I have heard leadership gurus encourage people to focus their skills development in the area of their natural strengths and passions. I agree that this is a good approach to becoming excellent in what you’re already good at. But I have since discovered that this alone is not enough to uncover other potentials someone may have.
If I had focused only on what I was naturally passionate about, I would not be speaking to thousands around the world today at conferences and through seminars and workshops. I would definitely not be a coach, encouraging the development of leadership skills needed for executive-level positions. These are things I'm very passionate about today.
Yet, none of them was on my radar 30 years ago.
As a young engineer at the beginning of my professional career, if you had told me that three decades later, I'll be speaking to audiences in addition to coaching leaders on leadership and emotional intelligence topics, I would have told you to go have your head checked out by a psychiatrist.
That's because I was your typical nerd. Social interaction was not only challenging for me, but it was also draining, especially with people I wasn't familiar with. When it came to public speaking. I would rather be dead and buried six feet under than stand to speak in front of three people.
But today, these have been relegated to the lands of the forgotten. What changed?
I did.
My work experiences provided the unique opportunities I needed. After college, my first job as a service engineer with Xerox required me to speak regularly with customers. Later, with another company, I began the journey of being a part of teams that executed different projects around the world.
My jobs helped me to gradually develop the interpersonal and speaking skills I was lacking. After overcoming my initial fear of public speaking, I was able to hone those skills through Toastmasters.
I didn't consciously try to overcome my fear of public speaking. It happened as my work experience pushed me into many situations where I had to give presentations and deliver training sessions to the users of the products created by my projects.
Suddenly, I discovered that my heart was not beating as fast as it used to, anytime I had to stand in front of others to speak. Of course, I had to dig deeper to hone the skills but the initial development came from those several years of unintentional practice.
Today, I'm not only NOT afraid to speak to audiences, I love it. I look forward to every opportunity to motivate and engage audiences. I also enjoy the one-on-one dialogue while coaching clients or just chatting with people in general just to know them better.
Through my journey of growth, here's what I've found out: you don't know where all of your passions lie until you develop the skills that will help you unveil them. Skill development can lead to passion. Enjoyment in hobbies, work, and life often comes from doing things that we are competent at.
More than anything else, we first learn to do something before we discover that we're good at it. And many of us tend to enjoy doing things we're good at. The passion follows afterward. This reminds me of a quote from Cal Newport: “Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.”
As a result, instead of trying to find the one thing in life that you “think” you are most passionate about, why not take time to develop other skills and see where they lead you? Those new skills could lead you on paths to new and greater passions that you never thought of.
So, is there anything that you think you're not good at? Have you tried to spend more than a few minutes to learn how to do it?
You may want to invest some time to find out.
Doing so could uncover a new passion you never considered.