Rediscover Your Fire: Navigating the Path Beyond Lost Passions

One of my all-time favorite TV series is The Crown. It is filled with lessons in leadership and life, all cloaked in the romance of the monarchy.

Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady and then prime minister of Great Britain, was forced to resign. A politician all her life, she achieved the pinnacle of success in her career. Now, with more work to be done to complete her plan for the nation, she lost the confidence of her cabinet and the nation. There was no alternative except to resign.

In the final hours before this decision, she visited with the Queen. She vowed to fight using a radical strategy of disbanding Parliament. The Queen thought this to be a desperate move by a prime minister. She recommended she resign.

The Queen told Thatcher, “I’m sure you have other passions you might pursue."

Thatcher responded, "I love being a wife and a mother. But my career in politics is my passion."

This was true for me, too.

I love being a husband and father. But my passion was my work as an angel investor and community leader. Resigning from these roles was very difficult, but the time came for me to move on.

What followed was an emptiness.

It was like losing a limb. I wasn’t whole anymore. Something vital that gave my life meaning and fulfillment was gone. I could no longer pursue my passion. I was still a husband and father and now a grandfather, but my passion was gone.

And Kathy went through the same thing.

Kathy came home from a church meeting the other day. She was sad.

As background, she was a volunteer leader for Stephen Ministry. She went to the training in California and did all she could to be a leader of this ministry in our church.

After serving her leadership term, she announced she was resigning her position. She gave a year's notice. As the day approached, she was fine. There was both relief in no longer having the leadership responsibilities but also the uncertainty of "now what?"

It has been a year since she resigned from her leadership position. When she came home this time, she told me she decided to leave the ministry altogether.

She said, “I thought I would leave the ministry on a high note. This isn’t the case. I’m not sure if I have the Covid epidemic to blame for the way  all this went down or this is just what it feels like to leave something you love and loved to do.”

Boy, could I relate.

I said, "Leaving something you are passionate about is hard. You know it is the right time to do, but knowing this doesn’t help. We want to make it less painful by leaving on what we envision to be a high note. This usually means that our work is completed. But this is a dream and not reality. When we leave our passion, it is simply over. That's it. It just ends. For a while, I felt like an old dog who decided to meander off into the woods to die and be forgotten."

But in time, I realized God was not done with this old dog. I had to release my former multi-decade passion. Then, I had to put distance between it and my unknown future. By creating this space, new opportunities presented themselves. It felt random. Yet looking back, it wasn’t.

My passion was to help experienced managers achieve their dream of starting and owning their own company. I did this for the last twenty-five years. It was a fulfilling career.

Now, my passion is working with experienced business owners transitioning in the last ten years of their careers. I help them arrive at a new vision for their lives, define their goals, build succession plans, maximize their company's value, and prepare for the last season of their lives.

I find this to be incredibly fulfilling work.

I can only work with a few leaders. But less is more at this stage of my life. Lives are being changed, and life-long dreams are being realized.

The Bible verse I have lived by these last few years is Ephesians 2:10: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we would walk in them."

This verse gave me hope in the most difficult days of this transition. It also gave me something to do, not a plan, but something even better. This verse tells me that God believes I am valuable. And then it shares the secret to finding my passion. I needed to keep walking and to trust God. And that is what I do, and it is what I continue to do. 

God is good!