the things that were the big major significant changes. What were the things that I got wisdom from? Nobody gets to be past 15, 21, 31, 51 without having more wisdom than they realize. It’s just that they don’t pay attention to it. What was I really learning along the way. Is there a common denominator to all that. Those are the easiest ways to tap into that sense of arc. Sometimes just getting quiet and allowing yourself to clear out all the clutter in your brain. The clarity about that comes to you. For some people it is a very spiritual mission. They may say they sat and prayed for a week, went out for a walk, hugged a tree, or whatever is important to them and I asked God what am I spiritually meant to do?  Most of us just fall into doing whatever is in front of us. It is not that you can’t do everything that you are possibly doing. You can keep that commitment that you have in a job you don’t even necessarily like. I help people grow when I was working at Sax Fifth Avenue, my first job at college. I read every book on making people look good, helping their self-esteem along the way. I made that my mission that people would walk in and they would grow as a human being by knowing me. You can bet I had clients coming from all over town. I had people coming from all over the state.... The rest of section 2 can be read in Sarah Victory's book How to Double Your Business in One Year or Less.