Museum day | 365-page book | Leadership

Last week, we talked about habits, this week we will talk about what drives you, your Big Five.

As we’re still early in the year, today’s letter will help you design 2022 in ways that might surprise you and upon which you will be able to build habits and activities that are truly important to you!

What do you want in life?

Ok, this might sound grand but what are some of the things you want to do, see, have or experience before you die? Maybe speaking Spanish, a house, a pet named Buddy, saving animals, writing a book, becoming an artist, having a successful business or maybe simply a trip to Africa?

One of the lifetime trips I would really like to do is an African safari to discover the wonders of the birth of humanity and see what we called the Big Five. Have you heard of them? 

In Africa, the Big Five game animals are the lion, leopard, black rhinoceros, African bush elephant, and the African buffalo! Strong, majestic, imprinting the savannah with their roars, sounds, herds, mane. Raw nature.

If you see all five, your safari is considered a success, only one, a failure. 

In the summer of 2019, I accidentally stumbled upon a book that changed a lot of things for me, the Big Five for Life by John Strelecky. The author’s analogy is that your Big Five are the 5 most important things for you, and like a safari, to have a successful life/career, the target is to get as close to 5/5 as possible.

As I got hooked into the book I played along by working on the author’s suggestions to discover that my Big Five are Discover, Connect, Build, Support, and Grow. I would love to hear what yours are!

If you recall a couple of weeks ago, in the letter Ikigai, I quoted Brian Feroldi “You have found the right occupation when your calendar is filled with events you’re looking forward to and devoid of events you are dreading”. This is exactly what John Strelecky suggests.

I printed one month of my calendar (work and personal activities), took five highlighters (one color for each Big Five) and started circling my meetings, work-related, any sort of engagement, commitments “I could not get out of”, the people I was meeting, etc. How many of my meetings, daily, weekly or monthly activities were fulfilling my main drives?

You will be surprised (or not) to learn that it wasn’t that many! Or at least way less than I thought! In front of me…black on white (or color on white should I say!). I extended the exercise to two months, the same result! I was amazed! Lightbulb moment!!!! 

While, from my experience, they are a rare breed, huge respect for those of you who have all their Big Five lined up. Clearly, mine were not! 

The seed was planted but not sure how this would come along….

For the past couple of years, now, I have been working hard to change things in a direction that matches My Big Five For life. The universe aligns in some mysterious way when you commit, work, bring energy and focus to your direction.

As I explored more, I started to be coached. I fell in love with the journey, the challenge, the vision, the support, the accountability, and the realization of my own blind spots. I wanted to offer it to people around me, and this is the reason I started publishing this weekly newsletter, now 180 strong and growing.

From being coached to becoming a coach and now doing a double master in coaching and leadership, it all starts to fall into place.

What are your Big Five?