"You are more than your gifts."

28 January 2022

Happy Friday! It's been a week of further slowing down for me, yet looking back, I found myself achieve a number of important things with depth one of which was to launch a monthly session called Happiness Corner with Amy yesterday with lots of love received. I hope you also got a?chance to pace yourself to even better embrace your weekly intentions.

For this week's Happier YOU Letter, I had to confess that it was quite a challenge for me to decide which topic to write on. There were a few good ones that pulled me towards their own compelling directions. Yet, here I am, being able to know what it is. And it's something that very well relates to the core of my work of helping many to feel happier at work and in life: Purpose.

A few weeks ago, my family watched Encanto. There were many lines and scenes in the movie that stuck in my head, from Luisa having to live up to societal expectations about her being super strong to?Isabela not being seen for who she truly and fully is. And the most intriguing of all is, "You are more than your gift." It's addressed to the main character, Mirabel, who doesn't possess any unique gift like the others in her extraordinary family.?

But there is one thing she is great at. She knows deep in her heart what her mission is, when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is in danger. She is set to save it. Mirabel doesn't let her being ordinary and being thought of lightly by her family stop her from pursuing this purpose, and at the end of the movie, she made it, beautifully.?

To me, Mirabel is such a wonderful example of someone who dares to live in her Happiness Infinity (HI) Zone, where her personal purpose, special gifts, core values and true passion intertwine. Although her gift is not clear at the beginning, through all the external challenges she overcomes and the internal struggles she is able to address, "the sky is blue" (words borrowed from a client of mine after we dived into her HI Zone) for Mirabel.

Her gift at high level, in my view, is seeing people for who they are and bringing them together in a harmonious way for a meaningful communal cause. Although I don't have the opportunity to conduct a deep dive with Mirabel, I could clearly see among her top values are family / community and courage. Without living these, she won't be her authentic self and therefore, she can't be at her best. Regarding her purpose, to say it's to save the magic isn't totally accurate, as it's temporary in nature, but it does inform her overarching purpose in life. I wish I could follow Mirabel till she has gained more experience later in life so we could sit down and have a rich conversation with many data points to define her HI Zone more fully.

This now brings me to the latest issue of the Entrepreneur magazine that actually sit me down this past Saturday morning, ignoring my kids, to digest. It also talks about purpose. The cover shows two big titles that captured my attention right away:?What is a good job??People want more than a pay check. They want purpose. Here's where to start, and Jimmy Fallon explains how to make people happy. They both are topics that never fail to fascinate me in my work.

Obviously, authentic happiness and a deep meaning beyond the day to day routines and survival are not some new topics of interest, but with the happening of the pandemic as well as the Great Resignation, more and more people now become more introspective. They want to know their why: why they were born and why they do what they do. They also want to know who they are and become the best version of themselves that they are meant to live.?

The former article took up five pages in Entrepreneur, with an intensive research by the author, to reach a conclusion I totally agree with, as it's also been the approach to my own work: Purpose encompasses both of our work and lives. And everyone's sense of meaning is different.?

The later article shared that at around the age of 47, Jimmy Fallon started to discover his why. Although it sounds to be late, from my experience, most of us even don't ask ourselves the question in the first place. Indeed, this is the very first question in the worksheet I give my clients before our first session and most shared they had never thought about it till they did the exercise.?

Purpose lives within us but it's instinctive so we often don't see it and the process to uncover it takes time. (For me and my clients, it takes exactly a week for them to do a few tests and to answer a long list of questions, and a two-hour deep dive conversation for us to dig further, and a few hours for me to connect the dots from an expert's view to share back for them to review and reflect.) Yet, it's so much worth it; the article said (which I absolutely agreed based on the real life experience of my own and of my clients),

"it is the reason for anything they do, and the core of who they are. Knowing this is transformative; it makes people more versatile and intentional. People who know their why are people who never feel lost."

and?

"Now that is something on which you can build a career. It isn't following a path. It isn't doing something just because. It is a mission. A purpose. And the blueprint for how to build even bigger."?

For a Happier YOU:

I know this could be a heavy question to ask, if you have never been asked or asked yourself before. How about starting by reading this article I wrote on Forbes,?Four Practical Steps to Truly Define Your Life Purpose ?

Another useful resource is the well acclaimed books?Man's Search for Meaning ?and?The Alchemist .?

Then write back to me and share with me what you have come up with. Once you know your purpose and your HI Zone, you have the compass for all the things you create, you no longer say yes or do stuff randomly, you create your "uniquely you" path, and with some brain training skills, you perform at your peak, and make people come to you for just that. Because you are you, and you do you.

With cherry blossoms starting to open and elegantly twirl their petals in my living room for the coming Tet holiday,?

Onwards to Happiness Infinity,

Amy Nguyen

P. S. If you love this newsletter and think your friends may benefit from it, I'd like to invite you to spread happiness and share?this subscription link ?with them.

Photos: My place of slowing down in the past week. What is yours?