We were lucky to catch up with Ariel Naftali recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ariel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Parents can play a significant role in affecting how our lives and careers turn out – and so we think it’s important to look back and have conversations about what our parents did that affected us positive (or negatively) so that we can learn from the billions of experiences in each generation. What’s something you feel your parents did right that impacted you positively.

For many years, I thought my parents knew everything and that the way they did life was the best way to do life. At some point in my 20s, I realized that many of the beliefs I had about life were not ones I had consciously chosen. In order to figure out who I truly was, I needed to question everything I was taught (i.e. what success means and looks like, how to treat other people, where happiness comes from, etc) and strip away the layers upon layers of conditioning that formed my belief systems. From that place, I could then decide what values, beliefs and ideas I still felt aligned with, and what new paths I wanted to carve that might differ from what I was taught by my parents.

Ultimately, there is no “right” or “wrong” of what my parents did…there just IS, and I get to decide how to make meaning of those experiences. A few lessons they’ve instilled in me that I’ve chosen to keep and feel inspired by are:
1) I am a creator of my life and can decide what my experience of it will be (I am not a victim to outside circumstances)
2) I am here, in large part, to be in service to others
3) When I lead myself and others with integrity, life feels more fulfilling

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I created Perform With Purpose to help business leaders align their career with their purpose so that they can use their natural talents every day, do work that fulfills them, and make a positive impact on others without sacrificing financial success.

I became passionate about coaching around purpose and fulfillment because of my own existential wonderings, career frustrations, and the challenges I saw high-performers facing in both sport and business.

I spent the beginning of my career climbing the corporate ladder in New York City. I felt the highs of promotions, raises, and fun work cultures. I felt the lows of responsibilities that were either understimulating or overly draining. I wrestled with the subtle sense that I was meant for something more.

After moving from NYC to Denver, pivoting to a career in psychology, and consulting with individuals and teams around performance improvement, I learned that defining success solely as a measure of external outcomes bred an endless cycle of dissatisfaction. I also realized that this feeling of dissatisfaction was really a symptom of meaning deficiency.

We all crave meaningfulness. We all want to feel like we matter in both our BEING and our DOING. My work exists to help you connect your being with your doing so that you can experience the meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment that you deserve.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Any lesson that starts with “here’s the way to be successful”. There’s no ONE right way to be successful. It’s tempting to look at others who are “further along” on the journey than you are and want to take what worked for them and apply it to your own life/career. But you have to remember that you are a different person, with a different personality, different skills, different interests…what worked for them may not work for you. I spent a lot of time in the beginning of business building trying to “copy paste” strategies for success from other coaches I saw, and it rarely worked.

Over time, I realized that I was trying to create certainty where it was not possible. I had to let go of the timeline, and once I stopped trying to find quick hacks to success and starting leaning in to what I truly WANTED to do and share in a given moment, things started to make more sense. That journey is still ongoing for me today.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Staying in my own truth and not falling trap to “best marketing practices”. For instance, I write a lot of long-form content and create a lot of videos on LinkedIn. Generally, these wouldn’t be considered great marketing strategies because 1) we are in the age of the short attention span and 2) LinkedIn is not primarily designed for the sharing of video content (compared to other platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc). But I’ve found that going against the grain actually helps me stand out in a crowded space, and more importantly, it helps me reach the right people. For every nine people that scroll past what I share, there is one person that resonates with exactly what I say and how I say it…and that’s the kind of person I want to keep in my corner. Not the other nine.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://performwithpurposecoaching.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariel-jaye-naftali/