.

Mr. Eat, Pray, Love

Dave Bravdica’s friends often refer to him as Mr. Eat, Pray Love.

(This is in reference to the book Eat, Pray, Love written by Elizabeth Gilbert.  Her book was #1 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction List for over a year!)

Dave has a great story.  He got clear about what he wanted and then took the courageous steps to make that happen.

When I first met Dave, he was working for a company that was very hierarchical and old school in philosophy.

This was a terrible fit for Dave and it showed.  He looked worn out, stressed out, uninspired and his self confidence was circling down the drain.

His biggest challenge was the "golden handcuffs".  He couldn’t imagine that he would ever be able to replace his income while doing something that he enjoyed.  He had a lot of head trash around this issue.

Dave spent a while having a tug of war with himself:  I should do something different – I cannot do something different and make money.  This only further depleted his vitality.

Finally on his birthday, Dave said to himself, "I either need to do something different or resign myself to the way things are now.

He decided to do something different.

He quit his job and enrolled in chef’s school.  After chef’s school he went to Italy to learn more.

Dave believes that in order to understand the food you need to understand where it comes from and the people.  To this end, he spent time working in a winery, a cheese farm and a cured meats farm.  He really immersed himself in Italian culture.

Now he’s back in Denver and has opened his own catering business, Flavor Cater, and is also teaching at the chef’s school.

I recently saw Dave and was delighted to see how good he looked.  He looks so much more happy and full of vitality.  He’s excited and optimistic about the future.  And, he is doing what he loves.

Dave is all about food and wine and how they can bring people together.

We can all learn something from Dave’s story.

We have all done what Dave did when he got trapped in an either/or perspective.  (Either I can stay here and be miserable or I can do something different and make much less money.)  In Dave’s mind those were the only two possibilities.

Here’s an analogy: There are two kinds of light switches, on/off and dimmer.  With on/off you only have two options.  With a dimmer switch you have a wide range of options.

Whenever we seem stuck or trapped, we are doing the on/off switch.  When we change our perspective and start to see more possibilities (dimmer switch) the sense of being stuck or trapped tends to disappear.

Dave will be my guest this week on The Inevitable Success Radio Show

You can tune in to that show on Thursday September 18th at 1:00 Mountain Time at www.realcoachingradio.com.

The show will also be archived if you want to listen at a later time.  archive link