14.

Find Your Passion

How will you know when you've found your passion? When you'll do whatever you have to do to succeed at it. (You get to define what “success” is.) Say the field you've chosen is growing fast in China and they're hiring there. If this is your passion, then you need to learn Mandarin and move to China. (You always have to go where the work is.) “But I'm no good at languages,” you say. Well, my response is, how badly do you want it? Enough to push through whatever fears or preconceived ideas you may have?

I grew up in Manhattan. There was a taxi, bus, or subway within a block of virtually every street, and my family didn't own a car. So I didn't need a great sense of direction—and then decided I didn't have one. As an adult, I visited my mother's hometown of Antwerp, Belgium. I had to get there at night and didn't speak the language. I found my way around. I was determined. I discovered I had a fine sense of direction. This works for anything you want to do in life. You can push through virtually any barrier if you're committed to making something happen.

The following tips contain visualization exercises designed to enable you to determine what it is you really love to do that can be offered as a paid service to others. They were inspired by a book by Mark Pope, Carole Minor, and Tracy M. Lara called Experiential Activities for Teaching Career Counseling Classes and for Facilitating Career Groups published by the National Career Development Association in 2000. Presumably, after doing these exercises, you will have a good idea of a monetizeable passion—or at least a better sense of what career path to pursue.