Do or die: live your life to the fullest
Why authentic self expression is the highest path to making a contribution to the world
Self expression is a more basic human need than water. Just ask a dying man what his last wish is.
When we realise we can no longer live in our bodies, we seek to outlive our bodies — through our legacy.
Talking about death is not morbid, it’s liberating. It frees you to choose life — and live every moment to its fullest potential. Because eventually, you won’t have that choice.
For me, choosing to live fully means regularly doing something I’ve never done before, but the wider the chasm I want to leap across, the further behind I seem to have to leave my past life behind me. Including the people who refuse to jump with me.
Would our parents want us to stay with them to their dying day, slowly dying with them, or live our lives in ways they never could, simply because they didn’t live when we do?
I’m on a mission —
to inspire as many people as I can to realise they have a choice to live their life to the fullest, that they have a right to self expression that mustn’t be ignored, and can enrich their lives with passion and creativity.
Because living a fulfilled life helps us make better, healthier, happier choices for ourselves and the people around us.
And to make sure I’m qualified to guide people to find and define their passion, I’m going to keep living mine, no matter how far into the unknown it takes me. No matter how scary and lonely the journey gets, I will keep going.
A year ago, it led me into a deep dark journey into myself that caused me to feel depressed, even suicidal, and yes, it was incredibly scary. I didn’t know if I would make it. But I did, and it helped me discover what was holding me hostage all this while, the belief deep down that was keep me playing small and being afraid to really step into my potential.
I discovered that I was unconsciously giving up agency over my own needs and preferences in relationships with people who I perceived to be older or wiser than me. It’s one thing to maintain a beginner’s mindset, to ensure you keep learning and growing, but it’s quite another to convince yourself that someone knows better than you what will serve you best. Your partner, your doctor, your parents, your teacher, you can learn from them all but in the end, only you and your own inner wisdom know what’s right for you.
Connecting to our deepest selves —
to understand our own values, and expressing our needs as well as our offerings in a constructive, accessible way, is possibly one of the most important practices we need to learn in a world of business, global community and a culture of individualism. If you don’t know what you care about, someone will be ready to tell you what to care about, and you’ll be left feeling empty, used, and maybe worst of all, without passion or purpose.
After years of designing branding systems and stories for large and small companies, the one thing that I often saw overlooked was the step where the people in the company had a chance to express what they stand for, and for their collective brand to represent that. In the end, often a brand ends up being the one-size-fits-all label on the bottle no matter what the contents inside are. If you don’t know what you stand for, personally, no one else will know what you stand for, professionally.
Despite our persistent efforts to separate business from personal life, there is no way around the fact that all business is person-al.
It is conducted by persons, with feelings, experiences, memories, dreams, and hopes. And these are not just facts of all business, they are in fact, the life force of business. Because customers are humans too, and all business ultimately is by and for humans.
To make the most of people, their creative potential, their passion and purpose, it is beyond critical that we begin to cultivate self awareness and self expression in the way we do business.
Your brand isn’t just your logo and colours and typography, it’s the entire language you use to tell the world what you, the persons coming together to offer something to improve the lives of your customer, really truly believe in, stand for, dream about and feel deeply for.
To live our lives to their fullest, we’ve got to prioritise honest, authentic self expression, which can only come from knowing and acknowledging our selves. The way an artist does.
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Moulsari is an experienced independent branding and design professional who has expanded her creative practice into coaching, speaking and facilitation, developing practical and inspiring ways to help people find and share their passion, purpose and authentic voice. Contact her if you or your team need to get clear and creative about your own vision! www.moulsari.com
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