Passion: It’s Not Just For Flamenco Dancers (with Sir Ken Robinson)

For many career seekers, “follow your passion” can be a terrifying piece of advice, mainly because the word passion conjures up images of intense, frenzied activity better suited to an Antonio Banderas movie than to most people’s real lives. This is a misunderstanding, says Sir Ken Robinson. The activities you are passionate about are those that make time vanish, as opposed to the tasks that seem to take an eon to slog through. While a script about flower arranging might not make it past the mailroom in Hollywood, flower arranging may be exactly what you were born to do.

Passion, as Robinson describes it, is an undefinable affinity – a natural attraction that makes a given activity seem like second-nature. “It’s like people, isn’t it?”, he says, “I mean, you know, you see some people coming towards you and your whole energy lifts. You’re exhilarated. Oh great, they’re here. And then you see somebody else coming toward you and you think, really? Now? You know, can we reschedule? Because it’s not that they’re bad people, but the energy is all wrong. It just doesn’t jive with you in the same sort of way.”

In part 5 of How to Find Your Element, his new workshop for Big Think Mentor, Robinson focuses on techniques for figuring out where your real passions lie – an essential step toward building a life you can live with.

Video: Discovering Your Passions, with Sir Ken Robinson – full video available with paid subscription to Big Think Mentor

In How to Find Your Element, his 7-session workshop for Big Think Mentor, creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson tackles the epidemic of dissatisfaction with work and life. He offers practical exercises and tips for discovering your “element” – the environment and set of activities that will activate your unique abilities, sustain your happiness, and enable you to live your best possible life.

In this workshop, you’ll learn to:

– Understand the concept and the value of “finding your element”

– Recognize the perils and promise of the two-fold (internal and external) path to finding your element.  

– Discover your specific talents

– Identify your passions (which may differ from your talents)

– Take steps to ensure that your attitude and beliefs are steering you toward (rather than away from) your element.

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