Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life (3 page)

When I was a kid, every Easter my mom would stage a massive egg hunt for me in our house. Man, I loved Easter. Halloween, too. Basically any holiday where candy was involved. I would go bananas, running all over the place, turning over every pillow, looking in every potted plant, scavenging through bookshelves, rummaging through drawers. You get the idea—I was
very
enthusiastic. Anyway, I’d always miss some of the eggs, and when I was ready to throw my hands up and quit, my mom would play the hot/cold game with me. You must have played this as a kid. The closer you get to the object of desire, the “warmer” you are; the farther away, the “colder.”

Okay, so you’re not a kid looking for Easter eggs. But you’re a
valuable human being looking for your purpose. So in an attempt to revive a childlike zest for life, we’re going to play our own little hot/cold game to help you uncover all the things that are important to you and that give your life meaning.

COLD, WARMER, HOT:
UNCOVERING YOUR DREAMS, FINDING YOUR TRUTH

At the end of this chapter there is a place where you can fill in your answers to the questions I’ll lead you through, and on my website there’s also space for you to “journal” your journey. So no matter where you are, you’ll have the tools you need at hand to “do this.” But read the questions carefully first and really think on them. Work it out for yourself. Along the way I’ll throw in some inspiring stories so you can see this stuff in action. (Would I tell you to do something if I didn’t know you’d get results?) The questions will have you focus heavily on your professional life, the reason being that our purpose on this planet is to
do
something that makes us happy and allows us to leave a mark. Yes, we’ll talk about how to find love and how to get healthy. But this journey starts with what you actually want to
do
to express your unique value to this world. Very few of us know what we want to do with our lives in the larger sense. The idea is to start becoming conscious of and paying attention to what makes you happy (warmer) and what doesn’t (colder), so you can build on those things and move toward your true calling.

Throughout the book you will see sections under the heading “Working It Out.” Wherever you see this heading, it means you have work to do. So I want you either to grab a journal and keep it handy while you’re reading, or sign in to
JillianMichaels.com
and use the “Working It Out” journal on my website. You can log all the internal work we’re doing together, as well as all your goals, dreams, and aspirations. I’ve also created a number of online
assessment quizzes so you can dig even deeper. Look for this icon
JillianMichaels.com/Unlimited
to take a quiz and to get your results, and to find other special online tools, charts, and support designed to enhance your journey. This is your space—use it, own it, work it.

TAKE STOCK OF YOUR WORK AND PERSONAL HISTORY

Look deeply into your experiences, and try to identify positives, negatives, and common threads. Maybe you’re really good at public speaking, or organizing people, or working with computers. Make a list, and keep working on it over days and weeks; as you do, pay attention to your heart, and listen to the thoughts that emerge in those rare quiet moments. If it doesn’t happen overnight, don’t worry, and don’t push it. Chances are you will see a pattern emerge in your experiences, one that will lead you to discover the innate passions that drive you, fulfill you, and make you happy. Again, at the end of this chapter you’ll find a section where you’ll be able to work on this, as well as additional questions to nudge you along the right path.

How One Person Found Her Calling

My close friend and personal yoga instructor Heidi Rhoades provides us with a perfect example of how destiny takes its course when you stay open, listen to your heart, and cultivate your passion.

Back in the late ’90s, Heidi was a confused teenager (like most of us were as teens) attending college at Penn State. At that point in her life she had no idea what she wanted to do over the course of the next week, let alone the rest of her life. Being smart and practical, Heidi met with a counselor. This counselor suggested she go into marketing. Here was
the logic: “If you go into marketing, then you’re not tied to anything because you can do marketing in any field.” Great plan, right? Just be utterly noncommittal and maybe one day happiness will find you. Oy.

So years later Heidi was a very successful and very unhappy marketing exec in the music industry. She had the right clients, the right office, the right clothes, the right car, and still … she was miserable. None of it made sense to her. She had followed all the rules and achieved what she thought was the American dream. But she hadn’t achieved the ultimate and seemingly elusive goal of finding true meaning in her life.

She diligently slogged through her days like a good soldier, believing that being able to pay her bills and live comfortably came at a price. The price of happiness. Granted she had friends and loved ones she cherished who brought her joy, but professionally she was sucking it up. Now here’s where the story gets interesting.

One day Heidi’s company decided that they wanted to start healthy initiatives for their employees. One of which was having a yoga instructor come to the office and teach classes for the company staff every Tuesday and Thursday after work.

Heidi, however, allowed these perks to go unnoticed. Months went by and she didn’t even pop her head in, let alone attend a class. This is not because she wasn’t athletic. In fact, Heidi had grown up as an athlete. She had done gymnastics, danced, played soccer and softball, was the star of her high school track team, and to illustrate life’s irony, in college she was actually an accomplished yogi. Now, however, she was an adult. She had meetings to run and lunches, dinners, and drinks to attend. “What focused professional would have the time to be frivolous and take a yoga class?”

Well, on one Thursday, after a heated phone call with
another industry exec, and having already put sixty hours into her workweek, she suddenly felt as though her heart were going to pound out of her chest. She broke into a sweat, her breathing was constricted; she felt lightheaded, and the room was spinning. She was having a major anxiety attack. Heidi immediately went to the office kitchen to grab a glass of water, and who was there prepping for her class? I bet you already guessed it—the yoga teacher. She sat with Heidi for a while, helped her regain her composure, and ultimately convinced her that yoga would be a great way for her to destress and maintain some semblance of calm in her life.

At this point, feeling particularly vulnerable, Heidi was ready to listen. She scooped up the workout clothes that she kept in her car in a gym bag, which had gone unused for well over a week, and took the class that day. Although her flexibility and strength were a bit rusty, she loved it. She felt an inner peace and sense of tranquillity that had been eluding her for years. And thus her love affair with yoga and its ability to heal and transform people was reborn.

To make a semilong story longer, Heidi began taking classes and workshops with top instructors from all over the world. She began teaching her coworkers and friends in her spare time, simply because it brought meaning into her life when she saw them find joy and restoration through yoga practice.

Eventually she reached a crossroads. It became clear to her what her true calling was meant to be. She had always thrived through athleticism as a child, and she had serendipitously rediscovered her passion for it as an adult. Continuing a career in the music business seemed an unbearable and absurd proposition at this point. Once a person steps into the light, living in the dark is an impossibility. And while at first the idea of quitting and trying to break into a new field was scary, she
knew her passion lay in practicing and teaching others yoga, and she followed that with certainty.

Today? She’s a very happy, very successful yoga teacher living in Los Angeles working with people from all walks of life, from A-list celebrities to women in domestic violence shelters and special-needs kids. By listening to the messages the universe was sending her and following her passion, she made a change and is now doing what she loves and loving what she does. Which is just how the universe wants it!

MAKE A LIST OF YOUR HOBBIES AND INTERESTS

Your true calling may lie hidden in something you
don’t
do to pay the rent. Can’t wait to get into the garden every spring? Love to cook for family and friends? Do you spend your weekends quilting, knitting, or doing something else crafty? There is no reason you can’t turn your favorite pastime into a career. Look at all the amazing entrepreneurs out there who did just that: Martha Stewart started a catering company out of her basement. Her
basement
, people! Coco Chanel started out as a seamstress with no formal training in fashion or design. Walt Disney dropped out of high school at sixteen to animate cartoons.

Oh yeah, and then there’s me: a seventeen-year-old kid who fell into fitness training because exercise made me feel strong. Martial arts turned me from fat kid to fit kid, and by my late teens I had become a gym rat. One day at seventeen, I was training for my black belt, screwing around in the gym trying an inverted, gravity-boot body curl-up, when someone asked me if I was a trainer. It was the first time that had ever happened. I paused, thought it out, and said, “Sure, I’ll train you.” And the rest is history. I know what you’re thinking:
But that could never be me
. Why the hell not???

When you honor yourself, when you really tune in to your wants and needs, you can’t go wrong, and the rewards are endless.
So look closely at all the things you do for fun—think big, stay open, and don’t judge. An extracurricular activity could be your best business bet, bringing passion and direction into your life in ways you never imagined possible.

MAKE A LIST OF YOUR APTITUDES AND PREFERENCES

Are you great with numbers but bad with words? Good at delegating or better at being in the trenches? Are you an introvert or extrovert? When socializing, do you like crowds of friends or one-on-one time? As you make your way toward your dream, be sure to pay attention to your strengths and weaknesses, the things you can and can’t deal with, the things that curl your toes in delight or that make you want to stab yourself (or someone else) with a fork. Using myself as an example (again), growing up I always wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to take care of people, make them feel better, heal them, and teach them how to stay healthy. There was just one small problem: I can’t stand the sight of blood. I get queasy, weak-kneed—not really traits you associate with a good doctor. But I broadened my horizons and found other ways of fulfilling my purpose. I’m in the health biz, just a different area, where I have the freedom and enormous privilege to help people get well and stay that way, without having to deal with the gore of medicine. Everyone wins. Remember, there are many different ways to skin a cat, as the saying goes. As you find your way, let your natural abilities and disabilities, likes and dislikes, guide you.

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR VALUES AND ETHICS

You’ll be miserable in any endeavor that creates a major internal conflict or ethical dilemma. For example, if you’re passionate about animal rights, you’re not going to be happy working for a cosmetics company that tests its mascara on bunnies. I mean, duh. A lot of people don’t realize that sometimes the lines can get blurred. No amount of money, prestige, or convenience can make up for compromising your core beliefs, so make sure you’re pursuing avenues that are in alignment with your moral center.

Personal Values

My mother is probably the most ethical person I know. Truth, honesty, and self-awareness are cornerstone values in her life, and she strives to keep her ego in check. (She tells me she is not always successful, but I don’t see it; she also tells me I idealize her.) Posturing, superficiality, and shallow definitions of happiness have no place in her life. Her personal belief is that the key to fulfillment and satisfaction is to live one’s life with integrity and meaning.

Back in the day, my mother had a successful and glamorous career in public relations. From the outside it seemed like a perfect fit. She’s creative, which helped her come up with unique pitches for her clients. She’s a people person, which helped her tame even the toughest Hollywood types. And she’s beautiful and dresses well, so she even looked the part. She started out in the entertainment field. But when a certain actor, who shall remain nameless, threw a tantrum because he didn’t get the cover of
Newsweek
or
Time
to promote his comic book movie in the midst of an international crisis, she was stunned. She fled to corporate PR, hoping to find a saner environment. What she found was enormous pressure to pitch and spin the media in order to portray one’s clients in the most advantageous way, regardless of truth or reality. This high-powered, glamorous career left her feeling miserable and empty.

After doing some serious soul-searching, she decided to go back to school and pursue a career in psychotherapy. She so loved her work that fourteen years after being licensed, she decided to further her professional development by earning a doctorate in psychoanalysis, a goal she is close to achieving. Today she is a successful therapist, living her life happily, authentically, and in harmony with her true calling.

You may have the right skills to do a job well, but if they don’t correspond with who you are at your core, you’re not going to be happy. Take a long hard look at what you believe, and make sure your actions reflect your spirit.