Core Value Blog Post: “Passion is Our Fuel”
I am sure that at some point your parents, your teachers, your friends, coworkers, or maybe a neighbor have all said this to you at least once in your life I am sure:
“Find your passion” or “You need to find your passion.”
Well, I have heard it too, but I was also actually told many times growing up and maybe even after I grew up by others what my passion was. Family members and friends would say to me: ‘Your passion is working,’ or ‘Your passion is cutting grass,’ (I did that for a living before.) or ‘You are good at math, your passion is engineering’ (huh?). I even had friends tell me that my passion was ‘memorizing all the Rocky Balboa movies,’ because I knew all the lines so I could share them with others and make them laugh.
As far as what I thought my passion was, I honestly did not know. I was trying to figure it out growing up and maybe even into early adulthood, but I didn’t know, nor did I think it was necessary. I thought ‘finding your passion’ was just something that people said to say it, I didn’t know more than a handful of people found it in life.
About 15 or 20 years ago, I started to realize something about passion that maybe you should consider. I realized that passion is something that we don’t find; passion is something that finds us. Others can’t tell you what you are passionate about, and you can’t even tell yourself what you are passionate about, the passion itself must find you, but you have to be aware of it and be looking for it.
Let me explain:
I never minded working; it was something that helped make me feel accomplished and help make me feel productive. It seemed when I used my time to ‘relax’ or ‘hangout’; it didn’t make me happy. I also realized that ‘being productive’ by working did not mean just earning money to me, it also meant helping a friend, making others happy, learning a new skill, or figuring out how to solve a challenge.
Of course, TLC helped me realize something that had been there all along, but I did not ‘see’ it. I was looking in the wrong place. I was looking for my passion, where my family and friends told me it was or where I thought it was, but it was right under my nose the whole time, but it couldn’t find me because I did not have any awareness.
Then one day, I started to realize that working hard was not something you can be ‘passionate’ about but rather something you do when you are passionate about something you are working on. I started to realize that I was not passionate about math; I was passionate about using math to solve problems. I also realized that I was not passionate about watching and remembering movies; I was passionate about retelling those ‘stories’ to my friends. It wasn’t cutting grass that I was passionate about; it was the smile that people would have when I finished cutting the grass that I was passionate about. I also realized that making money was not my passion but making my own money so I could bless others instead of people blessing me.
Guess what happened next? I found a ‘job,’ I met Jack Fallon, and was inspired to join and was introduced to a place called TLC, and you know what happened next?
I figured out that in this place, I could make some extra money to bless my family. If I worked hard and did an excellent job, people were smiling after I was done. This place allowed me to tell stories, share stories, and create new accounts. This place allowed me to do real-life math problems all day long and use math to solve problems or create new ideas. This place also allowed a kid who grew up with middle child syndrome (AKA nobody loves me syndrome) and low self-esteem to find both of those by giving it to others. Guess what else I found: PASSION! It was right here at TLC looking for me. It had been looking for me for years; I did not find it until I saw it looking for me, thank God I was paying attention!
What about you? What is your passion? Is it a subject like science or history, video games, material things, being popular? I don’t think so; I think it’s deeper than that, but to find it you’re going to have to go deep! Deep inside your mind, deep inside your body, and deep inside your spirit so it can find you!
Until next week remember:
“You can’t find your passion; your passion has to find you.” Hopefully, you are paying attention when it arrives because a life filled with passion is a life fulfilled, and a life filled with passion helps inspire others to be passionate too!
Time to change lives, passion needed, are you ready?
