Finding Your Passion Lawyers Assistance Program Facilitated by Robert Bircher

Where did I lose my Passion? This seminar is based on the book The Element by Ken Robinson Ask grade one children if they are creative and they will all put their hand up-ask 4 th year university students the same question and most won’t We are all born with tremendous natural capacities but we lose touch with these as we spend more time in the world Ironically one of the main reasons this happens is education- since lawyers have spent a long time in this process it is no surprise many don’t know what they are capable of achieving

The Element Ken Robinson uses the term the “element” to describe the place where the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together Many lawyers come to me during a transition and it is clear they are not fulfilled but are at a complete loss as to what they want or like to do-they can’t even make a wild guess There are 3 contributing factors-all indirectly related to a cookie cutter education system that recognizes and rewards some forms of intelligence but misses many more

The Element We are all born with extraordinary powers of imagination, intelligence, feeling, intuition, spirituality, and of physical and sensory awareness- we often use a fraction of those powers and thus don’t see them in ourselves We see our minds, bodies, feelings and relationships with others as separate systems rather than a holistic whole We believe life is supposed to be linear and that our capacities decline as we age-that the opportunity for change has passed-we underestimate our capacity for change

Recovery-From your Education Some of the most brilliant, creative people on earth did not really discover what they could do until they left school and recovered from their education Paul McCartney story(p11) Schools overemphasize critical analysis and reasoning, math and science and underemphasize humanities and any form of the arts-they also obsess about IQ and completely ignore EQ-even though it has been known for many years that EQ is a much better predictor of success and ability-how many of you know your EQ? I did not learn about my interest in counseling psychology in school-I “discovered it” doing personal development in private learning centers- paradoxically I took those courses to find out why I wasn’t enjoying my law career!! We need to radically rethink our view of what intelligence is

What is The Element? It is the meeting point between natural aptitude and personal passion It is also a connection with something fundamental to your identity, purpose and well being-it requires aptitude and passion You will love it -based on your behavior-not the mental idea of it-if you love it you are already doing it (or some variation of it)

Overlooking the obvious The first book I ever read was a personal growth book –by the time I was 39 (and signed up for counseling school) I probably had 300 psychology books in my library-no law books!!-yet even then it was not obvious to me what my element was-I did not think of myself as anything but a lawyer with a more or less useless hobby One limitation is that most people have a very limited view of what intelligence is

Imagination We tend to take our imagination for granted- we even criticize people for having an “overactive imagination” People pride themselves for being “down to earth”, “realistic” or “no –nonsense” and deride people who have their “head in the clouds” Creativity is imagination applied Imagineering exercise

Feel the fear and do it anyway Even if you were clear about your passion would you pursue it? One common fear is that I won’t be able to make a living out of it Another is lack of faith in making a big change in life-fear causes delay and lost opportunities A great book is Susan Jeffers “Feel the fear and do it anyway” a main point is that everyone who has followed their passion has fear but do it in spite of their fear