Transcript Finding Your Passion Lawyers Assistance Program Facilitated by Robert Bircher Where did I lose my Passion? • This seminar is based on the.

Finding Your Passion
Lawyers Assistance Program
Facilitated by Robert Bircher
Where did I lose my Passion?
• This seminar is based on the book The Element by Ken
Robinson
• Ask grade one children if they are creative and they will all put
their hand up-ask 4th year university students the same
question and most won’t
• We are all born with tremendous natural capacities but we lose
touch with these as we spend more time in the world
• Ironically one of the main reasons this happens is educationsince lawyers have spent a long time in this process it is no
surprise many don’t know what they are capable of achieving
The Element
• Ken Robinson uses the term the “element” to describe
the place where the things we love to do and the
things we are good at come together
• Many lawyers come to me during a transition and it is
clear they are not fulfilled but are at a complete loss
as to what they want or like to do-they can’t even
make a wild guess
• There are 3 contributing factors-all indirectly related
to a cookie cutter education system that recognizes
and rewards some forms of intelligence but misses
many more
The Element
• We are all born with extraordinary powers of
imagination, intelligence, feeling, intuition,
spirituality, and of physical and sensory awarenesswe often use a fraction of those powers and thus don’t
see them in ourselves
• We see our minds, bodies, feelings and relationships
with others as separate systems rather than a holistic
whole
• We believe life is supposed to be linear and that our
capacities decline as we age-that the opportunity for
change has passed-we underestimate our capacity for
change
Recovery-From your Education
• Some of the most brilliant, creative people on earth did not really discover
what they could do until they left school and recovered from their
education
• Paul McCartney story(p11)
• Schools overemphasize critical analysis and reasoning, math and science
and underemphasize humanities and any form of the arts-they also obsess
about IQ and completely ignore EQ-even though it has been known for
many years that EQ is a much better predictor of success and ability-how
many of you know your EQ?
• I did not learn about my interest in counseling psychology in school-I
“discovered it” doing personal development in private learning centersparadoxically I took those courses to find out why I wasn’t enjoying my
law career!!
• We need to radically rethink our view of what intelligence is
What is The Element?
• It is the meeting point between natural aptitude
and personal passion
• It is also a connection with something
fundamental to your identity, purpose and well
being-it requires aptitude and passion
• You will love it -based on your behavior-not
the mental idea of it-if you love it you are
already doing it (or some variation of it)
Overlooking the obvious
• The first book I ever read was a personal growth book
–by the time I was 39 (and signed up for counseling
school) I probably had 300 psychology books in my
library-no law books!!-yet even then it was not
obvious to me what my element was-I did not think
of myself as anything but a lawyer with a more or
less useless hobby
• One limitation is that most people have a very limited
view of what intelligence is
Imagination
• We tend to take our imagination for grantedwe even criticize people for having an
“overactive imagination”
• People pride themselves for being “down to
earth”, “realistic” or “no –nonsense” and
deride people who have their “head in the
clouds”
• Creativity is imagination applied
• Imagineering exercise
Feel the fear and do it anyway
• Even if you were clear about your passion would you
pursue it?
• One common fear is that I won’t be able to make a
living out of it
• Another is lack of faith in making a big change in
life-fear causes delay and lost opportunities
• A great book is Susan Jeffers “Feel the fear and do it
anyway” a main point is that everyone who has
followed their passion has fear but do it in spite of
their fear