Here is the truth…

I am Darren Virassammy.  In December of 2012, my 4 month old daughter laughed out loud for the first time and it shattered my world.

Let me explain

Kira had done remarkable little things before; smiling, kicking, attempting to roll over.  I could remember none of those moments.  I had been too busy multi-tasking; being there, but not really there. 

I was too busy checking the right boxes

I worked hard, provided for my family, became an executive in a career that I was masterfully disengaged in.  I collected a healthy paycheck from a job I was sickeningly proficient in just making a living at.  I was eliminating student loans, building savings, paying for a rarely used gym membership, and taking a yearly 1 week vacation, all for the small price of a 100-mile commute, missing my daughter’s life AND my own.  

No more

In that moment I finally could see the journey into the deep valley of lost potential that I was currently on.  I realized this path lead to a career of regret and life of disengagement.  I could face the FEAR of change now, or accept the permanence of regret later. 

“You can’t always connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

-Steve Jobs-

Change it would be, but I didn’t know how the dots would all connect going forward. As my good friends and Super Connector Media co-founders Jen Gottlieb and Chris Winfield would remind me later in life: “Keep finding the dots, even if you aren’t sure how they connect… they are there.” 

2 of those dots:

Dot 1:

I returned from that trip to find a local college I loved and taught one quarterly class at wanted me to join full time. I accepted, taking a massive pay cut, while negotiating a part-time, remote role, transitioning clients and mentoring my replacement for the construction company I was working for that ended up taking nearly a year.

Dot 2:

3 Months after the trip to Hawaii, I met my business partner, Play to Their Strengths Co-Author, Brandon Miller. We co-founded 34 Strong, a consultancy building great places to work by designing culture focused on what is right with people instead of fixating on what is wrong with them.  Through my box-checking days I knew the pain of the latter personally and the devastating toll it took on employees and their loved ones. I was one of those employees.  I had roles where I literally became physically sick weekly because of a leader.  I also had the privilege to work under incredible leadership and contribute as a leader who empowered our organization.  I could either stay a part of the problem collecting a paycheck on the journey into the valley of lost potential, or become part of the solution, by daring to step into greatness…by empowering others to do the same.

Today 34 Strong has worked within organizations ranging from: the FDA, Home Depot, Bank Of America and the State of California, The Honor Foundation and Vistage, to smaller organizations across North America. I have personally served alongside brilliant minds including Mike Michalowicz, Joseph McClendon III, Victor Wooten and Dov Baron.  

But Why THAT MOMENT?

In the years since, I have shared the moment many times on shows, stages, and courses.  The moment itself was powerful, but WHY THAT moment stuck while so many others hadn’t is the real aha I had years later.

Why hadn’t the moment my tire blew out on a two lane bridge consequently forcing me to swerve in front of a big-rig narrowly missing death, registered?  It was the first day back to the office a week after Kira was born at 6:30 in the morning.  Somehow, an hour and a half into this daily drive, and nearly getting knocked off the road, I had conditioned my mind to focus on the boxes that needed checking. No matter what, that was even the owner’s mantra…”we will get the job done at all costs.”  That didn’t resonate with me at the time, and it still doesn’t.  The moments had all been previously there and I missed them because I was never really present!

TIPPING POINT:

After attending Anthony Robbins Unleash The Power Within in 2015, I was struck by a simple statement that his business partner, and my now friend, Joseph McClendon III made: “We are what we focus on…where are thoughts go our energy flows.”  I became hyper-focused on why the balcony moment finally broke through for me.  What even made me present to take it in?  And how could I create a life where moments don’t go missed like they often were in my life, up until that point?

It was SO SIMPLE:

Collaborate with nature!

Because I finally paused that day in Hawaii, nature, always present, always willing and always ready, was collaborating with me FOR the moment, like only it could.  Nature is greatness and although I didn’t realize it at the time, Nature gave me the permission to step into my own greatness that day.  I believe you have to be present to step into your greatness, and that is something I rarely was.

I still pause for nature daily, just to take it in and to practice presence.  It can be as simple as pausing to look out the window on a flight, or notice the knots in a wooden table.  OR, it can be taking that 10 minutes outside, just looking up and out and being disconnected.  Cornell University found that spending as little as 10 minutes in nature improves our mood, focus, creativity, problem solving capabilities and markers like blood pressure and heart rate, all key pieces of the puzzle for us to step into our greatness every day!

Back to my roots:

“If you make your bed hard…it is you that gets to sleep in it.“ 

My West Indian Parents were full of little proverbs that they shared with me growing up.  My dad’s father, Compton, shared that one with him, and he passed it along to me and my brothers.  I didn’t quite understand it as a kid, but it makes more and more sense everyday, and I have created some adaptations to it based on my experiences that I want to share with you.  

Make sure you are making your bed, the way that you want it.  For years, I realize now, I was making someone else’s bed, and calling it my own, but it never really was mine.  The point being we have a choice in the bed we make, but first we also must make the choice of the bed we want.  To consider that pausing is powerful because it grants us the chance to practice pondering.  Collaborating with nature gives us that opportunity.  

Why Connect with me:

Featured on:

 TEDx (Summer 2021), KTLA, KTVU, Podcasts, Chief Executive Magazine. The complete list can be found on my Featured Media.

I believe Greatness lives in each one of us.  I believe that who and what we collaborate with is the difference between those who step into their greatness and those who get trapped in the valley of lost potential (the place I escaped from).  Getting our collaborators right, is the key to escaping that valley and staying in our greatness.  I believe nature is one of the greatest collaborators that we have and have found that some of the most brilliant minds of our day believe this as well.  I want to share different practices and techniques on collaborating with nature that have worked for others, so that you can copy, paste and try techniques that work for you to create the habit of collaboration with nature.  

We are ever more connected with technology, and ever more disconnected from the original human greatness collaborator, nature.  We will explore techniques including bio-mimicry that have been used by many great authors, including Jamie Mustard and Mike Michalowicz… all the way to Bridgewater Founder and one of the greatest investors of our time, Ray Dalio.

Stay connected with me to find techniques through collaboration with nature that will help find greatness and step into it…in your life and in your organizations.  I must confess…I don’t have all of the answers, I do have a network of brilliant minds that I want to share with you to help you step into that.  I have learned deeply from them and serving alongside of them.  We often show up asking “what can I get?” Based on my own experience…I decided to ask: ‘What can I give?” 

As the co-founder of 34 Strong I have been building great places to work for nearly a decade.  Through this experience, I have learned that greatness has its own set of operating principles.  I have seen people step into their greatness in numerous ways.  This caused me to examine how purveyors of greatness have collaborated with nature as a regular practice to not only get into their greatness zone, but actually keep them there.  I simply want to share those ideas with you and some of those practices with you…so you can find your own set of nature collaborations that works for you to cultivate your greatness.  The world is starving for your gifts…and collaborating with nature just may be the simplest and most timely reminder for us on how to tap that greatness right now. 

Why?

More technological connection has had numerous benefits for us.  It has also made us far more disconnected from nature.  In North America alone, studies have found that 90% of our time is spent indoors, and by 2050, 82% of the population will live in urban areas.  With all of the benefits this may have…one key piece is our chance encounters with nature, just by how we live has diminished rapidly.  Add to that, the incessant need to stay connected all the time…we may be missing one of the greatest collaborators that have advanced humanity thus far…nature.  We didn’t learn to fly airplanes by looking it up on our computers.  We went through the process of bio-mimicry a process where we look at natural processes and try to mimic them.  This wisdom is still known, but on a societal basis…we are moving further and further away from the gifts it is silently screaming to offer us.  

If you want to learn more about the work my 34 Strong team does with organizations, and how our programs can transform your …organizational culture, check us out here

Interested in having me speak at your event, or having me on your show?

Darren