This is a response to today's Acumen Fund blog by Blair Miller, entitled "Unlocking the Levers for Social Change".
Blair makes some suggestions for aspiring social entrepreneurs, such as the students she met at NYU, who wanted to know, "How do I become a social entrepreneur?" Her first, biggest point is that the pathbreaking social entrepreneurs did not wait for someone to give them permission to be a social entrepreneur, nor did anyone tell them the steps involved. They just did it.
She elaborates upon several other suggestions, which she summarizes by saying, "first, figure out your star in this emerging galaxy. Second, follow your passion. Third, deeply understand the system you are trying to change. Fourth, identify the levers that can unlock the tremendous potential that exists in our world today."
I strongly agree with her major point: don’t wait for permission. However I think that young people including me struggle to interpret the advice to “follow their passion”. I hear this over and over but there’s no widely accepted process for discovering one’s passion, let alone converting that into a viable social enterprise!
Firstly, I think I would instead offer up a slightly different spin: start paying attention to need. A need, or a problem, is the seed of a solution. And give yourself permission (back to Blair's first point!) to think creatively, even if 95% of the ideas that emerge are mediocre. In my short and undistinguished career as a social entrepreneur, I’ve found that, more than anything, cultivating the habits of observing needs and brainstorming solutions has been far more fruitful than any other approach to finding my so-called passion.
Secondly, I think ‘passion’ is an intimidating concept to consume; ‘project’ is bite-sized. What if I don’t have the passion of a Mother Teresa or a Mahatma Gandhi or a Bill Drayton? If all those eager students are waiting to be possessed by that kind of passion, they will be waiting a long time. As much as we need saints like these people, we need the everyday Joes of social enterprise who have a great project and who are ready to implement it and make it sustainable. It’s fine, and probably healthy, to set a precedent for these ‘only human’ change-makers. That should remove some of the egotism from the social sector, too.
For me, these mindsets have been the stepping stones that have helped unlock real passion.
4 comments:
Totally agree with you! This "passion" thing is overrated, though I've come to realize that you can't really give something your all unless you feel very very strongly for it. But success doesn't thrive only on passion.
In addition to identifying the problem and brainstorming, I would act "being smart and tactful" to the list of to-dos. In today's world, there are ways of doing the same thing in 2 mins, 2 hours, 2 days and 2 weeks. Which one you choose is a function of what you know, who you know and why you know. Leveraging these three is as important as coming up with a feasible solution to a problem you feel very strongly about.
Not sure that I agree with you here, Taylor. Passion is what makes work sustainable. Particularly in a taxing field, personal well-being is a necessity in order to achieve ambitious goals. If passion is not there, or is not the seed of a project, how can one expect to keep going when times get tough? There certainly exists a need for many changes in this world - most of them, however, are not issues that would engage me for long enough to continue on particularly strenuous days.
I would suggest that both passion and need must align in order to find your niche. As you continue to develop your own personal "passion", you begin to recognize the places of need that match said passion, and a project can be born.
Keep on keepin on,
Drew
Hey Drew, thanks for the comment. I don't mean to undermine the importance of passion. I'm trying to point out that most people can't just follow their passion because they don't know what it is, or don't know how to connect that with their job. I know from experience that that can be a de-motivating position, so I'm trying to suggest that passion doesn't need to be the starting point. What I found most useful was beginning the creative process and coming up with projects. Once that habit is established, it's virtually inevitable that your mind will gravitate towards ideas which are more interesting to you, and passion will slowly emerge.
I hear ya - and certainly neither passion nor need can exist in a bubble. They both need each other!
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