‘Fanning Your Personal Fire'

 'Set your life on fire, and seek those who will fan your flames’ - Rumi

Ask any speaker or performer how they get the nerve up to walk on stage in front of hundreds or even thousands of strangers, they will likely talk about their ritual and how it helps them to show up.

Some visualize; some pray. Me? I dance unapologetically in my hotel room, barefoot, often still in my PJs, to two songs - Alicia Keys’ ‘This Girl is On Fire’ and Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’.

Isn’t it interesting these both focus on fire, the heat it creates in one, and how the sparks that fly out can light the fire of others?

What does fire need to start and flame? Once lit, how do we keep it lit? How do we fan our flame, so it grows to keep us warm when the world gets cold and to light the path of our respective journeys?

I don’t remember much from junior high but DO fondly remember Mr. Piscatello. He made Earth Science for a plump and pimply 14-year old, well… hot! Though I stared - a lot - I did take an occasional time-out from daydreaming to listen and I learned, to exist, fire needs three things:

1.     An initial spark

2.     Fuel that creates power

3.     And oxygen

Let’s start with the spark. As Bruce Springsteen, the Bard of the Boardwalk sings, ‘You can’t start a fire without a spark.’

A spark, a small fiery particle, can come from a fire already lit (like the one within you) and fly off one fire to ignite another. I believe it is finding our purpose sparks our fire. My coaching clients ask how do I find my purpose? Have you ever asked that question yourself?  

As a consultant and coach, I’m trained to answer a question with a question: For what do people consistently come to you?  What do they believe you do better than anyone else?

• Can you boil a complex situation down to its basics, so cause and effect relationships are easily seen?
• Do people come to you to share their thoughts and fears as they know you will listen without judgment?
• Do they know you have a gift for getting people with different agendas and points of view to the table and united behind a new vision?

 When you find your purpose, don’t delegate it – DO IT and better than anyone else.

I’ll bet many of us are doing our life’s work because someone loved us enough to be our spark. Mine was lit in my junior year in college. Dr. Sophie Elam, a tall, elegant woman with a silver white braid piled on her head and chopsticks to hold it in place, fanned my spark, made it roar to life as my purpose, which is this:  I live to help others learn how to learn, so they can freely and consciously choose their path.

This lights my way every day.

Realize that things that excite you do not happen by chance. They are connected to your purpose. Want to find your purpose? Follow that feeling of excitement to whatever and wherever it leads you.

Now, to fire ingredient 2 – fuel is a substance that helps create heat or power. Lots of things can serve as fuel – wood, cloth, paper, gas, coal. For humans, I believe the fuel comes from the people we are with, the places we are in, and the emotions these people and places bring up.

My coach (yes, coaches have coaches!) had two questions for me:

1.     What serves as the fuel that keeps your fire going?

2.     Who fans your fire?

To answer these questions above, I considered:

• What fuels me physically? Exercise? Being social? What foods sustain my energy? 
• How do I fuel my spiritual self? To what and who do I expose my mind and heart daily?
• How does money fuel me? Do I live to make money or make money to live?
• Do my relationships with family, friends, colleagues fuel or deplete me?

One more thing: who is your flame keeper? In ancient civilizations, flame keepers were those whose only job was to keep the fire, so essential to Life, going strong.

Who does that for you?

Okay, you have a spark, the fuel – now, take a d-e-e-p breath. You just took a big gulp of an odorless, colorless and invisible matter that makes up 21% of our Earth’s atmosphere and is essential to adequately burning the fuel our cells need to live – OXYGEN!

You’ll know oxygen is running low if your muscles weaken, thinking gets fuzzy, or you lack the energy you need to get things done. Besides the air around us, where else can we get oxygen to feed our fires? Here are three sources you already have on hand that can supply oxygen for your fire:

1. Your core strengths. When you engage in an activity you are truly good at, your excitement and engagement are visible to all, yourself especially. You pop out of the backdrop. You’re ‘on fire’ when your speech is fast and fluid, your arms are spread wide. Doing something you’re really good at and love to do leaves you feeling truly alive, wondering where the last hour flew.

2. Your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence or EI is best described as the ability to recognize, understand and manage your own emotions and those of others, in the pursuit of happier and more productive lives. Once we are aware of our emotions and how to intelligently use them, we increase the likelihood of a positive outcome for most of Life’s situations. By using EI we can respond appropriately to the actions of others and monitor our fuel levels. It’s ironic to me that I work with and teach others something I hated most in my life. Emotions drained me – sometimes, they still do. But now I understand their power and mine over them and know how to use EI to fuel my overall well-being.

3. Your failures.  It may seem odd, but you will never have a more impactful, more oxygen-rich source for success than your failures. As Marion Wright Edelman, the children’s rights activist and educator said, “Failure is just another way to learn how to do something’. Know that what you learn from failure is unique to you and those ‘lessons learned’ are yours to use to keep your spark, though slightly dimmed, ready to flame high again. Most of all, bring those who will help keep your flame lit, even in times of failure, into your fire ‘s inner circle.

Mr. Piscatello had it right. As long as there is a spark, fuel and oxygen, a fire will flame.