Stop Searching For Your Passion

Everyone has their “thing” — that one big goal they often dream about, tell their friends about and picture themselves achieving.  For me it was writing a book and it’s been thrilling to reach that goal.  

If you follow this blog regularly you’ve probably heard of my friend Terri Trespicio. I’m especially proud of her for reaching one of those goals that she’s spoken about often and dreamed big about.  

She did her very first TEDx talk in Kansas City a few weeks ago! She talks about finding your passion… or rather not finding it.

It’s a question often asked at interviews and networking events – what’s your passion? For those of you who haven’t been able to nail down your passion, you probably hate this question. In her talk Terri though explains why our obsession with passion is actually holding us up.

Just having a passion is not the key to success. Having an idea is great, but it’s the execution that matters most.

In fact, Terri argues the idea that you have to be passionate about everything you do, is in a way quite elitist. As she says, ask a window cleaner why he does his job and it’s not because he has a passion for clean glass. Most of us work out of necessity and don’t have the time or the opportunity to go chasing after ‘passion’.

Rather than wasting time looking for something to be passionate about, Terri believes our energy could be better spent elsewhere. Instead start working on something – anything – just to get you going and then your passion will start to become more clear. Wait til you hear the examples she gives from her own life and career journey.  

Terri ends with a great line “You don’t follow your passion. Your passion follows you.”  

Love that!

They say you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. I’m thrilled to think that even a little piece of me is just like Terri.  I’m so inspired by her and how much she’s accomplished — TEDx talk aside.  I’m proud to call her my friend and wanted to share this big win of hers with all of you.

We met years ago when she was a senior editor at Martha Stewart’s Whole Living magazine and I booked her for a segment for Fox News Health, where I’m a senior producer.  She was such a great guest — we kept asking her back. She then featured ListProducer in her magazine a few years later. And the rest is history! Nowadays we can be found discussing networking on the bus, eating amazing Asian food in NYC and we even have a joint venture we are working on.  More details on that soon!  Can’t wait to share it with you.  But in the meantime – check out her TEDx Talk and stop chasing that elusive passion and get out there and do something!