Reignite Your Spark

I recently attended the AFA Leadership Conference in Kansas City. Our team’s objective was to recruit for our 2023 intern program, but it proved to be a dynamic event that impacted me in an unexpected way.

The student attendees were bright, articulate, gregarious, and full of optimism for the future.

Their enthusiasm was contagious and triggered smiles and goodwill from all who interacted with them.

Have these young adults likely not taken any heavy hits or shouldered ever-increasing responsibilities like those of us who are decades beyond them? Perhaps.

But as I walked back to my room one night, I asked myself aloud, “Why do we so frequently lose our spark?”

My best answer is that the relentless obligations and grind of our daily routine slowly extinguishes our spark of raw enthusiasm for life’s possibilities - possibilities that are limited only by our imagination and our will.

It’s true that life eventually requires some trade-offs that are rightly informed by pragmatism.

But there is a balance to remember and pursue - meet your commitments and responsibilities, but also seek and nurture that which is new and exciting.

You can reignite your spark by writing down your answer to this question:

What would you do if you could wipe away all that you “have” to do?

Then take some action in that direction!