How Positive Leadership can help you develop your passion

Welcome to the Positive Leadership & You newsletter. This month, we consider how Positive Leadership can help you to develop your passion and then use it to make a positive difference in the world.??

Me: Focusing on our personal growth, wellbeing and being positive?

Today the mantra: “Do what you love, love what you do” is everywhere. But if you don’t have a job or a project that sparks passion, what can you do? Perhaps a first step is to work out what you are passionate about.??

Recently I was excited to speak to Angela Duckworth , a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, known for her research on the power of passion and perseverance. In her book, “Grit ”, a New York Times bestseller, she argues that passion is developed with time, experience, and encouragement.

Start by asking yourself: “What will sustain me through the ups and downs for the next 10 or 20 or 30 years? And how can I start practicing it?”?

Angela recommends following the “hard thing rule”, which has three parts:?

1. Do something that requires practice?
2. Finish what you start?
3. Nobody can choose your hard thing but you?

Passion, for Angela, is a process of trial and error. You can only “do what you love”, if you make a deliberate effort to move forward with something that interests you and sticking with it for the long-term. Not everything you are passionate about will translate into a job - I never became a professional footballer, though I still love watching it! But if you’re spending hours of your time on something that cannot spark passion, the reality is that you will learn very little.??

For more learnings from, Angela, who is so insightful, stream my conversation here: ??

Me & Others: Connecting with and empowering others to achieve more.??

As my old friend, the author and educator, Akhtar Badshah says, passion is different from purpose because it’s personal. But that doesn't mean it’s exclusive. And I do believe you can translate a passion into a purpose. But whether you’re a CEO or a football coach, leaders pursuing a passion need to engage others in the journey. This should inspire others to develop their own.?

One leader who exemplifies this is Yvon Chouinard, who founded Patagonia driven by his love of craftsmanship and climbing. Ultimately, he translated it into an incredible example of a purpose-driven organization.???

Yvon grew the company with a like-minded group, including Vincent Stanley , whose core passion was writing and who had no intention of staying with the company for more than six months. 48 years later and now Patagonia's appointed Director of Philosophy, Vincent shares what it is about one of the world's most successful apparel brands that “hooked” him into staying:?

Nobody came in and said, “You're all worker bees and I'm, I'm the queen bee, or the king bee and you're going to do what I say”. That didn't happen. Yvon, as an owner, never operated that way. He used to say, “I'd never come in and criticize anybody for what they've done. I only come in and criticize people for what they haven't done, for a project they haven't started.” So what survived in the company is this strong sense of agency…?

Like Angela’s “hard thing rule”, Yvon saw the value in giving people agency to persevere with their projects and develop a passion and ultimately a purpose for their work. Today, Patagonia is one of the world’s most successful sportswear brands and has an incredible sense of purpose and employees and customers who are passionate about what the brand stands for.??

For more insights from Vincent’s on Patagonia’s story, listen the episode here:

Me & the World: Having a positive impact on the world??

In 2022, Yvon put his passion for the environment into radical action by donating all of Patagonia's future profits to fight the climate crisis. Passion, when we find ways to focus it, can be a powerful agent of change.?

On the latest podcast, my colleague and 微软 Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Scott , describes his passion for technology and how it has developed into a career where he has a deep sense of purpose and responsibility for ensuring everyone benefits from the amazing advances we are seeing, like Generative AI.?

It was wonderful to see Kevin’s belief in innovation as a way of taking a passion project to the next level. His advice to the next generation??

Find whatever it is, that you really, really, really have a passion about, that is valuable to other people and try to use these tools that you now have available to you to go do that thing.?

Kevin has so much wisdom to share, which you can listen to here:

You should also read his book, Reprogramming the American Dream , for more, or check out his own podcast, Behind the Tech, here

And for more ideas on how to translate your passion into meaningful change, listen to episode 3 of the 9 Powers of Positive Leadership, Committing to Action, with insights from Dr Tara Swart Bieber , ?? Michael Bungay Stanier , and Reshma Saujani . Stream it here:

You can check out all the latest episodes of the ‘9 Powers of Positive Leadership’, where in 5 minutes, I take you step-by-step through the nine key behaviors that will energize and inspire you to achieve positive impact for yourself, others and the world.?

I hope this newsletter inspires you to be bold, and develop, pursue and share your passions with the world. You never know where it might lead you.?

All the best.??

-jp??