WBW 40: A Tip Society will Never Give: Question Everything to Find Your Passion part 1 of 2

Most of who we are is very much shaped by the environment we grew up in – and most of the time this was not a choice. Growing up in such an environment or society, we often adhere and conform to standards and just follow them. If this is the case, how are we as individuals to find, or even pursue, our passion in life? In this episode, part one of two, Louie Montalbo elaborates on the kinds of influences society has on us and shares his tips and advice on how to break out of this conformity and listen to our internal voice and rediscover our passion.

Who is Louie Montalbo?

After graduating from the Ateneo with a degree of Philophy in 1983. Louie pursued his Masters in Philosophy and then went on to work in the President’s Committee on the Bases. After this, he went on to work at the Dept of Health, ChristoffelBlindenmission Change Consultants and Leaders for Health Program and did a lot of consulting work at the time involving major companies and instututions such as PLDT, ABS-CBN, Toyota, World Bank, USAID, the new Medical City Hospital.

As of the moment, he is part of the faculty at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business and Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health, passing on his knowledge and wisdom to the next generation of leaders.

Show notes:

How can you find your passion?

• It seems like there is no formula to it
• There are some people who are lucky that they know what their passion is early in life but I think a greater majority don’t because we are not taught to discover our passion
• Because society in general has a way of killing one’s passion. I think we are taught more to conform than to break out into something that we really want to do
• We excuse ourselves in terms of security, financial viability, because its what my parents want me to do, I can’t do that, we imbibe that
• Even if we are passionate by nature when we were young and we were kids (kids are by nature passionate) we think society rules, church, family has a way of dampening that and its so difficult for many people to rediscover that passion
• What do you want to be when you grow up? That’s already an indication, not the exact profession. (e.g. doctor – you might like talking to people. So your passion is talking to people)
• A student of his was talking about his vision and mission and he was very disturbed that he couldn’t define his vision and mission because he never allowed himself to listen to his internal voice.
• How can you discover your passion or your mission in life if you haven’t allowed yourself to listen to your internal voice for one reason or another?
• Learn to listen to oneself, one’s internal voice. That’s where the stirrings of one’s passion comes from. Listening to your heart and listening to your gut. Those are very important. All the rest can be seen as techniques.
• He attended a conference in the US. One of the topics was rediscovering your voice. One’s voice is something that is unique. One person’s voice is completely different from anyone else’s. But we grew up in a society where the rules, conformity muffles our voice. And part of what we need to do, partly through Entrepbuff is to make people rediscover that voice.
• You are depriving the world of a truth that no one else can proclaim except you. If you aren’t able to let that truth out, it’s sad for the world that they were not able to hear that truth.
• We are not trained to do that. We are trained to listen and to obey. We have a hard time. So you end up leading a life where you follow the set pattern. You go to school, go to work, get a family, retire. Nothing wrong with that, but for those are seeking for something more, and know that that particular lifestyle is not enough, how do they rediscover that ability to break away from that? By the time you get a family, all the constraints will prevent you from doing so.

When did you feel the greatest pressure to conform and how did you surpass it?

• One time his mom told him “Seldom do I understand your decisions in life”. That’s already an indication of how his choices in life were.
• For him, he was a late bloomer. It took him some time as well. He became a Jesuit, took law school for two years, tried different jobs – it took him awhile to find our what his passion is. It really is something to do with teaching, being able to share what he knows to others – the core of his passion is that
• Anything that he does has to do has to have that dimension of being able to impart knowledge and provide insights to other people. For him, if he does that well, he learns himself. So as he provides and helps other people gain more insight, in the process, he learns as well. A virtuous cycle takes place.
• It took him a long time to do that. He thought his passion was social development. Those were included as well, making a difference but in another fashion.
• So how did he know that it was finally his passion? He was good at it. It is hard to be passionate in something if you aren’t good at it. If you are passionate in something, at a certain point you become good at that.
• If you see that you become good at that, and you are able to affect other people, it feeds into your confirmation that this is your passion.
• If you passion is basketball, but you don’t play well, that’s hard.
• One of his students loved playing basketball back in college. But he got injured and couldn’t play basketball anymore. He liked the feeling of making people happy when they watch him play. He told his student to tap into that, not the basketball. Its not the what, it’s the why that sometimes is important as far as passion is concerned.

How do you define passion?

• It’s a disposition
• Passion in tagalog is “libog”. When you get “libog” or passionate about something, your blood rushes. It animates your life beyond what you’re doing.
• The core of “libog” is the part of our body that is reproductive. That’s where our creative center comes from as well. It should be life giving. If its not life giving to you and to others, it cannot be your passion.
• If it is only life giving to you, it is possibly only compulsion

What is the difference between passion and compulsion?

• Compulsion is something you have to do because you are driven by it. There is compulsion to please others or to deliver results and output and outcomes and you are restless until you do that
• Passion is a more quiet disposition. It does not necessarily have to be frantic. It can be quiet and yet you can be passionate about it.
• If you are driven by compulsion, it is driven by something external. When talking about passion, it comes from someplace deeper within you.
• If its life giving to you and to others, that’s probably passion.

What do you think of the notion of “being practical”?

• Understandable when people say that you have to be practical because you have to earn a living, you have to take care of financial obligations, kids, college.
• It's easy to talk about all of these things, but if your kids can’t eat, you can’t send them to Ateneo, then that becomes an imperative as far as you are concerned.
• The only problem is, if you chose something, and you know that you are giving up something else because of that, then that becomes your call. The problem is people sometimes don’t understand the consequence or the cost of that decision. He keeps telling his students that we don’t bequeath money to our kids. The way we live our life is also something that our children observe. Do we want our kids to model us in terms of – to live a life without passion, to live a life of conformity, or do we want them to pursue something that they are going to be happy with?
• One of his students said that the more security you pursue, the more trapped you become because at a certain point what you are pursuing is just security. And the question is “does it really make you feel secure?”
• Then you move from one paycheck to the next, one promotion to the next, and you’re always afraid of someone else being better than you but you are doing that so you will feel secured but is that really happening?
• So the question is, are you pursuing the right thing to make you feel secure or not?There are some people who are able to live with less and yet are more secure. There has to be something there. We are possibly being taught to pursue something that might be wrong.
• One of his friends mentioned that he could buy a low end car such a Toyota Vios, but instead of a Vios, get a Ford Escape or an SUV type car. Who told us that those things are the ones that will make us feel secure? Is that something that is required for our own security? And if it is, then one would an SUV make you feel more secure than a Vios? Is that how it works?
• It,s not as if he knows the answers, but what is important is to ask and to challenge and you might arrive at the same conclusion that possibly an SUV will make you feel more secure but at least you went through the process of asking those questions.
• Sometimes what we do is we conform and we don’t challenge the paradigms that we are being made to accept. We just move from one minute to the next not understanding what it all means.

For part 2 of 2, click here.