The Coffee

For the longest while, I used to wonder why the heck I took Aerospace Engineering in school. I mean, I pretty much use none of it in my life nowadays… or at least I thought.

Over the past few days I’ve been discovering incredible connections between what I learned about in engineering and living a life of leadership.

One of these analogies was that of a coffee cup.
In thermodynamics class (study of heat) we learned something along the lines (it’s been a while, so forgive me if this isn’t bang on.. any engineers who read this help me out in the comments!) that heat dissipates to it’s surrounding environment when the surrounding environment is of lower temperature. For example, one way to cool an engine down is to put pipes of cold water around it so the heat will dissipate to try to warm it up. What it does is actually pulls the heat away from the engine, i.e. cooling it down. Or if you wanted to heat something up you can take something of much higher temperature and wrap it around something cool to dissipate the heat to it. Great example of this is body heat. At a party when you have a lot of people there it gets crazy hot! Same concept.

Now with life and leadership, say I’m a coffee cup (let’s say Tim Hortons seeing as it’s the Holiday Season!). In the past I used to get really excited about an idea that came to mind that I thought was brilliant (coffee fresh in the cup) and then as I took this idea into the real world the heat dissipated. I began to lose confidence, people challenged the idea, and well the idea got cold. One of the main reasons this happened is because I let my idea was based on the external environment and what people thought of the idea, rather than the idea itself. I wasn’t confident in the idea because I was confident in myself.

At this point in my life, I’m beginning to develop an idea, or rather ideas, that have come from within. Not sure how to relate that to a coffee cup anymore, but guess you could say I found my Thermos . The passion fire isn’t from the outside world, it’s from inside me and is able to evolve through the external environment, not lose it’s heat and die off. I feel one of the main reasons is this new found confidence in myself and what I have to offer this world, and it’s no longer about what I get out of it, but what difference is made through what I put into it.

So if you really want to find your ‘thermos’ start taking a look inside. I know self-reflection sometimes sounds airy-fairy, just give it a shot though. Try to understand what it is you really want… not on the outside, but what makes you feel good (and I don’t mean by external means.. i.e. pleasure). I mean what makes you feel good about contributing to this world. That’s your passion, and your passion is something that once discovered will lead you to your destiny.

I’m currently in the process of developing a unique coaching program which will help people discover their passion in a pro-active way. More to come on that soon!