What’s Your Passion?
Marshall Goldsmith
My latest project: MarshallGoldsmith.ai Ask me any question. Everything I know is available for free! | Thinkers50 Hall of Fame | #1 Executive Coach | #1 Leadership Thought Leader | #1 NYT Bestselling Author
Dorie Clark is an expert at helping people get their message across in a very crowded marketplace. A wonderful friend of mine, Dorie is a member of our 100 Coaches organization and a fantastic thinker.
The author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and Stand Out, and an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, Dorie is a former presidential campaign spokeswoman, and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Forbes.
This week Dorie shares with us two suggestions for discovering our passion and how to turn that into a career. Below is an excerpt of our interview.
Marshall: Dorie, you are a member of our 100 Coaches organization, a fantastic thinker, and a world's authority in helping people get their message across in a very crowded marketplace.
So, I’ve got a question. You’re great at helping people get their message across. What if they don't know what their passion is? You’ve got to have a passion about something to get your message out, right?
Dorie: That’s right Marshall! That’s an important starting point. For folks who aren’t sure what their passion is, I have a couple of suggestions.
- My first suggestion came from a friend of mine, the author James Altucher, and I think it is a really interesting experiment. Try this. If you were in a bookstore and it was a requirement that you had to read all the books in a certain section of the store, which section would you pick? This is an interesting way of beginning to think about your passion. What section would it be? Health? Business? Science fiction? Your answer shows the direction where your passion lies.
- The second suggestion, which I write about in my book Reinventing You, can be very useful for people. It often feels intimidating to find the “one right thing”, and I think for some of us it may be the wrong starting point. We might want to start instead on ruling things out. I wrote about a woman named Elizabeth who came up with a list of 10 professions that she was very interested in. Then she set about to attempt to disprove her interest in all of these areas. She did informational interviews, read books, and subscribed to magazines about the topics. She looked for pieces of information that would help her say, “Well no, actually, venture capital or real estate is not for me.” She was very thorough and meticulous in this research, so that she was whittled down a broad field of interests to what was right for her. This can be a lot less intimidating than trying to pick the exact right thing out of the gate.
Marshall: I love that! Instead of just figuring out what we want to do, which is important, you also need to ask, “What is it I don’t want to do?” Thank you!
To learn more about Dorie, visit dorieclark.com. Build a following around your ideas, download your free 42-page Stand Out self-assessment to learn how.
I just turned 70 on March 20! Thanks to so many people for helping me have a great life!
Independent Travel Consultant-Owner, The Right Touch Travel Consulting
5 年What motivates me is taking the knowledge that I have gained, and seeing it used by others to achieve a level of success.
MG-100 Coach II Master Coach (ICF) II Forbes Coaches Council II Career Development (POC) II Diversity E. I. & B. Expert II M&A Integration
5 年When have you assessed your passions and prioritized what is important? Remember, being an active and decisive decision maker is important. “No decision is a decision and you just may not like the outcome.” Reignite your passions and be an active participant in this game called Life. # Decisive # Life Signed: MyCoachEugene
Research Laboratory Manager - Certified Electron Microscopy Technologist - High Resolution Electron Microscopy Facility
5 年A strong desire from within will motivate anyone to pursue their passion.
Global Advisory Board Member at Best Practice Institute
5 年Dorie so insightful. Thanks for sharing. Everyone should get your book.
EDI Specialist at Intecc
5 年“Too few educators understand that broad and robust background knowledge — built through a rich, comprehensive curriculum that includes study of and exposure to the arts, both in and out of school — is actually vital to helping children become great readers, writers, and thinkers. Furthermore, the engagement that stems from in-school opportunities to discover and pursue co-curricular passions and talents spills over to academic classes. The necessity of providing both — more time on math and literacy and field trips and subjects like art, theater, and dance — is one major reason why SA, like many charter schools across the country, has a longer school day and year.” Passion: 1) strong and barely controllable emotion. 2) a state or outburst of strong emotion. 3) intense sexual love. 4) an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. 5) a thing arousing enthusiasm. Since “necessity is the mother of invention,” it is often the source of my passion. Back in 2000 my wife had a massive stroke. I suddenly had to learn all about it, both from a survivor’s stand point (my wife) and from the caregiver’s (me). I was inundated with a massive amount of information I really had no interest in, but soon found myself helping others in the exact same situation. There was also the time I was hired by a company because of my programming skills to work in a field I never heard of. The person they had quit and they desperately needed a replacement; so I was given a manual and some very basic instructions whereby I build a career for myself that has spanned well over 20 years.