What is that thing that I know how to do? What is the one thing I have interest in? How much of interest do I have in it? Can it sustain me? Can I make it valuable to someone? Can it be paid for? Can I use it to grow someone? If it can grow someone, then it can grow me. These should help.
In my search for value and productivity, I go to great lengths to seek. I am often not constricted to any specific spaces. I read. I listen. I watch. I observe. Sometimes, nothing instantly clicks because when you read great content, it slows you down. One thing though, I save, refer to them later, and again, I take notes.
Some of the inspiration for my short quotes come from there. And these form backgrounds and foundation for my larger writings. I also borrow from my short notes and quotes to build and support the larger writings.
About two weeks or so ago, a friend shared a short video about the worst advice to share with young people: Follow your passion. The speaker states that many great people who tell you to follow your passion are already rich. He believes that such a person may have even made his/her money through iron and smelting. He advises that young people should find what they are good at and then spend thousands of hours and apply the grit, the perseverance, the sacrifice and the willingness to break through hard things to become great at it because once you are great at something, the economic accoutrement, the prestige, the relevance, the camaraderie, the self worth of being great will make you passionate at whatever it is. That was Scott Galloway.
Professor Scott Galloway in the video advised that rather than follow your passion, it is better to find what you are good at. I think knowing what you are good at should begin with some level of interest before you can get good at it in the first place. Being good at something comes from some level or degree of development. This is a fortune in itself. It is not commonplace.
In my characteristic way, I made a comment on the post and moved on to other things. Now, that is forming a good basis or reference for this article.
Not many of us know what we are intrinsically interested in. We should look critically into this. When something interests you, that thing arouses curiosity in you. That thing catches your attention. In a world full of distraction, it is not easy for both young and otherwise persons not to have their attention negatively affected. This is where curiosity can be the game changer.
Curiosity is a subject of the essence. You are drawn to something from deep within you. Unless your essence [internal] is affected, whatever catches your attention from the external would not linger. It actually does begin and belong in the inside.
According to Todd Kashdan, curiosity has the five dimensions of joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, social curiosity and thrill seeking.
Really, if you are truly interested in something, these five components should be a guide for you. You are able to explore joyfully. You are sensitive to the deprivations you encounter. You are able to tolerate the stress that comes with it. You are desirous of what others are doing, you can observe and examine them closely. Finally, you are thrilled to seek that thing seamlessly.
These components help to prove and sustain your curiosity. These sustain our interests and where interest is not sustained, we may never be good at anything we do. To be good means that we have gone from poor or low to fair and even above average. Good is a place of appreciable value.
Yesterday, I was talking with a young friend who is often despaired about what to do and where her life is going. These young people are a great fascination for me and I try to support them any way that I can. So, as I woke up from my short nap, I decide to share the thought I had to further support her aspiration and cravings for a productive life, hence the thought I shared in the opening of this piece.
My comments on the Scott Galloway video are: Find what you are interested in. You may not have the passion for it, but if you can create value from it, the results can make you passionate because you would have been seen to be meeting the needs of others through the service you render. Meeting the needs of others is the fulfillment of your personal mission. Your personal mission is the value you provide to others. This is what takes you to your vision.
Where you are able to make people happy, earn money from same activity or initiative and at the same time keep yourself focused to continuously provide value and sustain your interest, it is not possible for you not to find passion therein.
An exploration of the key thoughts in the first paragraph shows the following: What is that thing that I know how to do? For you to know how to do something means that you have been doing it. You have invested time, energy, paid attention to it and even spent money on it. You have made mistakes doing it. People would have been offended by the errors you have made during the process but that was not enough to take you out of it. What is that thing? You need to follow it diligently.
What is the one thing I have interest in? How much of interest do I have in it? For you to have invested all of those resources in it, including the emotional quotient, it means you have a sensible level of interest in it. This is what can make you good through iteration. The degree of interest you have may be determined by your resilience despite the challenges you have encountered. Is it also possible that your interest is sustained because you have no alternative? Ponder!
Can it sustain me? Can I make it valuable to someone? These two questions are complementary. You do have needs. Can the thing sustain you? In other words is it something that is valuable to others that they pay for it? You can imagine what it can take for something to align the brain, the heart and the pocket in one sweep. That is the totality of value. Can this thing be that valuable?
Can it be paid for? If one person can pay for it, it does mean that more than one person can do the same. It means one hundred, one thousand or even one million can. This is given the exponential market connectivity in the global space and of course the idea that some or many humans have the same basic emotional and otherwise needs. What is that thing? You may need to invest more resources in it.
Can I use it to grow someone? If it can grow someone, then it can grow me. This question is at the core of adding value and providing service. If you are not driven by a-me-first attitude, then it is a great way to build value and serve. A great way to get what you want from life is to first help others get what they want from life. Now, there is another angle to this. Unless you pay attention to your own self-development, you cannot support others. Unless you are good at what you do, you cannot meet or satisfy the needs of others.
These are crucial questions for us to ponder on as we have a calendar change. For some of us, it may not be any new goals. It may just be a continuation of what we have been on. For some, it is yet searching for discovery of that one thing, that one word or phrase that will change the game for them. For some others, it may be the search to consolidate on what they are already doing.
Nailing down what it is you are good at does require that you are interested in that thing because it evokes your curiosity quotient in such a way that you pay attention to it and invest your resources in it. That thing is the one thing for you. Do seek it. Be sure of it. Give it your most if not your all. If others can connect with it such that their head, heart and wallet can go to it, then you have found it. That should keep you passionate.
