1) You often talk about the Passion of the Explorer. How can we ensure that this flame is burning in our kids? What about our coworkers?
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First and foremost, we need to encourage them to find it and then pursue it. Most families and work environments discourage us from pursuing our passion - instead, the advice is always to focus on careers and activities that have the highest status and are the most financially rewarding. They should be constantly encouraged to reflect on what opportunities give them the most excitement and find ways to integrate those opportunities into the work they pursue.
2) You stress the importance to cultivate our personal passion. How do we do that cultivation in our daily life?
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Focus on giving priority to activities that will help us to address the opportunity that we are most passionate about and then take the time to reflect on what impact you achieved with those activities. If you're really passionate about the opportunity, you will be driven to achieve more and more impact over time.
3) You write: We need to evolve our institutions and communities so that they encourage all of us to cultivate the emotions of hope and excitement. Is there an institution or community that comes to mind that is doing a great job in cultivating hope & excitement?
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In general, I believe that the institutions that do this the best are smaller, entrepreneurial businesses or NGO's that focus on really large and inspiring opportunities. In terms of a community, I believe that the sustained success of Silicon Valley over decades has been driven by an opportunity-based narrative that focuses on the inspiring opportunity to change the world with the exponential power of digital technology.
This is really juicy. Let's go deeper tomorrow at 6pm at our Future Salon. Join us here and bring your questions.
I will perform the Crack of Doom on the accordion, as John's message is the perfect antidote to the doom and gloom of that song!
P.S. The picture was taken during an early morning prep call. :-)