World-Leading Business Growth Strategist Meridith Elliott Powell says taking responsibility for your happiness will bring you freedom.

Do you blame others for things that go wrong in your life? It's time to look within yourself and take ownership.Meridith Elliott Powell is now a world-leading ownership and business growth strategist. Yet at 36, she was far from being successful. As she noticed that she might be creating unnecessary problems, she took responsibility and changed her life.Today Meridith focuses on helping others improve their lives and businesses through responsibility and ownership. 'My passion in life is for people to see them as the ultimate path to freedom.''We burn so much energy in life on negative things.' Meridith says that people who live their passion take choices as gifts rather than burdens.She points out that you should begin to make changes as sometimes you play a role for bad turns in life. 'You have everything you need within you'. This will allow you to become whatever you want in life.Do you want to feel free?Discover more captivating resources and remember to share it with your friends and spread the passion.Live PassionatelyMoustafa HamwiPassionpreneur & Chief Energy OfficerAward Winning Author & Speaker

TRANSCRIPT:

Moustafa: Hello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays, the best way to end a week and start another. Our guest today is a world-leading expert on helping people take ownership of their life – Meridith! Thank you very much for being with us today.Meridith: I'm excited to be here, thank you for having me!Moustafa: Likewise, thank you very much! So…taking ownership!Meridith: Yes.Moustafa: I love that, especially in the context of passion. There is nothing more to own in life than owning your own passion.Meridith: Yes!Moustafa: Let's start by saying what does passion mean to you.Meridith: Passion means to me… It means the thing that ignites you to have energy for your life, to go into it completely present and have the courage and the freedom to be and become whatever it is you want without worrying of judgment from other people.Moustafa: Nice! I like that!Meridith: Yes!Moustafa: And… So now we really know what passion is… how can we take ownership of that?Meridith: You know… I am so passionate about ownership because when you take ownership it's your path to freedom. When you realize that you have everything you need within you to become what you want to become or to achieve your dreams, that just really is the ultimate freedom in life. When you can stop being externally focused, worrying about other people or blaming other events in your life, that's freedom!Moustafa: I love that! So you're not worried about what's going on. How can be careful not to tip over to the other side by being a bit too careless and be like 'Who cares? I don't care!' And then you end up being a rebel without a cause.Meridith: Yeah, you know, I think that the way you keep from tipping over is the moment you take ownership, you take responsibility. And you have responsibility for your happiness, you have responsibility for your ethics, the responsibility for who you take into the world. I think the fear is not tipping back the other way. The message we get from society is about 'It's ok to blame other people. It's ok to do that' and I think, when you give that up, when you give that crutch up, you find the freedom to become a responsible person in life.Moustafa: I like that! Responsibility and ownership… Two sides of the same coin.Meridith: Yes! Yeah and in our society they are seen as sort of a burden or a negative connotation. My passion in life is for people to see them as the ultimate path to freedom.Moustafa: Beautiful! And let's say we're taking responsibility over, we have been handed over responsibility… a lot of times we don't have a choice.Meridith: Yes.Moustafa: We are being given responsibilities that a lot of times are seemingly bigger than us.Meridith: Uhum.Moustafa: You have a family death and you have to take care of the rest. You become the man of the house, the woman of the house…Meridith: Yes…Moustafa: Or you're given a position in a company because of a situation and you suddenly realize 'I would have not chosen that'. How do you handle a situation like this?Meridith: I think the first thing to do is reframe it and start to see it as a gift. We burn so much energy in life on negative things. You know, when you are given something that you don't have a choice in, I mean, that's life, right? We have all been sold this dream when we were kids and then you grow up and maybe a marriage doesn't work out or a parent dies too young or, God forbid, you have a child that is sick. Life is handing you what is handing you. You cannot waste your time focused on the negative. Somehow that will be the greatest gift you've ever been given. I don't know why life hands us what it does, but I do know the difference between people who end up living their passion and people who don't is that the people who end up living their passion take that choice as a gift rather than a burden.Moustafa: True. Yet it's easier said than done.Meridith: Much easier said than done!Moustafa: A lot of times we say that, but there's a threshold and life keeps throwing something at you that goes like 'Ok, you can tolerate this, let me test you a bit more.'Meridith: Yes.Moustafa: Let me test you a bit. It keeps amping up to see what is your breaking point.Meridith: Yes.Moustafa: And there is a point where you'll go 'Hold on. What is going on here? What am I doing wrong?'Meridith: Yes.Moustafa: The questions becomes 'When do you find the reason to persist? When do you find the reason to retreat?' because sometimes you do need to retreat and say 'you know what? Maybe I need to let this one go'.Meridith: Oh, absolutely! I think you're right because I think the common denominator when life keeps handing you unfortunate situations, here's what I think the difference is: if you keep getting into that situation, it's because you haven't looked at your own responsibility as to how you got there. I mean, I think we all have these stories in life. I know I certainly do. My life took very bad turns before I was about 36 years old. And all the sudden, it hit me at 36: 'Maybe I'm the common denominator, maybe I need to quit blaming all the circumstances in my life and figure out how I keep winding up in them.' And that's where you begin to make the change. And that's what keeps you from tipping over because I don't want to say that every bad situation in our life is because we put ourselves in there, but when you can look at your own role and how you got there, it's freeing.Moustafa: I like that.Meridith: And you'll change the pattern. You'll change the strategy. You'll change the trajectory of where your life comes out.Moustafa: Wow! This was awesome. I really love everything you said and I'm already taking ownership about a lot of things that are happening in my life and I'm sure that everyone that watched us does. I really appreciate this and thank you very much for being with us today!Meridith: Well, thank you! This has been my passion and my heart to talk about it. I loved having the opportunity!Moustafa: Awesome! Thank you very much!Meridith: Thank you!Moustafa and Meridith: Passion!Moustafa: What do you think? I really hope you found this episode as useful and as exciting as I did. If so, please leave your comments on the blog below and share it with your friends or those who might benefit from it. And if you'd like more tools, tips, techniques and exclusive interviews that I only share on my website, go to Moustafa.com. Until next episode – live passionately!