How Watching Your Weight Can Steer You Towards Your Passion

This is a true story of a girl named Jean Nidetch, who was married with  2 sons, had an addiction to cookies and an increasing weight problem. You see, one day she was shopping at the supermarket and one of her neighbours greeted her with “Hey Jean, you look great…..when are you due?” She wasn’t pregnant and she now felt the urge that something had to change.

She was 39 and weighed over 95kg.

The only diet class Jean knew of at the time was an obesity clinic run by the New York City Health Department. She attended the classes every Wednesday without fail and the program helped her lose weight very fast. What occurred to her was that the real power of the program was in the regularity of the meetings and the camaraderie with the other attendees fighting the same battle.

Soon enough Jean’s friends noticed her new figure and wanted to join her, but they didn’t want to travel into Manhattan every week so Jean offered to have them over to her apartment every Thursday where she would relate what she had learned in the clinic the day before. These little meet-ups became very popular and soon she couldn’t accommodate everyone in her living room so Jean began renting a loft above a cinema and holding weight-loss meetings three times a day, after breakfast, lunch and dinner for the price of a movie ticket.

As her meetings progressed and demand for them increased, Jean began holding additional meetings outside of New York City. Together with a businessman, Jean franchised the idea (of these meet-ups) so that other people could run their own meetings without her.

The year is 1963, now 40 years old, Jean quits her job as a clerk at the local tax office and incorporated her business as……… Weight Watchers International….. and of course, the rest is history.

You see sometimes a problem can be the biggest God-given gift.

Jean’s soaring passion and business sprung more from desperation than design. It’s a true story of how something she was passionate about (losing weight) became her greatest gift to the world. She has helped and because of her initiative of franchising, continues to help millions of people worldwide lose weight.

And that’s the biggest take-away from this…. that when you discover your gift and finally un-box it ( as Jean did), not only does it serve you BUT you and your work position you to be the difference maker you were put on the planet to be.

Amen to that!

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