Be What You Are: How to Find Your Purpose and Live a Happy and Healthy Life with Author and Happiness Expert Gina Vild
“Does the work bring me joy, and do I wake up thrilled to begin each day?” Today’s woman dreamer, Gina Vild, has led a dynamic and fulfilling life, through various leadership roles in healthcare and government. She co-authored the best-selling book, “The Two Most Important Days” with Dr. Sanjiv Chopra and most recently was the Associate Dean and Chief Communications Officer at Harvard Medical School. A Happiness Expert, Gina shares how she finds happiness, purpose, and balance in life, and her journey in writing her upcoming book, Resilience, a topic we can all relate to in these challenging times. With a mantra of “do what you love”, Gina shares her philosophies and inspiring life story with Women Who Win!
1) You have served in numerous, high-profile leadership roles including Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund, MIT, the Office of Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste, among others. What led to your career path?
The ancient Greeks had a maxim: “Be what you are.” They understood, long before William Stafford penned the poem, The Way It Is, that to know thyself means to identify your passion and purpose in life and to follow it leads to a lifetime of fulfillment.
The poet William Stratford wrote in The Way It Is:
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.
When I look in the rearview mirror, I can see with great clarity that I stumbled on my “thread” early in life. From a young age, I recognized I was happiest when writing, creating and communicating, whether advocating for my views through editorials that appeared in our high school newspaper, spending lazy summer days crafting short stories, poetry, and plays, and bringing my creative sensibility to the role of yearbook editor.
At each fork in my life, I held fast to my thread by avoiding all the “shoulds” and embracing all the “wants,” consistently reaching for those experiences that inspired me to metaphorically pump my fist in the air and say “Yes!” These became stepping stones to a satisfying career of leadership and purpose.
Over the decades I counseled countless young people at the starting gate of life as they navigated early career decisions. Inevitably I have offered them this advice:
“Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life.” -Wayne Dryer
First, there is no better formula for professional success than to follow your passion because when you love what you do, you’ll never “work” a day in your life. If they expressed worry over money, I assured them—it will come.
“If I have seen farther, it is because I have stood on the should of giants.” — Isaac Newton
Second, find mentors along your journey. Identify those you respect, will learn from and can emulate. And I tell them, once you are a success pay this gift forward.
"If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else." –Lawrence J. Pete
Third, formulate a vision even if you can’t yet shade in all the details. Like outfits, try on different roles until you find a perfect fit.
From a young age, on the eve of my birthday, I had a tradition where I would reflect in a journal on the past year. On the night before my 16th birthday, for the first time, I began to wonder what my adult life might look like, and I gave my young hopes and aspirations shape on paper.
In my childhood bedroom with its pink walls and a pink light-up princess phone, I envisioned myself all grown up—confident, well-traveled and well-read. I had a family and a huge circle of interesting friends. I did work that was interesting and creative and that made the lives of others better. As I fleshed out the details, I could actually see myself sitting in an office, nameplate on the door, with books I had written on the shelf behind my desk.
Whatever success I’ve attained in life came from following my own advice whether it was opting for a liberal arts major despite admonishments I would be unemployable without a business degree to turning down a high income, high potential job at IBM early in my career for a role as a junior communications staffer for Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich.
Over the course of my career, I sought out and was blessed with influential and transformational mentors, inspirational forces who took me under their proverbial wing and cheered me on. My first was Bill Randle: a renaissance thinker, academic, lawyer and pioneering disc jockey credited with introducing Elvis Presley to America. At a small college in Cleveland, Ohio where we worked, he saw something in a wide-eyed young girl who was long on aspirations and short on direction. Convinced I had boundless talent and potential, he decided to rain down his wisdom on me. He imbued in me the certainty that if I could dream it, I would achieve it.
My professional stepping stones included being asked to serve as deputy communications director for Ohio Governor Richard Celeste, a leadership role that was a stretch for me at age 26. But another brilliant mentor, Margie Pizzutti, saw something in a young woman with more idealism than experience and took a chance on me. She then coached me on how to hire and supervise a dynamic team while managing a broad portfolio of responsibilities.
Marriage led me from Columbus, Ohio to Nottingham, England where I worked in pharmaceutical marketing for an advertising agency. From that experience, I further focused my path, embracing a newfound fascination for health care and shedding any future thought of agency work.
All those experiences led me to a host of leadership roles over the past decades…at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School to name only two. And as I raised young children, I embarked on a decade-long lucrative and successful consulting career. The common denominator at every stop along the way was that each position felt like a calling in which I was thrilled for the opportunity to contribute to a larger purpose. In each role, I held fast to my thread and at each fork applied the litmus test of “does the work bring me joy, and do I wake up thrilled to begin each day.”
2) You wrote a book with Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, The Two Most Important Days, How to Find your Purpose and Live a Happier, Healthier Life. What was that experience like?
Dr. Sanjiv Chopra and I met while working together at Harvard Medical School (HMS), where he was serving as Dean of Continuing Medical Education and I was the Associate Dean of Communications and External Relations and CCO. Among the 11,000 faculty at HMS, Sanjiv stood out for his unfailing positivity and for leading with kindness. Our professional collaboration expanded into friendship.
Sanjiv and I shared a similar orientation toward life, and we often shared favorite quotes and stories embedded in a philosophy of joy and optimism. One day Sanjiv said, “We should write a book together about happiness.” I demurred, saying, “Sanjiv, you have written a number of books. You don’t really need me.”
Sanjiv’s response was life-changing for me. He reminded me of my young dream of being an author, and said, “I love the way you write, and I want to help you realize this aspiration.”
I learned so much co-authoring The Two Most Important Days with Sanjiv.
I learned I was right to hold fast to my mantra---do what you love. My collaboration with Sanjiv was as much fun as it was work. Our discussions were animated and took fascinating tangents. Often Amita, Sanjiv’s beautiful wife, often joined in as we plotted and planned our book. Our long afternoons of work and writing frequently ended with dinner and a glass of wine (me) and Scotch (Sanjiv).
I learned much of what science has proven in recent year is not necessarily original. Ancient philosophers long ago pontificated on the path to happiness and philosophized about the value of living with purpose. Modern science has merely confirmed their wisdom.
I learned a meditation practice could transform my giddyup pace of life, by giving it structure and enhancing productivity. I learned to meditate after my 24/7, “all-hands-on-deck-at-all-hours” job at Harvard routinely interfered with our writing process. Amita, a physician and devoted teacher of meditation, shared her gift with me and my son, thereby revolutionizing my ability to realign my thoughts and enabling me to contribute to our book.
3) What is your own purpose in life?
I shared my purpose in our book The Two Most Important Days, and I urge you if you are on a quest to identify your purpose to find within yourself what resonates and makes you sing. Your purpose need not be grand. It should be core to who you are and what you aspire to. Here is mine:
To pay attention to this precious world in which we live for such a brief time, to use the light that is our life to radiate kindness, to learn and to use that knowledge to illuminate the darkness, to appreciate, to forgive, and to be grateful.
I am currently at work on my next book on the topic of resilience. As I forge ahead on this exciting project, I’m conscious that I am continuing to follow my thread, the one I first picked up during my teenage years.
In writing this book about resiliency I intend to share my own experience along with my belief that buoyancy can be a learned and conscious practice. I will share with others both the science, practical steps and philosophy of resilience.
After all, don’t we all share the same hope, a desire to weather life’s turbulence and achieve renewal no matter what the challenge?
Bio: Gina Vild is a happiness expert and the co-author with Sanjiv Chopra of best-selling book, The Two Most Important Days, How to Find your Purpose and Live a Happier Healthier Life. She currently is at work on her second book on the topic of resilience. Gina most recently served as Associate Dean and Chief Communications Officer at Harvard Medical School. She has held leadership roles in health care and government, and today consults on brand leadership and crisis management. She blogs for Psychology Today.