I have a vision that’s so powerful that it gets me up every morning at 6:15 to run around the reservoir in Central Park. I go out when it’s 3 degrees or 103 degrees, in rain, sleet, or snow. (I especially like to go out in sleet, because then I can feel like a martyr. Ha.) Here’s my vision: It’s maybe five or even 10 years from now, and I’m running along a beautiful beach, holding the hands of these tiny, little people — the children I hope my daughters, Kate and Abigail, will have one day — and I’m running with love and passion and humor and patience. Well, if I’m going to run along the beach with those adorable future grandchildren of mine, I have to be alive. And I certainly have to have energy. Getting up every morning at 6:15 seems a small price to pay.

What about you? What are you passionate about? What would light you up so much that you’d do just about anything to make it happen?

A woman I started coaching years ago decided at the age of 47 that she wanted to make a major career change. Michelle had spent more than 20 years running a nonprofit organization that provided housing to senior citizens. While she loved the work and its heartwarming results, she was ready to try something new. In fact, she harbored a secret, a decades-old longing to become an environmental lawyer. Lawyering ran deep in her family. Michelle’s father was a retired judge, and her brother was a lawyer. But Michelle had never been encouraged to go to law school by her parents and had assumed they thought she didn’t have the right stuff. (Of course, we found out later that wasn’t the case at all. They had assumed she wasn’t interested. Watch out for those assumptions. They’ll get you every time.) Now Michelle just needed the courage to bring her passion to life. So we spent some time creating a vision — Michelle’s “castle.” She imagined what her days would be like, what parts of the country her work might take her to, the intellectual caliber of her colleagues, and, most important, a deadline for reaching her goal. By the time we were finished, Michelle could almost reach out and touch her desk in the law firm that she would be working in one day.

When Michelle announced she was applying to law school, her husband was completely shocked. “Are you kidding?” he said. “Do you know how old you’ll be when you graduate? Fifty!”

“I’ll be 50 anyway,” she replied.

Three years ago, Michelle graduated (yes, at age 50), and she is now working as an associate in a Washington, D.C., firm that specializes in environmental law. She’s working hard, and she’s loving it. Her husband, who moved with her, is extraordinarily proud of her and is happily designing his own major career change — at 56.