Passions

This episode is all about finding and following your passions. We discuss how to identify and cultivate the things that drive, inspire, and excite you. Today it is more possible than ever to turn your passion into a career, or to find new ways to explore and enjoy them on your own.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons and Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello there everyone.

Welcome to the podcast.

Today we are talking about passions.

Yes.

And we're going to take a cool and interesting angle on your passion because it stemmed from a conversation that you and Dave were having,

Right Ben?

Yes.

So I don't remember why we were having it but at some point Dave and I for some reason check in with our friends,

We're at the point now in our lives where we're all about to turn 30.

Oh my god.

I know,

It's crazy,

Right?

So old.

But we're all looking at what are we doing?

What did we want to do?

What crappy jobs do we have now that have nothing to do with the dreams that we had or whatever,

You know?

And it's something that you've talked to Dave on the show before about how he's lucky because he knew what he wanted to do since he was a little boy.

Yeah.

He wanted to be a singer.

That was it.

Yeah,

He sang since he was little and he got joy from it.

So that's cool that he was able to have that because that's not what I was,

That's not my experience in my journey.

So I thought that was neat that he got that experience in his.

Right.

Now my journey,

My experience with that is that I also started singing when I was a little boy and got many,

Many,

Many,

Many,

Many moments of joy from it.

Unfortunately,

No one else did.

So I had to stop.

You still sing.

I don't.

Yes,

You do.

You were just singing five minutes ago.

Okay,

Yes.

I was singing the theme song to the soap opera Passions.

Yes.

But the fact is,

Is you still sing and you still get joy from it.

Okay,

Yes.

But we're talking more along the lines of.

.

.

Professionally.

Professionally,

But that's not even necessarily what we were talking about.

So we looked at a small sample size of maybe our five closest friends.

And Dave had had conversations with all of them at different periods of time recently about this thing,

Where they are now,

What they wanted to do,

What they are doing.

And most of our friends have gone to college for something that they cannot get a job in.

And as is the case to,

I would say,

A large portion of my age group.

It certainly happens regularly.

And so we started to look at like,

Oh,

That's sad.

They don't have what we have.

We have something that's like,

We have a goal that we want to do.

And we know what it is.

And whether we're running towards it or not is very much up for debate.

And the answer is no,

We're not.

But you're walking towards it.

We're stumbling towards it.

And you're doing what you enjoy.

Right.

But that's the thing.

We spend most of our time doing what we enjoy.

And a lot of friends come to us and say,

At least you guys are doing this.

And we're like,

We're doing nothing.

Like,

You know.

So we started looking at each person.

And we made a list of what they were passionate about and what like drove them,

What really they derived joy from.

And how that could be useful.

I don't know why we did this for all of our friends.

It's kind of a cool experiment,

Though.

We didn't,

We haven't given them this information.

But anyway,

So it started by me looking at Dave.

And we looked at,

The easy thing to say would be,

His passion is singing.

But then we were like,

No,

It's not.

What drives Dave is being an entertainer.

So he's a singer.

He loves to act.

Fantastic actor.

He's an editor.

Yeah.

He's going to school for video and audio design and creating podcasts and videos and editing them in a way that is pleasing.

So like,

He's funny.

He's one of the funniest people that most of his friends will say,

You know,

Dave is funny.

It's all entertaining people.

And that's what it is.

He likes to create joy in other people by entertaining them.

I like to design good.

You know,

I'm a giver.

I'm a creative person,

But most of my creativity is in helping other people create good.

You know?

Yeah.

You set things up and put things in place and run things and give the structure and the outline for in which this creativity can flow.

Exactly.

Exactly.

If you're an actor,

I want to give you a stage.

If you're a singer,

I want to put you in a situation where there's a microphone in front of you.

Right.

You know,

If you're a life coach,

I want to give you a podcast,

An opportunity to reach people and help people.

You know,

That's what drives me.

Right.

And this is the type of thing that people need to find in their own lives.

Exactly.

So we went through some of our friends and we found,

Like,

You know,

There were a couple perpetual students.

And what they love is learning.

They couldn't get enough learning.

And they were hung up on the semantics of what it is,

But like,

You know,

We were able to say like,

Maybe this is what you would be good at.

Yeah.

And that,

You know,

This is what you derive joy from.

Right.

And when,

You know,

A lot of times other people can see that better than we can see it.

You know,

It's a really good exercise to reach out.

And I've had somebody tell me this that did this in their own lives is this gentleman had a very successful business career and then he retired and he wanted to do,

He's still young at heart,

Vibrant,

Full of energy,

Not looking to sit on his butt and do nothing.

He wants to do more.

So he sent out an email to a bunch of people that knew him well and said,

You know,

If there was one thing that I can do well,

What would it be?

And you know,

He said he was surprised with what he received back,

But it helped him go in a direction,

You know,

So it's,

You know,

We can do that with our friends.

Be like,

Hey,

You know,

If there's one gift that you think that I have to offer,

What do you think that would be?

What am I,

What am I just naturally good at?

What can I do well?

You know,

And a lot of that it's,

It's not,

What am I capable of doing?

It's what can I naturally do well?

You know,

In our society,

We,

We just kind of,

The way things are is everybody has to be at the same level in everything.

You know,

Like,

I mean,

The,

The school system is a perfect example.

It's like,

Well,

You know,

Everybody has to have a certain proficiency in math and in English and you need to be able to do this and you need to know this much about history and you need to know all this certain level.

And it's like,

It's,

I mean,

I understand that this is our best that we have at the moment,

But we're all individuals.

Not everybody is supposed to be good at math,

You know,

Not everybody is supposed to be a writer.

So it's,

It's like,

You know,

It's different for different people.

So when we explore what our natural gifts are,

We find that those natural gifts that we have actually,

We receive joy when we're doing them.

You know,

It's like,

So I have a natural propensity to help others in a life coaching way,

To look into people's lives,

See,

You know,

What they're not seeing and then bring it to their attention.

That's just something I'm naturally good at.

You know,

I found out that once I became a life coach or when I was thinking of that,

I looked back on my life and I saw when I was 18 years old and my first apartment,

People knocking at my door at four in the morning and going,

Glenn,

I got an issue.

Can you help me with it?

You know,

And it's like the,

The,

You know,

When you have an issue like that,

It's you,

You just,

And you naturally go to somebody.

Then you know,

I was the person that people naturally came to,

Right.

Which is,

You know,

Now I look at it and it's like,

Oh,

This is why.

I mean,

I was 18 man.

I couldn't run my own life,

Let alone run anybody else's,

But I could sit there in a situation and I could see what would help them clearly and I could articulate it,

You know,

Even back then.

So now all of a sudden,

You know,

Well,

I mean now that's 30 years ago.

So now I do that for a profession.

Well,

I could have been doing it for the last 30 years if I was self-aware and I followed my passion and I looked at what I was naturally gifted at and what brought me joy.

You know,

I was always a talker and I would gain,

I like,

Somebody pointed this out a couple of years ago.

It was just a friend that I was having a conversation with and they said,

Yeah,

You know,

I got some stuff going on in my life.

I says,

Oh,

Do you want to talk about it?

They're like,

Yeah,

All right.

So we talked for a little bit and they were like,

You know,

I noticed that you gained energy as we spoke.

And I was,

They're like,

Yeah,

That doesn't happen with a lot of people.

A lot of people lose energy when they're talking about difficult situations.

You actually gained energy as you were talking and it's that,

It feeds me,

You know,

And I've always been like that and I've never understood when I was little,

I didn't understand why I gained energy by talking,

You know,

But now I do because it's what I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm supposed to be teaching,

I'm supposed to be helping,

I'm supposed to be pointing things out,

You know,

So that's,

That's my version,

That's my passion.

And now that I'm in alignment with it,

I get more joy than ever.

And of course I'm going to be more successful at it because I'm just naturally gifted at it.

So this is what we need to be doing more in our lives is taking a step back from what we're doing and looking at what brings us joy.

Because I mean,

In this society we can do it.

You know,

There's never been a time in human history that's better to start your own business or to make a career change than it is right now.

People are doing it all the time,

You know,

So you can start your own business doing what brings you joy.

You can make a career change in what brings you joy.

One of my high school friends was working,

I don't even know what he was doing in corporate America,

But apparently he was in business to some level making a good living and he just quit.

Now this was several years ago.

I'm 48,

Let's say he was maybe like early 40s ballpark.

He quit his job and became a golf pro.

What?

Yeah,

Like a snowbird golf pro.

He goes down to Florida and works at a golf course in Florida during the winter and then he'll come up and work in Massachusetts area,

New England for six months.

He's a golf pro.

I mean,

That's following your passion.

And actually I don't know if he's snowboarding anymore.

I know he was because he was staying with another friend of ours down in Florida,

But he's a golf pro now.

I mean,

To me that's inspirational and that's following your passion and that's what we really need to do is take a step back and look for what our natural gifts are and look at what brings us joy.

There's a reason that something brings us joy and it's not the same for everybody.

Some people get joy from gardening and some people don't.

Well,

There's a reason for that because we're only supposed to have certain amount of gardeners.

If every person was a gardener,

We'd have too many gardeners.

We're not supposed to have that.

So it's important for us to look into what brings us joy and stop following that.

And maybe your joy isn't a profession.

Maybe it is gardening.

Maybe it is gardening.

Gardening in a way where you don't want to start a landscaping business.

So you want to do whatever it is that you want to do for a job and you check off those boxes so that you can support yourself and your family and whatever it is that you need to do.

But you set yourself up in a way that you have the time and ability to do what you're passionate about.

To follow this joy.

To create this space for this massive amount of joy in your life.

And that's important too.

Everybody's path is different and not everybody has to have a job that's 8-10 hours a day doing what brings them joy.

Some people are content doing a little bit more menial work and just kind of getting lost in it.

And having a steady paycheck come because it gives them a sense of security and they like that.

And they're pleasant.

They're fine.

Is it their joy?

No,

Not really.

Is it their passion?

No,

Not really.

But they're fine going and doing that.

It's just who they are.

They're okay to do that for 8-10 hours a day.

And then they get back to their real passion.

They go home and then they garden for a few hours after if that's the case.

So whatever.

So we have to understand that.

There's as many different paths as there are people.

So it doesn't have to look the exact same for everyone.

But you have to get joy out of life.

If you're not getting joy out of your life,

Then you're missing it.

Life is what happens when you're busy doing other things.

All of a sudden you wake up on your death bed and you go,

Oh crap,

I missed it.

I was busy doing stuff.

Can I say a phrase that I just thought of?

Sure.

That I think is the goal and I don't know,

So I want your opinion on this.

Active joy.

Yes.

What we're looking for is active joy.

You have to actively participate in your own joy.

Because sports might bring you a great deal of joy.

Yes.

TV brings me a great deal of joy.

I love The Office,

Parks and Rec,

Those kind of things.

I could.

.

.

It brings me a great deal of joy to watch what I consider quality television and movies,

But there's no.

.

.

I am not actively engaged in any of that stuff.

Right.

But one of the reasons you derive so much joy from it is because you understand it on a different level.

You've sat in the role of writer.

You've sat in the role of producer.

You've sat in the role of director.

So you're looking at.

.

.

You're sat in the role of actor.

You've sat in all these seats.

So you understand it at a deeper level than most.

So that's probably why it brings you more joy.

Where a lot of people sit and watch TV,

And it's just mindless activity to distract themselves from how crappy they feel about their lives.

So there's a big difference the way that you're watching a show and deriving joy from it than other people.

But that being said,

Somebody could have played baseball in high school,

And they love.

.

.

Watching the Red Sox.

Oh absolutely.

Or Yankees or Blue Jays.

And that person.

.

.

We live in New England.

And that person is going to get more joy out of watching baseball than somebody that didn't play because they're going to understand it at a deeper level.

Right.

But what I'm saying is that is not an active joy.

Right.

We can derive joy from it,

And we can derive different levels of joy depending on our interests and our understanding of something like that.

But it's not actively living it.

Right.

But maybe,

I mean,

If you love football,

And you get the majority of your joy out of that from this sport,

Find a way to talk about the sport and interact with other people.

Yeah.

Fantasy football.

A lot of people don't understand.

.

.

Like a lot of people cut themselves short,

And we'll use sports as an example because it's a good example.

So a lot of people who love sports,

Have a complete passion for sports,

Don't go pro.

And when they don't go pro,

Then they settle for some.

.

.

And I mean,

I'm talking even at my level,

Like there wasn't a snowballs chance in freaking HE double hockey sticks that I was going pro in anything.

It wasn't happening.

So I basically stopped my sports career in high school when high school was over.

I've done other things since then.

But basically my sporting career or my opportunities for growth in the sports field was over when I graduated high school.

So like,

If.

.

.

But I never looked into it further.

I could have looked into it further.

Just because I'm not a player,

Doesn't mean I can't be an announcer,

Filming it,

A coach,

Physical therapist,

A trainer,

A assistant coach,

And the list goes on and on and on about being affiliated with sports.

So you're around it and you're in that atmosphere and you're feeding your joy.

So you see that in the sports field.

You can also see it when people are.

.

.

A good example of.

.

.

So that was an example of how people don't do it.

Sometimes I've seen people in the health field,

Because there's so many spin-offs within the health industry,

That I've seen people follow it within that.

So like,

Let's say they go,

I want to be a doctor or I want to be a nurse,

And they start going to medical school and they start learning about medicine and all that stuff and they head in that direction.

All of a sudden they take a class and they're like,

Oh my God,

Radiology is very interesting to me.

And then all of a sudden,

Just because they took that one class,

Because they needed to be exposed to it,

They actually found that they really got joy out of doing that and then they went in that direction.

Now if they never walked in the direction of being a nurse,

They wouldn't have taken that class and they wouldn't have found out that they wanted to be a radiologist.

So it's just,

You don't have to know exactly what your specific passion is.

What you need to do is find what gives you joy and walk in the direction of it.

Just start walking in the direction of it.

And then how it plays out,

It just gets better and better and you fine tune it as you learn more and more.

And there are,

I mean,

Going back to sports,

There are peewee football teams that need assistant coaches and referees.

There are little leagues that need umpires or announcers.

There are ways to be involved in the things that you're passionate about.

There's a gentleman that works with my son's high school soccer team that donates his time.

His boys are grown and out of school and he goes to the local high school and helps out with that soccer team every year.

And I mean,

He's an indispensable part of that team and everybody loves him.

The boys love him,

The coaches love him,

The parents love him.

He's a great guy and he really helps out that team in a way because he loves the sport.

He loves the connection with the players.

He loves being out there.

He loves being a part of it.

And I ran into him at the grocery store once and I got to know a little bit more about his personal life.

And it's cool learning about him and then watching him talk about what he does.

His whole face lights up.

He's like,

I just love being out there with those boys.

It's great.

I just love those kids.

I love those kids.

They're such good kids.

I just love them.

And it's like,

Wow,

Man,

That's somebody living their passion.

They're actively participating in their life and they're living their passion.

And he's so rich because of it.

He's just a pleasure to be around.

And that's another thing.

If you're not a pleasure to be around,

It might be because you're not following your joy,

So you're not that joyous.

How can you identify?

What if someone's listening to this right now and they're like,

I don't know what that is for me?

One thing that you can do is go back to your childhood and think about what captured your interest then.

A lot of times you can find hints there.

I've got some adrenaline junkie in me.

And when I was a kid,

There was a time,

Maybe it was Lee Major's fault with the fall guy,

But I wanted to be a stunt man.

And I think that when I was younger,

If I would have had it in that direction,

I probably would have gotten a lot of joy from that.

So go back to your childhood.

Who did you want to be when you grew up?

A lot of times that's your answer.

But if it's not,

It's just what brings you joy.

You can literally,

In this day and age,

You can Google anything.

You could Google random topics or things that bring people joy or find some list somewhere and go over each one and just go.

And really the biggest key is slowing down,

Getting still,

Becoming quiet within yourself,

And paying attention to how you feel.

Your body will give you information if you're still enough where you could pay attention to your heart area and just go,

How do I feel about sports?

How do I feel about sports?

And if you're quiet and still,

You might feel a little spark of joy.

Then you put a check next to that one.

Okay.

How do I feel about gardening?

Not really feeling it.

Okay.

Well,

That's not it for me.

How do I feel about,

You know,

You can go right down the list and then,

I mean,

If you have any inkling about anything,

Just start walking in the direction of that and see what it turns into.

It could be anything.

Literally,

You could love to go out to eat.

Yeah.

You could be a critic.

That could be a passion for yourself.

You could be a food critic.

Make yourself.

You don't have an opportunity for that?

Cool.

Go to,

You know,

Say,

I'm going to go to a restaurant a month and you can get a free blog online.

Yeah.

And your friends can go and be like,

Where did Joe Schmo go last month?

Because we're looking for someplace to go.

Let's check his blog and see what he said about the latest restaurant.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You don't necessarily have to get paid for it.

No.

If that's just something that you would derive joy from.

Then bring it into your life.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Just a quick story.

My mother,

Who is someone who is a fan of the show.

Good.

Yeah.

Sometimes.

If I let her know how to download it.

She was somebody that I always worried about not having anything that was really joyful about.

Stay at home mom worked occasionally here and there.

Which a lot of people stay at home mom brings a lot of joy.

Definitely.

And it did when we were younger.

I'm 30 almost.

Might be time for a career change.

And then my grandmother lived with them and was sick for a while.

And my mom was a caretaker.

And then it's been five years since then.

And when my grandmother first died I saw my mom not having anyone to take care of.

And there was this big gap.

And recently within the last year or so she has dedicated herself to crocheting blankets.

It was something that she had done here and there when I was younger.

But now everybody's getting a blanket.

That's awesome.

This is like Oprah and Cars.

She's like you get a blanket,

You get a blanket.

She made me one for Christmas which is great.

And she made my uncle one.

She made one as a wedding present for her cousin.

She made a couple baby blankets this year.

A friend of mine does that too.

When it comes to the book club and stuff.

She uses this unbelievably soft yarn.

And I ended up,

I won one.

She had a little raffle on Facebook.

And I won it.

So I get this soft thing.

My son feels it.

He's like are you kidding me?

This thing is so soft.

I gotta have one.

So I ended up getting him one for Christmas.

She had time to make another one.

So I got my mom one for Christmas.

My mom loved it so much that she ordered two more from this lady.

But it's that,

You know,

It brings,

Who knew?

Who knew that using this really neat yarn was gonna just blow people's minds.

I was thinking about that this morning.

I was,

I got an email alert for like Mother's Day from Fiverr.

And I was like I don't know what,

What would I make a logo for my mom for?

And I was like oh maybe she could sell these blankets.

You can make an I love you video.

I could do that myself.

For the voiceover.

Right but Fiverr don't know that.

So um,

But,

And I'm not saying that she's gonna sell these blankets or anything.

But she's getting a great amount of joy just from making them for family members and friends.

Right and if you can,

You know,

And you can donate those to countless places.

I mean,

You know,

It's endless.

If you want to give blankets away,

It's endless.

You can help the homeless.

You can help veterans.

You can help,

You can bring them to old folks' homes.

You can bring them to,

You know,

I mean it's endless what you can do with those things.

I'm gonna think more about this.

I think that we can get more involved with her blanket making.

And you know,

You can bring,

You can get income too.

I mean Etsy is a wonderful thing.

You know,

Lots of people open up little stores online and sell all this stuff that they make and it's a wonderful little community and they make it easy.

That's cool too.

Yeah.

You know.

So if someone's trying to find what they're passionate about or they've found it and they want help walking in that direction or in any direction,

Where can they reach you?

They can reach me at glennambros.

Com.

How appropriate.

My name's Glenn Ambrose.

That's so weird.

Isn't that?

Yeah.

It's almost like a perfect domain to have for my website.

Definitely.

And if anybody was interested for whatever reason in starting their own show or their own business that needs a commercial or something like that,

You can contact us at b440productions.

Com.

We're always really glad to help people follow their passion.

Absolutely.

Because that's what you like doing.

You like creating space where people can find their joy.

Definitely.

You know,

We've done sports podcasts and obviously life enhancement podcasts and podcasts for local businesses,

General interviews.

It's expanding and growing.

Yeah.

So if you like this show,

Please leave a rating and subscribe to the show.

Leave some comments that helps more people find the show and more people get help from Glenn's wisdom.

Absolutely.

And let me know,

You know,

Feel free to email me too and get this.

It's glenn at glennambros.

Com.

That's confusing.

How will people ever remember that?

What's the opposite of confusing?

Simple?

Yeah.

It's simple.

It's simple.

All right.

Thanks Ben.

Thanks everybody for listening.

We'll talk at you soon.

Thanks.

See you in the next one.

Reviews

I have listened to almost all of your talks and they are all so insightful. Thank you so much for using your passion to help others.

Really enjoyed this podcast. I have lately been wondering how I can pursue and advance my career in a job that I will love. Glenn’s advice will help me to tap into my joys and hopefully head in the right direction!

Simply amazing!! Thank you so much I think I listened 678 910 times! I need to contact you! 🙏🌸

Very good ideas on how to bring more joy into life.

Thanks!

Funny and uplifting

It opened my eyes to my purpose...

Wow, inspirational as always! I’ve been afraid to follow my passions due to fear of failure. I’ve learned that avoiding them is perhaps worse than failure. I’m following them now. Thank you so much, Glenn and Ben!! You articulate your points in a refreshingly forthright and down-to-Earth way. Thanks again, and stay passionate!!