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What Do All Women of Influence Have in Common? Passion

Passion.
These women come from all sectors, and range from emerging leaders, to senior executives, to entrepreneurs and powerful change agents. They have passion for what they do. Passion for work. Passion for life. It’s the only way you can work 14+ hours a day and live to tell the tale (or success story on our podium).

I found my passion in 2004.
I was working at a big bank in marketing and events. It was a great experience, and I knew I was getting close to the career I wanted, but I had, as my father would say, “smoke but no cigar”, I was missing the key ingredient: passion.  So I applied to do a Master’s of Communication at Columbia. Why? Because I wanted three things: I wanted to work for a Magazine, I wanted to be in the action (which meant none other than New York City), and I wanted to advance my career, pronto, but had no experience or link to the industry or working in the US.

By continuing to sign up for more.
The brilliant part is that applying for it pushed me to consider why I wanted those things, and what might I accomplish if I had them.  To my own amazement, at the end of the last essay, my answer was right there in black and white, “I want to influence women”.

Until it hit me: “Ah ha!”
This is what I want to accomplish.  And, I could make this process a whole lot easier if I leveraged my experience in marketing and events to influence women, instead of starting from scratch in a new industry and country.  And, it just so happened I knew where to start.  I picked up the phone immediately and the rest is history.

And I dug deep.
Through no coincidence this time of my life also marked the start of training for Ironman, and the subsequent realization that I have A LOT of energy, and the capacity for so much more than I had been producing IF I had passion.

The end result? I became an Event Director at Women of Influence, and apprentice to run the business. On schedule, I succeeded the founder 2 years later. And off we went. I work and live my passion all day long, and it’s pure joy.

I’m convinced that this process can work for you too.

By Carolyn Lawrence, President & CEO, Women of Influence Inc.