What are you living for? Now there is a question that stops most people in their tracks, so let me ask YOU directly as I believe this is the most important question we can ever ask ourselves.

Only a few ask themselves this question and of the few that do, only a fraction of them commit to doing whatever it takes to arrive at the answer to this question.

It’s a question I have been asking most of my life and below is a formula that I have arrived at:

> Identify your gifts, talents and abilities. 

> This will lead you to discover your passion.

> Which in turn will reveal your purpose through a vision. 

> At this point you must now learn to package all you have discovered into a product or service that you give to the world. 

> This eventually results in profits as the world begins to give you money for the value you have added to Life itself. 

In this my personal story I will show how all these elements showed up for me. 

I have been aware of life’s gift to me (my voice) from early childhood – I remember entering a singing competition aged around 12, I won. 

My Talent (Creativity) expressed itself initially as a singer songwriter, then through entrepreneurship as I began to use my creativity to solve problems for which people would pay me.

It was not until I hit a major barrier in life when I lost all of my possessions in 1 day including access to my children that I graduated to discovering my Passion for music and helping people, particularly those who saw themselves as powerless or voiceless like my children.

Music saved me, I was able to pour all of my energy into this. It is interesting to note that this new awareness came as a direct result of me being able to process a painful experience and use the pain to turbocharge and produce a positive outcome in my life. This was a technique I had learnt from my spiritual mentor Brother Ishmael Tetteh some years earlier. I now wanted to show others how to do this too. Unfortunately back then people generally did not value having a mentor.

The year was 1992 and I began to blend my love for music, singing, helping aspiring musicians, performers and comedians into a Showcase Night called “Singers Paradise” and for the next 20 years my life was fuelled by this passion.

Discovering my Purpose was born out of another set of painful experiences in 2008. My passion had grown into a Not for profit organisation (Urban Voice UK) that was impacting the lives of thousands of young creatives across the whole of the UK through a variety of courses, in particular our Flagship Programme Project Talent – A National Talent Search. Through a chain of unfortunate circumstances this project had run over budget, ending with me investing close to £100k. Yet worse still was that 4 boys who had signed to my management company as a group, along with a few other artists, decided to breach their contracts. These 4 boys decided to enter the X – Factor competition in 2008 even though this was against the X -Factor’s own rules as the 4 boys were under contract.

Whilst I was in talks with my Lawyers and an agent out of “Puffy’s” production team the boys, now known as JLS, came 2nd in the X – Factor finals. I did not have the funds to legally challenge Sony music and was advised by my legal team not to pursue it. They (JLS)  went on to generate an estimated £20 million pounds. 

I found myself over the next few years asking the question should I abandon my passion. I share this story as you may have had your own experience where you are ready to throw in the towel.

Well before you do let me share a quote I learnt from my hugely successful billionaire business coach and Mentor, the late Erroll Abramson. 

“Winners Never quit and quitters never win.” 

I decided not to quit but allowed my passion to reveal my purpose through a Vision which became crystalised in 2012. The journey and the process that brought me to that point I will share in my blog next month.

For now I want to draw this blog to a close by saying you must know what you are living for and be prepared for the challenges that will surely come because life will come to test you to see if you really are “about this”. 

The best way I have found to prepare for these challenges that are coming is to gain clarity of Purpose: 

> Confusion is created through a lack of clarity 

> A lack of clarity reduces confidence and certainty 

> Which in turn produces a seed of fear 

> Fear produces paralysis 

> Paralysis produces inactivity resulting in procrastination

“Hope & fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time.
Invite one to stay.”
Maya Angelou
 

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