Passion influences our journey.

Posted on 11/01/2015 by wdkealy
passion for eating Ethiopian food

Passion for Ethiopian food.

definition of passion:

 

 

Passion as a noun: a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything.

When I was 15 years old I was riding  my bicycle home from school. We had just moved from a small town of 5000 population to a city of 50,000.

Passing by a water tower  I noticed activity on top of the reservoir, which was a mound of dirt covering a huge tank rising 15-20 feet above ground. On top of the reservoir a group of young people were gathered around a person who was instructing them. They were standing on a large asphalt slab resting on top of the reservoir which had two nets strung across the middle of two marked out rectangles.

Being sports oriented I was curious. Putting the kickstand down on my bike, I walked up the side of the man-constructed hillside. A tall corrugated steel wire fence, standing with a height of 10 feet,  surrounded the concrete slab. Looking through the fence I saw the instructor and her students all had a type of racket in their hands and a bucket of white balls.

Observing my interest, the instructor- an older lady of about 65-70 came over and asked me if I would like to come in and ‘hit a ball’. Putting a tennis racket in my hand, she went on the other side of the net and tossed me a ball. The impact of the ball and the racket coming together in my hand sent an electric, emotional current through me that would change my life. A passion for tennis was born. It was like a light bulb flashed on inside my being that would ultimately change the course of my life.

The lady was Mrs. Isherwood from South Africa and she was conducting a clinic for all interested.

Did you ever experience a life changing experience that ‘lit up’ a passion/desire that changed your life goals?

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Choice In Childhood That Impact Us In Life

Posted on 10/25/2015 by wdkealy
Childhood key choices

My Choice

Key Childhood Choice

Think back to your childhood. What passion fueled a key life changing choice when you were young? One of my key choices involved swearing, or the use of expletives.

At age 11, I became more involved with organized sports, more specifically, hockey (a must for an active youth in western Canada with snow in the ground seven months of the year) and little league baseball (could hardly wait for the ground to appear).  With more interaction with my peers in competitive situations,  their language became more ‘colorful’, using language that referred to ‘deities’ in a way that was not positive.

One sunny summer day while walking in a wheat field just outside of town (population of 50 people with three granaries and wheat fields surrounding) I decided to try out some ‘swear’ words. Having heard ‘Jesus’ and ‘Jesus Christ’ used in a negative sense when tempers/emotions flared, I said in a loud voice with no one to hear except the birds and wheat: “Jesus”. Wanting to sound even more authentic and reflecting emotional anger,  I repeated in a more impassioned voice, “Jesus Christ”.

Upon voicing these words as a loud audible, angry expletive, an inner voice immediately kicked in admonishing me. I found myself forming an inviolable aversion to ever choosing to use those specific deity names in an angry, impassioned manner.Right then and there I knew swearing was not a positive choice for me. Even though my personal ‘world view’ was evolving, I had been raised with the view Jesus was God’s son. My internal ‘system/conscience’ rebelled against using ‘the Lord’s name in vain’.

Question?

Why isn’t any other ‘deity’ used in ‘swearing/expletives’?

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Is Passion in Winning a Positive, or Negative?

Posted on 04/23/2014 by wdkealy

Everyone wants to win.

It makes life easier, doesn’t it? I remember a statement someone made to me about Jimmy Connors’ view on winning: “When I hated losing enough, I started to win.”

1. Doesn’t that imply a passion for working to overcome weaknesses?

2. Doesn’t that statement imply a burning desire to succeed at what he has a ‘bent’ for?

On the other side, does ‘winning’ make life harder?

I had a young tennis player win a ‘Grand Prix’ 12 and under tennis tournament when he had just been playing for a short time. He had not gone through the ‘tempering’ process before that big win. Ultimately his dad stopped his tennis lessons when his son didn’t continue to win.

1.This younger player showed talent and a passion for being able to win. That didn’t mean he would continue to win without gaining the experience that comes with ‘losing’. When he began to go through that phase of losing, the father couldn’t understand that was part of the process and took him out of tennis. Was that a good decision?

2.When winning early turns into losing, passion is challenged. Is the passion deeply embedded enough to continue through the losing, or does it dissipate quickly. In this case the father made the decision. If the player had been older would he have made the same decision? Sometimes-many times, the less talented work through it and the most talented lose their passion when winning doesn’t come easily.

Normally, the best at what they do in life have talent, a good work ethic and a passion that leads to success. However, the less talented have the work ethic and the passion to succeed to different levels. What are your thoughts?

 

 

 

 

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Passion in losing?

Posted on 12/01/2013 by wdkealy
Why did I lose? Did I wear the wrong outfit? Need to change my racket?

Why did I lose? Did I wear the wrong outfit? Need to change my racket? i have the passion to 

Let’s look at the process of losing:

  • I enter  a competition with the hopes of winning.
  •   leading up to the competition I prepare doing what I think is necessary to be at my best.
  • game day comes and I play, applying all my learned and practiced techniques.
  • I lose and walk away prepared to quit and never play again.
  • I awake the next morning with a burning passion to practice harder and do better.

The above process can occur many times before winning starts. Each time losing burns deeper into my psyche and each time I wake the next day with a burning desire to practice harder applying all lessons learned from losing, or my passion for competing lessens and I gradually stop and find another outlet. If your passion is real and deep, you will take the lessons learned from losing, both mental and physical, and turn them into experience that will eventually allow you to change the cycle of losing into one of winning.

What has been your experience in this area? Do you agree the depth of your passion in competition can be measured by losing? How have you used this in your growth? There were times when I wanted to sell my tennis rackets, but the next morning, after a loss, I woke up burning with the desire to practice harder and turn the next match into a win.

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