Discovering Personal Vision

I believe that each of us is born with a unique way of seeing the world. To me, this is the definition of “vision”. This individual perspective is as distinctive as our DNA. And I believe one of our primary responsibilities is to cultivate and honor that creative vitality within ourselves and others. I think of personal vision as one of the most valuable assets we bring to our relationships and our work. It is the source of our actions, motivations, goals, missions and values and it seeks to express and fulfill itself in every aspect of our lives and careers.

The word vision and my subsequent investigation into what it means to me first cropped up on a rather cold, blustery March afternoon. There I was, a lost, confused thirty-something caught up in an inner tug-of-war between the need to support a family, a theatrical career stuck in neutral, and the demands of acting students who would call me at any hour of the day and night to coax and coddle them through their own personal and professional crises. Fed up and exhausted after another such emergency call with an actress who blamed me for not giving her a quick fix for her upset with a director, I headed out to wander a deserted beach. With tears streaming down my face and a noise louder than the wind screaming in my head, I argued with myself: What do I want? What should I do? What about my own acting career? Why wasn’t I working on it? Whose mandates am I following? My parents? My colleagues? Society’s? And where the hell is my own voice? I can’t seem to hear it anymore.

And that’s how my exploration began into this thing I call “personal vision,” the exploration that led me to my own epiphanies about the themes woven through my own life – the voice and the vision that motivate me. My personal vision has allowed me to develop an international organization committed to supporting others as they discover and align with their own views of the world and within their own workplaces. My company is dedicated to helping others access the potential that lies underneath their own restlessness and dissatisfaction; to uncover and use their own whisperings of intuitions and new ideas that often become buried in the noise and busyness of everyday life.

I believe that our personal visions hold out a compelling invitation to us: What am I seeking to express in my life? What is the impact I would like to make? What is the legacy I would like to create?

And I believe that our creative view of the world seeks fulfillment. Vision mandates action. It motivates us, individualizes our paths, validates our choices and touches our souls. And when we’re in sync with it, we experience a sense of rightness, centeredness, clarity and gratitude.