The M.A.P. Maker

Passion Catalyst lesson #4 - You are your own best expert

This is a series of lessons learned in my nine years as a Passion Catalyst.

One of the first things I tell new clients is, "I don't have the faintest idea what's best for you." I follow that up with, "What I do have is an unshakable belief that you do!"

Over nine years of watching clients go from confusion to clarity, not once has the answer to what is right for them come from an outside source. They may feel like they don't have the answer at first, but what's really happening is that the answer is simply obscured. It's there; it's just covered up. And our focus is on uncovering it. Think Indiana Jones hacking through the jungle to find the treasure covered in overgrowth. 

What is the number one reason people's self-expertise is obscured? Focus. 

More to the point, they have an over-developed focus on external factors, and under-developed focus on that internal self-expertise. And that isn't a reflection on them. When I hear people get down on themselves because "I'm __ years old and I still don't know what kind of career I would really love," I always respond with one question: "Why would you?"

Think about it. We live in a culture that celebrates action and achievement. But self-awareness? When was the last time you saw an Introspection 101 class? So when our environment focuses our attention on that external aspect, if we happen to stumble into a career we love it's really more luck than anything. 

Want to build your self-expertise? Keep these three pieces of the puzzle in mind:

1. Develop the self-expertise
2. Compile the self-expertise
3. Use the self-expertise

Develop the self-expertise

I think of developing that self-expertise as an excavation process. The answers are there, but they're going to require a little digging. One great place to start is the Passion Factor exploration I mentioned in lesson learned #1 (in a nutshell, identify the common themes present when you feel energized by first asking what you love doing, and then asking why). 

There are a lot of great books with a lot of great approaches to self-exploration (I'm fond of my own e-book, The Occupational Adventure Guide). And that's where your self-expertise starts. Get to know what makes you tick so you can consciously make it part of your decisions. Otherwise it's all guesswork, and that is ineffective at best.

Compile the self-expertise

Another huge mistake I see people making is doing all this self-exploration work and then just letting most of the insights float away. Maybe a percentage of the insights they gained stick with them, but the rest disappear again. Why? It's hard to keep something in your head when your attention is elsewhere. So as they go about the day-to-day business of life, those insights start to drop off the radar screen.

To make the most of the self-expertise you are gaining, compile the key things you learn along the way. Think of it as creating a reference guide to what makes you tick. Instead of leaving it on pages and pages and pages of a journal, for example, summarize the key points on one page for an at-a-glance view of what you have discovered. 

You can create various categories for it, for example:

• What energizes me
• Ways I get in my own way
• Questions to frequently ask
• Dangers to be aware of

Not only will this give you a useable reference guide as you make decisions going into the future, it will also serve as an ongoing reminder. The question I always ask my clients is, "How much of this will you remember in five years when you haven't been intensely focused on it week in and week out?" Your self-expertise is only as robust as what you can remember. 

Use the self-expertise

Self-expertise is great, but it's little more than glorified navel-gazing if you don't do something with it. The great thing about compiling your insights in one place is that now you have a tool you can use as you move forward. 

For example, in my work with clients I have them make a list of the underlying themes that tend to be present when they're on fire (which we identified by exploring what they love doing and why). Putting those in one place creates what I describe as an internal compass. It's a distillation of where the energy comes from that they can use to both generate ideas and evaluate options. It takes the guesswork out of the process. 

If you do lots of great self-exploration, but then it stays buried in a file in a drawer, the odds are good that you will only harness a fraction of its value. Make the most out of the time and effort you have invested by summarizing the insights you gain in an easily digestible format. Then make a habit of referring to it frequently. 

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Passion Catalyst lesson #2 - Authenticity creates confidence

This is a series of lessons learned from my nine years as a Passion Catalyst. 

For the first ten years of my career, I worked madly to try to make a success out of being who I wasn't. Simply put, I was on the wrong path. I was doing work that ultimately didn't fit who I was. And it showed.

One of the effects of wearing that mask was a constant feeling that I was missing something, that I needed to work harder to gain that extra edge. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was missing something - me! 

I wouldn't have admitted it at the time, but trying to be someone else had a negative effect on my confidence. I was always a bit off balance, trying fit into the faux self I thought my career required.

I started my Passion Catalyst work by literally putting a framework around what I had been doing naturally, accidentally for years. There is no mask to it - what you see is pretty much what you get. Who I get to be day in and day out is deeply aligned with who I am. And that has made a world of difference in my confidence about the work I do.

One of the things I often say is, "You can never be anyone else half as well as you can be you." My clients come to me because they want to create a career that lights them up. And what that really means is finding a career path that lets them be who they are. 

When you're trying to be who you're not (which, sadly, is the case for a big chunk of the people out there in the work world), it creates a tension that saps your energy away. It's like driving a car with tires severely out of alignment. You're constantly having to put effort into keeping pointed straight ahead. 

Being who you are, on the other hand, is easy! There is no friction, and no energy drain. You don't have to worry about the car driving off the road. And just that one thing - knowing you can just show up naturally and not worry about keeping the mask on - can have a significant impact on the confidence you feel about your work. 

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Most people's concept of passion is limiting: Lessons from 9 years as a Passion Catalyst - #1

This is a series of lessons learned in my nine years as a Passion Catalyst.

If I asked you what your passion is, what would you say? Most people would give some kind of answer like travel, or cooking, or software programming, or writing, or helping kids, or any of a bazillion things that people feel passionate about.

And while none of those answers would be wrong, they would only represent a limited snapshot of where that feeling of passion could come from. 

As I see it, what we see as our passions are really only vehicles that allow us to experience what I call our Passion Factors - the underlying themes that tend to be present when we feel energized and inspired. And that fact gives us exponentially more opportunity to find work we love than most people realize.  

Definition of passion

To explain what I mean by that, I'll start with my definition of passion: "The energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do." It's being who you are, and doing what you're naturally drawn to. It is, for example, the difference between wearing the soul-sucking mask of my previous career as a marketer and being unabashedly myself in - and unabashedly energized by - the work I do now (nothing inherently wrong with marketing as a career, it was just wrong for me). 

Find your Passion Factors

If that definition of passion makes sense, the big question is, "How do I consciously, purposefully 'bring more of ME into what I do?'" How do you apply that in the real world?

My short answer is this: Find your Passion Factors, then find ways to incorporate them into your career path. To identify your Passion Factors, ask, "What lights me up?" Then ask, "Why?" Reverse engineer the things you love doing - work or play - to identify the underlying reasons why you love them. 

As you do that, you will start to see recurring reasons why, even in things you love that seem completely unrelated (for example, a key reason why I love both my Passion Catalyst coaching and travel photography is a sense of exploration and discovery, which is a theme that shows up again and again for me). 

What will let you experience those Passion Factors?

When you have identified your Passion Factors, you can ask, "What kinds of careers are out there that will allow me to experience these?" And far from being limited to one path, there are probably numerous paths that would let you experience those Passion Factors. That's what I mean when I say that the things you are passionate about are really simply vehicles that let you experience those underlying themes.

And when you shift your perspective from "what is my passion" to "what will allow me to experience those Passion Factors," it blows the doors wide open with potential directions that will let you feel energized by the work you do. 

Think both big picture and small picture

You can use your understanding of your Passion Factors at the big picture level (what career path should I follow?) and the small picture level (how can I experience more of these Passion Factors in the work I'm doing right now?). 

If you want to expand the passion potential in your career, it all starts with awareness. Identify your Passion Factors, then step-by-step, choice-by-choice, start incorporating them into your future. 

[Want to read all the lessons learned? Here's a compilation (at the bottom).]

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Lessons from 9 years as a Passion Catalyst

[Scroll down to the bottom for links to the full series.]

Nine years ago today, I took the first step on a journey that would take me from feeling like a professional malcontent to being a Passion Catalyst. I took off the mask I had been wearing for so many years in my career and started showing up as who I am. It has made all the difference. 

I wrote more about taking the plunge in a post a year ago. Today though, I have been thinking less how it happened and more about what I've learned in the last nine years. 

There's an interesting dual view doing work like this, helping people create careers and lives that energize and inspire them. On the one hand, I get to watch other people's journeys unfold. I get to see the obstacles they encounter - both internal and external - and watch as they find their way past them. I get to see what helps them really get traction and move forward. I get a front row seat on both the frustration and the joy that the process inevitably creates. 

At the same time, I'm also just another poor schlep trying to find my own way. Far from being the mythical all-knowing expert who has it all together, I have my share of frustrations and foibles. Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, and occasionally I question what the hell I'm doing. Sometimes my focus seems laser sharp, and now and then it seems clear as mud. Same as anyone else, really. 

From both those perspectives - both my own journey and the journeys of others - I have had a chance to learn an enormous amount about pursuing passion and creating what I describe as FUEL, a "fully energized life."

My initial intent was to write one blog post describing some of the lessons learned. But as i started whiteboarding them, I saw that the post would be waaaaay too long. So instead I am making it a series. 

Stay tuned for my lessons learn from nine years as a Passion Catalyst. And thanks for reading!

Lesson compilation

Most people's concept of passion is limited

Authenticity creates confidence

Meaning is a powerful motivator

You are your own best expert

Success is not a spectator sport

Tinybox thinking limits your potential

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Are you cheating the world of your gifts?

As I've said many times before, I think finding passion is one of the best investments in your career you can make. It energizes you, makes you more confident, and fuels your persistence. 

The flipside of that is that wedging yourself into a box that doesn't fit who you are (which is what most people do in their careers) can drain your energy, leave you feeling off balance, and make you reluctant to show up to work tomorrow, let alone stick with it for the long term.

There's one more thing that happens when you don't pursue a path that aligns with what lights you up. You cheat the world of the impact that you are uniquely qualified to make.

I'm not sure that I buy that each of us has one specific thing that is "why we're here." What I do believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that each of us are uniquely qualified to put the gifts we have and the juice that using them gives us to use in a positive way. We each have a set of skills and knowledge and energizers that can be put to optimal use.

Think of it as optimizing how you show up in the world. There are a number of variables at play - your skills, your knowledge, your innate abilities, and what energizes you. Your task is to put those variables together in the best possible way for both you and the world around you.

When you take a shoe-horn approach to your career, you are inherently sub-optimizing the way you show up. Why? Because you have chosen a path that doesn't fit. It doesn't allow the full scope of who you are and the potential you have to show up. There's no room for flow. And that means the impact you can have in the world is restricted. 

Take a look at your own career. Do you feel the flow, or do you need a shoe-horn to pry yourself into work every morning? Are you cheating the world of the gifts you have to offer?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Is your career wasting your time?

If time be of all things most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality, since lost time is never found again.

- Benjamin Franklin

We live in a culture that values productivity and abhors wasting time. It's that old Protestant work ethic. We create systems to help us make the most of our waking hours. We admonish ourselves to be always industrious and never idle.

But looking at time from a productivity standpoint, while valid, is also an incomplete picture. The value of how we spend our time is more than just the sum total of widgets we can crank out. It's also about what we experience, and how we use our unique gifts and abilities.

It's not just about quantity; it's also about quality. 

You have heard me say many times, "You can never be anybody else half as well as you can be you." And yet most people spend their careers attempting to do just that. They cram themselves into ill-fitting careers that will never let them truly shine.

Here are some questions you might ask as you ponder whether you are making the most of the few precious ticks of the clock you have on this planet, or whether you are squandering it.

• How well does what I'm doing align with who I am?
• How well does what I'm doing align with what I'm here to do? 
• Does my work feel natural, or does it feel like a constant strain to force myself to fit?
  
• Do I feel like I'm making a difference that I care about?
  
• Am I getting to use the skills and abilities I love to use?
• Does what I'm doing leave me feeling positive?
• When I think of the way I feel about my work, is that a feeling a would wish for a loved one?
  
• Does the way my work makes me feel create a positive ripple effect in my life, or a negative one?

I have nothing against the productivity picture of how we use our time. It helps us make the most of whatever it is we're doing.

But when the sole measuring stick is quantity, and quality gets left out of the picture, we risk being incredibly effective at doing something that neither energizes nor inspires us and wastes what we have to offer. 

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Passion at work: Does your career fit?

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

~ Carl Jung

At the heart of my Passion Catalyst work is the idea that each of us is both incredibly complex and incredibly simple. It's important to keep each of those in mind as you work towards creating a career that energizes and inspires you.

Complexity

We're complex because the source of that energy and inspiration is unique and individual to each of us. There is no one-size-fits-all cookie cutter solution to finding a career (and a life) that lights you up. A path that would send me over the moon with delight might leave you yawning, and vice versa.

The key then is finding that unique, individual source of energy. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks you should do. The big question to ask yourself is, "Where does the juice come from for me?"

My definition of passion is even based on that uniqueness: Passion is the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do. The key is figuring out what the underlying characteristics are that tend to be in place when you feel engaged. 

The primary way I help people uncover their own energy sources is to have them make a list of things - work or play - that have lit them up over the course of their life. Then we pick one and start asking, "Why?" We reverse engineer them to identify the underlying reasons why they love them.

As they explore, common themes (reasons why) start to emerge. They start to get a picture of the underlying characteristics (e.g., exploration and discovery is a big one for me) that tend to be in place when they're on fire. I call these underlying characteristics "Passion Factors."

Simplicity

On the flip side of our complexity, we're a vision of simplicity itself once we have identified those Passion Factors. Those underlying characteristics keep showing up over and over.

So while you might not think that my Passion Catalyst work, travel photography, and genealogical research have anything to do with each other, when you look deeper you see that they all have the Passion Factor I mentioned earlier - exploration and discovery. I'm oh-so-predictable!

When you understand those Passion Factors, you can answer the question, "How do I bring more of ME into what I do?" In a nutshell, you look for paths that are chock full of those underlying characteristics that tend to be in place when you feel energized and engaged.

Does your career fit?

Unfortunately, for most people the career path they've taken is often at odds with the sources of their energy. Like an ill-fitting shoe, it pinches and chafes as they try to get ahead.

It's only by really understanding where the energy comes from that we can make conscious choices to bring it into the picture.

How about you? Does your career fit, or is it giving you blisters? Is it time to get "new shoes?"

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Whose life are you living?

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

While people come to me to help them find a career path that energizes and inspires them, at the heart of what I'm really doing is helping people chart an authentic course for their lives. It's about finding a path that aligns with who they are and what they bring to the world.

So many people go through their days trying to live someone else's life. Each day they head off to work for another day being who they're not. They have to put on a mask, and there's no way for who they really are to shine.

And that's a shame, because not only are they losing out on the energy that comes from showing up fully, the world is losing out on the unique combination of gifts they have to offer.

One of the things I often say is that you can never be anyone else half as well as you can be you. When you try to show up in a way that's counter to who you are, it takes energy just to maintain the facade. Even worse, you are cheating yourself out of your full potential because you're not doing what you are uniquely equipped to do.

My definition of passion, perhaps not surprisingly, is "the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do." You actually get energy from doing work that is in alignment with who you are, what comes naturally, and what you're drawn to.

Many people take their identity from their work. When you are pursuing a path that is tailor made for you, the opposite is true. Your work takes its identity from you. Rather than a costume you put on, it is a projection of who you are.

Whose life are you living? 

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

The positive ripple effect of passion

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

- Marianne Williamson

Have you ever been around someone who is so on fire about what they're doing that their enthusiasm rubs off on you? You end up feeling energized even if the actual focus of their excitement isn't especially relevant for you. It's like that saying, "a rising tide lifts all boats." Their energy tide just lifted your boat.

As I've mentioned before, my definition of passion is, "the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do." When you base what you do on who you really are, rather than spending your days being who you're not, it's an energizing experience. And that energy has an impact on the people around you.

How you live your life - the choices you make and the direction you take - has the potential to have a profound effect on the world around you. If you think of the world as a big energetic work of art, then showing up authentically gives you access to a palate of colors that lets you add splashes of vibrant color (or rich, subtle tones, if that's more your style).

Finding passion in your career (and your life) isn't just a self-absorbed effort with no external impact. When you are in your groove, it can have a very real positive ripple effect on your surroundings.

One of the things I've heard repeatedly from clients, for example, is that their (husband/wife/partner) made a comment to them along the lines of, "You're so much more enjoyable to be around now." Think that's having any impact on that relationship?

And when you show up as who you really are, you set an example. You, as Marianne Williamson notes in her quote above, give the people you come in contact with permission to let their own lights shine as well.

So how about you? What kinds of ripple effects is the way you're living your life having? What kind of ripple effects could it have?

   

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Word-paint your self-portrait for an energized life

My Passion Catalyst work is about helping people manage the Gain to Drain Ratio in their lives - bringing more of what gives them energy into the picture and jettisoning what drains them. It's all based on my definition of passion: The energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do.

With that in mind, I loved what Howard Behar (former President of Starbucks International and Starbucks North America, and author of the book, "It's Not About the Coffee") had to say when I interviewed him for the most recent M.A.P. Maker Podcast. Behar's description of bringing more of you into what you do is "one-hat living." 

One-hat living is being totally in synch with who you are as a human being...what are your values? What matters to you? How do you want to live your life?

And you’ve got to write those things down, because if you don’t, then it’s just talk. And they’re not written in stone just because you write them down, but it’s kind of like painting a picture of yourself in words.

When you put all these words together and they paint a picture of yourself, then you should be looking for things to do, places to work, wherever you’re going to live your life, your significant other in your life, that fit with that.

Because that’s how you’re going to have a happy, productive life. If you’re constantly in conflict with your values and how you live your life, where they don’t match with each other, it’s a recipe for disaster in life. You will see problems, and you will have problems, and you will be unhappy.

I love the idea of painting a word-picture of yourself. If you don't have the clarity about who you really are - not just a vague sense of "I know it when I see it," but a really solid understanding of what makes you tick - it's next to impossible to consciously bring more of that into the picture.

You can start painting your own word-picture right now by asking yourself some questions...

• What do I already know I want in my career?
• What do I love doing? Why? (Don't limit yourself to career-related activities - you're interested in the underlying reasons why you love it, not the activity itself.)
• What do I care about?
• When am I at my best?

The more you know about yourself, the more you fuel you have for creating an energizing, inspiring future.

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams