What Do You Do Best?

January 26, 2010

Interview with Sir Kenneth Robinson, author of the book The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

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Mike Carruthers:
Would you say you’re doing what you truly love and are good at?

Sir Kenneth Robinson:
The way that we can really get fulfillment in our lives is to discover the things that we can do best. And when we find the things that we do best we start to become the best that we can be.
 

Sir Ken Robinson, author of the book The Element ... 

Everybody has huge natural talents. Kids are born with great confidence, great ambition, great imaginations. And they tend to wither very often, as we get older. People are pushed away sometimes from their natural talents. But my first message to everybody is that we all have great natural talents and we need to look for them and find them and start to develop them.

Some people are fortunate enough to find what they truly love, but for others…

Start to reflect on the times when you’ve felt most connected to something, you’re most relaxed, you’re most authentic. Those moments where you’ve thought, “You know, I get this, this is great”. Put yourself out, try new things and see how they start to resonate with you.

Funny what can happen when you do what you’re meant to do. Ken tells the story of a young man who knew from an early age he wanted to be a fireman.

He said I had one teacher who just wasn’t encouraging me at all; he said I was throwing my life away if all I wanted to do was become a fireman. He said I should be going to college and making something of myself. And he said I never understood that. He said, anyway, six months ago I saved his life. He was in a car wreck and I pulled him out and gave him CPR. I think he thinks better of me now.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here