My friend Nell Merlino is a powerhouse of a woman. She was the creative force behind “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” and now runs a non-profit organization called “Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence.” She’s also recently come out with a great book for anyone considering an independent career or life path.
The book is titled Stepping Out of Line and, while it’s geared toward encouraging women to take bolder steps to control their own destinies and lives, it’s a good manual for anyone tired of waiting for life to magically deliver a more perfect job/career/life.
The book contains many good ideas, but the section that struck me most was her section on how to cultivate a more active imagination, in order to envision what doesn’t yet exist. Envisioning what doesn’t yet exist, of course, is the key ingredient that entrepreneurs must have to succeed. But how do you get that vision? This past week, for not the first time, I encountered someone who asked me, “but how do you know what you’re passionate about?” At the time, I didn’t have a good answer. How could you not know what you’re passionate about? It’s the stuff that gets you fired up and excited!
But Nell has pulled together a much more practical response to that question. The best way to discover your passion, if that passion is not inherently obvious to you, is to hone your imagination skills. How do you do that? Lots of ways. Here are just a few she offers:
- Find a copy of something called the “Proust Questionnaire” and take it. (there’s a copy of it in Nell’s book.) The questionnaire started as a 19th century personality quiz/parlor game, and apparently became much better known from the memorable answers the writer Marcel Proust gave to the questions it posed. Nell didn’t elaborate on what those answers were, but I’m sure the answers are discoverable with a little web searching. It asks probing questions that force you to think about what you like and don’t like.
- Explore—you might stumble on something intriguing. How do you do that? For one thing, break up your routine. If you normally walk the same way to the post office, or work, or the subway, go another way. Expose yourself to new people, situations. And TALK to people about what they do, like, don’t like.
- Study people you admire or envy. See what it is about their lives that appeals to you, and what that might say about what would make you feel happier or more fulfilled.
- Do a word association experiment on Google. Put in combinations of words of things that appeal to you: “scuba diving+jobs” or “California+fashion+homeless+network” or “home+writing+corporate+consulting.” You might be surprised, she says, at what opportunities you stumble across.
- Search within yourself. What are your most deeply held or important values? (“Clarifying you values,” Nell notes, “can change your life.”) What places in your home are you drawn to, and why? What place, besides work or home, do you like being in, or like to imagine being in, the most? And, as always … what does that tell you about what your like, or what attributes of a life, job, environment, matter most to you?
- Think about what gets you the most pissed off in the world, as well as what you like most. Nell made an interesting point about passion—we think of it as something we love. But it can also be a response to something we hate, or find so unjust, objectionable, or irritating that we can get very fired up about changing it.
- And in the course of imagining possible paths, jobs, careers, or life options, use your set of values (discerned above) to check whether a possible path is really one you’d be happy pursuing. “The most fulfilling path,” she says, “is one that is ethical, authentic, and deeply meaningful to you.”
Passion comes from many places, but I think Nell is right. Nurturing your imagination, and exposing yourself to as many new thoughts, experiences, and people, is a good way to stir the waters. And while you may find a passion that involves pleasing only yourself, I also agree with Nell when she says that “Focusing on self-improvement is wonderful, but what truly transforms you is when your goals and accomplishments take you out of yourself.”
Check the book out for yourself: Stepping Out of Line by Nell Merlino (Broadway Books, 2009).
Information on Nell’s Count Me In organization, and its signature program “Make Mine a Million $ Business,” can also be found at: www.countmein.org and www.makemineamillion.org.
Lane Wallace is the Editor and Founder of No Map. No Guide. No Limits.
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