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TEDx Talks
Published: 2013-01-25
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgbzbdxTm4E
so when I was younger my friend and I had a dream that we would open up our very own pipes up we knew what pies we would serve we knew where we wanted our shot to be located we even knew the name you want to call Ursa and I was thinking about all of this because I am currently in my fifth year in my last semester
I have one month left to school and I have no idea what I'm gonna do when I graduate I was complaining to a friend of mine a very dear friend of mine that I was so annoyed with all of these people that were asking you Eunice what are you gonna do when you graduate in my first week here at school twenty nine people asked me what
you gonna do when you graduate and I was complaining to a friend of mine and she showed me the photo needless to say I was really tempted to run home and change my Facebook profile picture but I dead ends but I did have some big questions that I wanted answered and they want some career advice in solid career advice that would guide so we did a
quick Google search out of top crude base that's out there and let me tell you there is a lot of bass that you do not want to go through but I want to share some of that with you here today what entrepreneurs said that you should just do what caters to your strengths if you're good at it just go do it but then she and her
article by saying just do anything really so I was kind of confused one artist that just moved to New York another writer said don't move to New York if you want to be happy and when Theo said whatever use you just listen to your dad I can see some dads nodding today but the topic base that I found this theme that came up over and over
again was the theme of do what you love follow your passion and Steve Jobs even went so far to stay in his commencement address to the Stanford graduating class of two thousand and five he said don't settle for anything less than work but you live and this is a theme that I see when I look to you role models of mind Mother Teresa who devoted herself
to helping others Mohammed unis who I love not just because his name sounds like mine but because he eradicate poverty in many areas I'm by basically developing this concept of microfinance when he started the Graham bank and impart women to become the breadwinners in their family and Nora Ephron who was able to turn every child to be in her life into a comedic masterpiece she wrote
movies like when Harry met Sally and I look at these people and whether you admire them or not the point is that you could substitute any of your role models interview slots and I guarantee you that they would be passionate about the work that they do you to and it seems to me that it's this big question that graduates have it's a question of choice do
I go down this road where you choose what I love this passion of mine where there's probably more uncertainty or do I go down this other road and get a job find some financial security and maybe worry about loving life later on to which ones which user maybe I find a road in the middle if I'm lucky for the past three years of actually aired on
the side of telling students to choose their passions in my second year of university I co founded and I'm even project called the passion projects and with a dear friend of mine and my roommate at the time tyranny Fernando and Serena I hide it used to big frustrations it was the middle of December two thousand and nine %HESITATION and if your students you know this is
a very bleak time it's the middle of exams %HESITATION and we just got to talking one night we had these two big frustrations we had on the one hand this frustration that we weren't doing what you love anymore because you're too busy studying and we saw our fellow students in the same predicament and on the other hand %HESITATION all of the students wanted to make a
difference in their seats and their communities but they didn't necessarily know how you're wrestling with these two questions of how do we do more popular but how do you make a big difference in our community and so we thought can we answer these two questions in one project and for passion project when we had no resources no funding we don't even really know how to explain
this concept that we had in our minds to our peers but never the less we went ahead with that and we've had some amazing successes the first about that we put on was a concert at the pit pub and we got just under a hundred students to come out we raids just under a thousand dollars for charities that all the musicians chose another event that we
had with the photography exhibition which you can see in the bottom corner and again all the money that you raised went to charity that but if the talk Chris chose and over the years we wanted to move away from the financial model of doing things were really solely donated money to charities that the artist shows and we wanted to take a more hands on approach and
how we made a difference in our community and so we partnered with the UBC community learning initiative in February of this year and we put on a three day reading week projects in areas of slam poetry and photography and music and works with great sixes and seven earth I don't know about the word seven years I'm in a local inner city elementary school here in Vancouver
and one of my favorite stories that came from those three days with there is a little guy named Sam and so Sam didn't want to share anything that he ropes and have slam poetry workshops at the po the poets that were in the projects Macon Francis Alberto they worked with him everyday Sam you know it's okay you can get up from Sir what you've written %HESITATION
and we can't elastane you stow was reluctant to share is really shy we hadn't somewhere that in for the whole school and Sam gets up in front of the whole school and stared not just a poem but a full on wrapped and I thought that was a huge testament the courage that can be born if you're really passionate about something so we've had the successive it's
been three years the project is still running down two amazing women rich again after one now run it it's still going on at UBC and all this time I was looking at it and I thought that we weren't doing anything wrong I thought we were doing a great thing here I thought that we were leading students on the right track and then I read this article
in the Harvard Business Review and I can only compare this article to torrential rain on a beautiful summer's day it was the type of article that I needed to take deep breaths while reading it was the type of article that I needed to put down and go for a long walk and then come back to you and it was the type of article that really made
me question if we're doing the right thing passion projects and so yeah produced during the right thing in leading students on a good path so by now you're probably wondering if you haven't read this article what the author of this article said Kelly reports a professor who wrote this article he said three main things the first is that our generation generation Y. slipped up her unborn
from nineteen eighty three to two thousand scepter born before that or after that you're in the clear %HESITATION he said that our generation is known as lazy as hampered as high maintenance actually when critics that that were the hardest generation to maintain when we come into the workforce and the New York Post call this the worst generation ever tell me for it Ben went on to
say that it all boils down to the fact that our generation is entitled and that that entitlements actually comes from the fact that we've been told over and over again to follow our passions in fact he's so this graph from Google analytics that shows the rise in the amount of time that the phrase follow your passion has been published in English language and as you can
see there's a dramatic increase in the years when generational wired generation within our childhood years when we were young and impressionable and didn't know any better and took advice tell a van conclude that the only solution to the problem this problem that's being the worst generation in history is to completely throughout this advice follow your passion I heard a guy it both very so the little
devastated that that was the end of it but the first thing that really struck me was the fact that we're called the birds generation I had no idea when critics said that we're probably too busy at home on Facebook to really notice so I wanted to see I wanted to understand if we were really the worst generation and I wanted to ask you can a study
the generations before us to see our we've really perverse generation so I want to invite you on this tour that he took we're gonna call a generational history tour so I want you to imagine that you're in an art gallery but instead of art on the walls each piece of art is actually a generation so I want you to walk me down the long hallway that's
an art gallery and the first piece that we come to you is he silenced generation that's the generation of our great grandparents and our grandparents there were children that grew up in times of war and depression they were children that corrupts you build great institutions and bureaucracies and they didn't like caressed they were much more doctors if we watch this next picture we see the boom
generation that's the generation of our parents the baby boomers they took more arrests one critic said they were self absorbed yep you it happens they were the aids a flower power flower power and really rebels unquestioned authority if we walk to the next generation we see generation acts those just above us those are the ones who many say our children of divorce so they have much
resilience in them a they were big risk takers and then we come to our generation I've chosen the smoke there which will come back to you later to represent our generation a technically savvy generation we invented Facebook and Twitter we demand worklife balance and the title of this generation is the worst generation so even after taking Matt's huge tour of all the generations before us I
still had no clear answers as to whether we were the worst interaction and I thought to myself maybe I really do have to accept who would give critics are saying that we're the worse generation and maybe I really do you have to accept that this advice follow your passing was really to blame but where completely refuse to accept tell me ports article was where he says
the only solution is to throw out this advice I refuse to believe that we can't become we can't become a better generation and fuller passions I don't think it's you are mutually exclusive and so I think that we can become a better generation and follower passions I think time but maybe we just have to remember a couple things along the way bother following your passion so
the first is we can follow our passions but remember to work hard a where generations before us group in times of war and depression I would argue that our generation has probably grown up in a much easier time and so for me myself personally I don't know if I really know the meaning of hard work we cannot follow our passions but not expected to necessarily be
our job I went to this talk from the furniture designer names Martha Stewart in Vancouver and she decides amazing French on arts and I once heard talk expecting her to talk about her work but instead she spent the entire top talking about horses which she passed and and it's made me realize that here's this woman who's incredibly passionate but it wasn't necessarily who work we cannot
follow our passions even if we don't necessarily know what it is yet Julia child this legendary woman who is known for bringing French cuisine to America she didn't know that she loved to cook shouldn't even know how to cut and so well in her mid forties and we can follow our passions but we have to remember that passion is a privilege about a year ago too
many friends of the other co founder of passion projects you read a blog post about how passions a privilege and it's something that I've taken with me all this time this is a photo from one of our latest events at so many of us can only follow our passions because maybe our parents works really hard and give us opportunities that they themselves never had and so
we can follow our passions with gratitude some of you in the room might be wondering what about student loans I have so many bills to pay passion is the last thing I'm thinking about I would actually have to argue with you that you're living in one of the best times to follow your passion there so many examples out there of men and women who are following
their passion without even leaving the responsibility if if we look at sites like at sea you can sell anything that you make at home online if we look at other web sites like Kickstarter men women start businesses without any money they just post ID online and people from around the world donate money to their idea I actually also read an article about a woman who landed
her dream internship despite tweeting and executive from a major corporation so there's so many ways in which you can reach out to communities just from where you are you don't need set to fly to New York the biggest lesson I learned didn't come from any of my role models that actually came from looking at our passion project framework this site pentagram was designed by a woman
named Jackie time she's an amazing designer and she designed this diagram for us just explain better to people what we do at the passion project on the biggest lesson I've learned about following your passions is that it doesn't mean anything to follow our passions if it isn't in the service of others and so we need to spend just as much time discovering what our passions are
as we do understanding the needs in which the communities that eleven and that's where the true potential I've there's a quote by a theologian names for Dick you know who said that your vocation is where your passion it's the world's greatest needs your vocation is where your passion the world's greatest I like to think of it a simple economics where your passion is the supply and
the world's greatest news the demand and we need to find that sweet spot that intersection between the two it's not about choosing our passions are choosing to not follow passion it's really about marrying her passions to a greater purpose in the communities that we live in as I was reading this talk I was losing a lot of confidence in what I was saying because when I
look to you all of the people who write amazing career advice out there their really successful people in this world there people who have made it so to speak and who am I to be given this advice to you when I haven't even made a dance and what I'm supposed to do when I graduate %HESITATION and out of no where I heard Nelson Mandela for that