Adults With Crystallising Moment - What Ignited Your Drive

Those who know me know that being a mom is my greatest passion. Nothing gives me as much joy as being with my two boys. Liam, 5, already a chef in the making. Ayden, 2.5, still writing his story. Watching them in full flow, completely absorbed, losing track of time. I keep coming back to something I have spent 20 years living with myself. That hunger. That fire. That desire to be more, give more, build something that outlasts you. I have read everything written on the subject. Grit. Flow. Drive. Outliers. And I have lived it from getting admitted to Columbia, to New York, to the UN, to Shell, to becoming a C-level executive, to traveling the world, to building financial freedom and then pushing far beyond it. And one thing I know for certain: you do not get that level of drive without a crystallising experience. Sometimes more than one. A single moment that broke something open in you. Sometimes it is painful. Tony Robbins is the perfect example. Hungry on Thanksgiving. A stranger knocking on the door. One act of unexpected kindness, and he decided to spend his life eliminating hunger for others. Sometimes it is someone who saw something in you before you could see it yourself. I have had a few of those moments. Ask me. Now I watch my boys and I want that for them because I think drive is one of the most beautiful gifts a person can carry in life. That fire. That belief in a life beyond what they can currently imagine. But I do not want them to feel, the way I did for too long, that achievement is the price of love. I have been quietly writing a book about this. About what creates the fire in children and how parents can help illuminate their child's path without pushing them down it. To write it well, I need your stories. My LinkedIn network is full of people with that drive, that hunger, that relentless something. I am deeply curious: What was your crystallising moment? The one that lit the fire? Was it pain? Was it someone who believed in you before you believed in yourself? Was it a rejection, a loss, a single sentence someone said? Tell me. I am collecting stories and some of them may end up in the book.