Milind Sathe (http://milindsathe.wordpress.com) has posted a phenomenal response to my question. Well done Milind. He quotes examples from his personal life on how he became passionate about Ghazals and Golfing and comes up with the concept of a trigger. The idea being that one’s passion needs to be kindled by a trigger. Where I disagreed with Milind is his assertion that passion can’t be taught.

I was talking to my niece Archana Mahadevan about this and she is of the opinion that it couldn’t be taught as well. She is smart and I respect her (she is joining Google and I’m proud of her). She recounted how she became passionate about advertising. Archana Raghuram is also of the view that it couldn’t be taught. But since I wouldn’t accept it, she has sort of agreed but not entirely I think.

Sujatha Manivasagam also seems to think that it couldn’t be taught. That set me thinking and I think it could be an issue of semantics. Would it help you all if I asked “can passion be learnt” instead of taught? In my mind, if you have learnt something you have certainly been taught. Maybe not in the strictest sense of having a real teacher and going to a class but you have been taught all the same. If you look at Milind’s examples or Archana’s aunt’s story it is clear that you can learn passion for a new subject and you most often learn to be passionate. Except possibly for child prodigies no one really is born with a passion for a topic.

We all learn it due to a trigger to borrow Milind’s idea. Now to answer Milind’s questions:
1. Can you be passionate about something you are not good at?

I am very passionate about public speaking, blogging/writing but I can’t say I’m good at these to the extent I’d like to be.

2. Can you be good at something but not be passionate about it?

I used to be good at math in college but I wasn’t passionate about it. I was passionate about physics. Up next, myself and Archana Raghuram explored the connection between ambition and passion.

Do you have to have ambition to be passionate? What is the connection? What do you all think?

Can passion be taught is a question that I have thought about for a long time. I am yet to find definitive answers, but it seems that the answer is pretty close at hand. I’m sure you’ll all agree that Passion is one of the key ingredients for success. At the risk of over-generalizing, one could even categorically state that there is not a single person in the world that is successful without being passionate. Myself and Archana Raghuram have been discussing for the past 2 weeks or so about Passion. She described passion as being analogous to drugs in that it is addictive. Excellent analogy. If Passion is such a magical ingredient for a success recipe, is there a way we can teach people to be passionate? This is the question we were pondering. In the organizational context, this could be a great thing – imagine, if you’re able to teach your entire employee population to be passionate about your company’s line of work, your employees could work wonders. Even if you ignore the organizational benefits, if we could teach people to be passionate, lot more people could be successful and the world will be a much better place. When I looked for a definition of Passion on the internet, I found this very apt definition:
One of the seven modes. Its positive pole is self-actualization; its negative pole is identification. In passion mode, one releases one’s energy boundlessly, downward and outward.
The key here is releasing energy boundlessly.
We were exploring a few threads and I will write about the first one and invite your comments. I am also tagging Milind Sathe to write on his blog, which is focused on Excellence. By our definitionn, Excellence can’t be achieved without passion. Without further adieu, here is the first the thread – What is the connection between passion and one’s core strengths/capabilities? Can someone who is not good at a particular skill become passionate about it? For example, if I want to be a musician and I know I’m not good at it now, can I become a great musician by becoming passionate about it? Or should I simply pick the things I am good at and become passionate about it? Please write your comments as always.