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Stop searching for your passion | Terri Trespicio | TEDxKC
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What are you passionate about? You’re told these five words hold the key to a
successful career and life purpose. What if it’s the wrong question altogether?
This talk turns the ubiquitous “find your passion” message on its ear.

Terri Trespicio is a branding strategist who helps visionaries, experts,

entrepreneurs, and businesses communicate with power and precision across media
platforms. She consults with a wide range of experts, everyone from surgeons and
social media celebs to startups and brand managers.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but
independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
Transcript

00:00
Translator: Angelina Babinova Reviewer: Aari Lemmik
00:21
The day I got laid off
00:22
from my job at Martha Stewart,
00:24
I was relieved.
00:25
(Laughter)
00:27
I loved the job, I really did.
00:29
But the relationship was over
00:30
and I didn't know how to end it
00:32
and then it broke up with me.
00:33
Don’t you love it when that happens?
00:35
At the time I’ve been also hosting a radio show
00:38
for the Martha Stewart brand on Sirius XM.
00:40
And then not long after that got cancelled, too.
00:44
On the day of my last show
00:46
I got onto the elevator at the 36th floor
00:48
and as it started to drop,
00:50
I started to cry.
00:53
Every floor took me further and further from what I had been:
00:57
a magazine editor, a radio host,
00:59
the person with the cool job to talk about at parties.
01:02
You know.
01:04
And honestly I had no idea what I was going to do.
01:06
And quite frankly no one was looking for me.
01:09
So, I did what anyone would do in that situation.
01:12
I was making some phone calls:
01:14
“Hey, what are you up to?
01:16
Did I mention I’m available?”
01:19
I needed to get paid to do something, right.
01:21
I mean I live in New York City.
01:22
If you’re not paid to do something,
01:23
you’re not going to be there very long.
01:25
But this idea that I had to know what I suppose to do now, right.
01:29
I’m supposed to pursue this passion.
01:30
It’s just bugged me.
01:32
It always had.
01:35
And that’s because it’s a dangerously limiting idea
01:37
at the heart of everything we believe
01:39
about success and life in general.
01:42
And it’s that you have one singular passion
01:45
and your job is to find it
01:47
and to pursue it to the exclusion of all else.
01:51
And if you do that
01:52
everything will fall into place
01:54
and if you don’t you failed.
01:58
The pressure starts really young
02:00
and it goes your whole life,
02:02
but it’s perhaps most pronounced when you’re graduating from school, right.
02:05
After this, “Wow, the world's at your feet! What are you going to do now?”
02:10
And it’s so intimidating,
02:11
it's like picking a major for life.
02:15
You know, I had a hard enough time picking a major for four years
02:17
and I changed that once, if not twice.
02:21
I mean it was like just intimidating, right?
02:24
And this compelling
02:26
I mean this really, you know,
02:27
forceful cultural imperative to choose your passion,
02:30
it’s stressful to me,
02:31
but it’s not just me,
02:32
it’s everyone I talk to agrees with me.
02:35
The woman who sold me this dress.
02:37
I told her what I needed the dress for, what I was talking about
02:39
and she said, “Oh my gosh,
02:40
I really need to hear this talk, because I just graduate from school.
02:43
My friends and I we don’t know what we’re passionate about,
02:46
we don’t know what we supposed to do.”
02:49
I’m leery of passion for a few reasons.
02:51
But one of them is that passion is not a plan,
02:55
it’s a feeling.
02:56
And feelings change.
02:58
They do.
02:59
You can be passionate about a person one day, a job,
03:02
and then not passionate the next.
03:04
We know this and yet we continue
03:06
to use passion as the yardstick
03:08
to judge everything by,
03:10
instead of seeing passion for what it really is:
03:12
the fire that ignites when you start rubbing sticks together.
03:18
Anyway, I was such a mess when I was in my twenties,
03:20
such a mess.
03:21
I was anxious and depressed and had no life to speak of,
03:24
I was temping to keep my options open,
03:27
and I was sitting around at night in my underwear
03:29
watching Seinfeld reruns.
03:31
Actually I still do that, that’s not the worst thing in the world to do.
03:35
It’s fine.
03:35
But I called my mother every night crying
03:38
and I was turning away perfectly good full-time jobs.
03:41
Why? Because I was afraid.
03:43
I was sure that I would pick the wrong one
03:46
and get on the wrong train headed to the wrong future.
03:50
My mother begged me, she said, “Please, take a job, any job.
03:54
You’re not going to be stuck, you’re stuck now!
03:58
You don’t create your life first, and then live it.
04:00
You create it by living it, not agonizing about it.”
04:04
She’s right, she’s always right.
04:06
And so I took a full-time job as an assistant
04:09
at a management consulting firm, where I knew nothing about nothing.
04:13
Okay. Zero.
04:15
Except I knew I had a reason to get up in the morning, get showered,
04:18
leave the house,
04:19
people who were waiting for me when I got there
04:21
and I got a paycheck every two weeks.
04:23
And that is as good a reason to take a job as any.
04:27
Did I know that I want to be an office administrator
04:30
for the rest of my life? No! I had no idea!
04:33
Truly!
04:34
But this idea that everything you're supposed to do
04:36
should fit into this passion vertical is unrealistic.
04:39
And I’ll say it - elitist.
04:42
You show me someone who washes windows for a living
04:44
and I will bet you a million dollars
04:46
it’s not because he has a passion for clean glass.
04:52
One of my favourite columns is a piece by Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
04:56
He wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal a few years ago,
04:58
about how he failed his way to success.
05:00
And one of his jobs was a commercial loan officer.
05:04
And he was taught specifically:
05:06
"Do not loan money to someone following their passion."
05:10
(Laughter)
05:13
No, loan it to someone who wants to start a business,
05:16
the more boring, the better.
05:18
(Laughter)
05:20
Adam says that in his life success fueled passion
05:23
more than passion fueled success.
05:27
When I got my first job as a magazine editor, in publishing,
05:30
I was thrilled.
05:31
But I had to take pretty big pay cut,
05:33
because at the time I’d been a catalogue copywriter at a wig company.
05:38
(Laughter)
05:40
Laugh if you will, clearly you are and many, many people did.
05:43
But wigs paid.
05:45
So I had to figure out a way to make some money.
05:47
A friend of mine invited me to a jewelry party
05:49
I said, "What is a jewelry party?"
05:51
She said, “It’s like Tupperware but with bracelets.”
05:53
I said, “Okay, got it, got it.”
05:55
I went and I had the best time.
05:57
I was there hanging out, trying on jewelry,
05:59
the salespersons having a great time
06:01
and I was like, "That’s a job.
06:04
I could...
06:05
I could do that."
06:06
I mean, really, she seems to be having a great time.
06:09
Now, I had no background in sales,
06:11
unless you count Girl Scouts, and I was terrible.
06:13
And I had no passion for jewelry.
06:15
I mean, honestly, my earrings cost 20 $. Combined, all of them.
06:20
And yet I was like, "I think I can sling silver jewelry to suburban moms
06:25
drinking daiquiris.
06:26
Yes, I could do that."
06:28
And so I did it, I signed up, I became a Silpada Designs rep.
06:31
And I…
06:32
Listen to me, I was not setting a world on fire right away.
06:34
Really. I was so awkward and afraid of selling.
06:37
And then I got better,
06:39
I got better,
06:40
I started making some money,
06:41
I started getting really passionate about it.
06:43
Not just because of the money, but because
06:45
what I realized was people wanted the stuff.
06:47
They were happy to pay for it.
06:49
I sold so much jewelry that year I won a free trip to Saint Thomas.
06:53
(Laughter)
06:53
It’s true.
06:54
I eventually let my jewelry business go, because my career path shifted.
06:58
But I was so glad that I did that.
07:01
Because it planted an entrepreneurial seed I didn’t know was there.
07:04
And that bears fruit to this day.
07:08
Now as you know an entire cottage industry has sprung up
07:10
around helping people find their passions, right.
07:12
Books, coaching, webinars, whatever.
07:14
And their hearts in the right place, it’s great, I’m all about self-discovery.
07:18
Okay.
07:19
But when you ask someone, or you’re asked like,
07:21
"What’s your passion?"
07:23
It’s triggering.
07:24
It’s like, "Oh my god, I have to came out with a good answer for this."
07:28
One of my friends in her mid-forties and she’s looking
07:30
what’s her life going to be now.
07:32
And she’s like, “I don’t know what I’m passionate about.”
07:36
And she’s legitimately concerned about this.
07:38
She’s ready to hire a team of people.
07:39
It’s like, why are we worrying about this?
07:41
You know why, because she thinks something wrong with her.
07:43
I thought something was wrong with me when I was in the seventh grade
07:46
and everyone was really into like
07:49
the rock-bands and their actors
07:50
and they would carve the names of those bands in a tables in a library.
07:54
And I never carved anything, because I couldn’t think of anything to carve.
07:59
I mean I liked Bon Jovi as much as the next girl,
08:02
but not enough to deface school propriety, you know.
08:05
(Laughter)
08:06
It’s probably why I don’t have any tattoos either.
08:09
I’m assuming that’s why.
08:11
I was really boring, I thought something was wrong with me.
08:15
But that’s the fear, isn’t it?
08:17
That when someone asks you at a party, on a date, at a job interview,
08:22
"What are you passionate about?"
08:25
That you're not going to have this wow compelling answer.
08:28
And that means that you’re not interesting, or ambitious,
08:32
or that you don’t have a singular obsession
08:34
or scary talent that you hiding.
08:36
And that your life isn’t worth living.
08:38
And it’s not true.
08:40
Passion is not a job, a sport, or a hobby.
08:44
It is the full force of your attention
08:47
and energy that you give to whatever is right in front of you.
08:50
And if you’re so busy looking for this passion,
08:53
you could miss opportunities that change your life.
08:58
You could also miss out on a great love.
09:00
Because that’s what happens when you have tunnel vision,
09:03
trying to find the One.
09:07
We all think we know the kind of person we are
09:09
and the kind of person we could love.
09:11
But sometimes we’re wrong.
09:13
Blissfully wrong.
09:16
And sometimes you don’t know what you're going to do next, right?
09:19
I mean, I don’t.
09:20
I love not knowing what I’m going to be doing five years from now
09:23
or I will be into.
09:24
And that’s okay, it’s okay not to know.
09:26
You know why?
09:28
Because the most fulfilling relationships,
09:29
the most fulfilling careers
09:31
are those that still have the power to surprise you.
09:36
And as for the things you know you want to do.
09:38
You want to write a book, you want to start a business,
09:41
you want to change careers.
09:42
Great!
09:43
But if you’re sitting around waiting for passion to show up and take it,
09:45
you’re going to be waiting a long time.
09:48
So don’t wait.
09:50
Instead, spend your time and attention
09:53
solving your favourite problems.
09:56
Look for problems that need solving.
10:00
Be useful,
10:01
generous.
10:02
People will thank you, and hug you and pay you for it
10:05
and that’s where passion is.
10:07
Where your energy and effort meets someone else’s need.
10:11
That’s when you realize:
10:13
passion lives,
10:14
and realizing what you have to contribute.
10:17
Why do you think when we’re asking people what they’re passionate about,
10:19
they say, "Helping other people."?
10:22
So don’t wait.
10:24
Listen to my mother.
10:26
Just start doing.
10:29
Because to live a life full of meaning and value
10:33
you don’t follow you passion, your passion follows you.
10:39
Thank you.
10:41
(Applause)

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