egyii blog

We lead a split life. On the one hand, we do what we have to do to earn a living; on the other, we do what we want to do to have fun. But high achievers don’t experience this dichotomy: they love what they do and they do what they love. In his classic study of Americans’ perception of their work Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (New York: Pantheon Books 1974) Studs Terkel quotes Nora Watson as saying: “I think most of us are looking for a calling, not a job… Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.”

You can call it a grand quest or a mission – those who discover it find the same feelings as Stephen Spielberg: “I wake up so excited, I can’t eat breakfast. I’ve never run out of energy.”

But how do we discover this passion? All I can do is tell you how I, James Irvine, discovered it and hope that you will tap into what I say and somehow relate it to yourself. I was a banker for 10 years and was unhappy. I certainly had no passion for my work. I went through each day as if a machine was doing the work while my real self was somewhere else waiting to come out. After 10 years of enormous stress resulting not from the pressure of the job but the fact that I was doing something all day long that was against my nature, I quit.

I attended a career counselling program, and did the usual analyses with my logical mind about what interests I had had when I was a child, what I enjoyed doing in my spare time, and so on. These were helpful in a limited way, because they were all thinking processes, whereas what I really needed to do was find some quiet time to listen to my heart. What I realised was that nothing from my past was really a clue to my future.

So I spent some time working in a retail shop while I struggled with this issue. And as the days went by and I started listening to my feelings and the spontaneous thoughts that occasionally emerged, I began to feel a bit like teaching people. It wasn’t a sudden decision like ‘I want to be a teacher’. Rather, I just began to see myself talking to people and sharing some of my own feelings and thoughts, and as I saw this I felt good.

I didn’t make some grand decision to become a teacher. I decided to enrol in a certificate course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. I knew I liked languages and grammar, so I thought this was a way to try out my gut instincts without too much commitment. Remember, I had never so much as made a presentation or stood in front of an audience in my whole time in banking or at any other time in my life. I just had this feeling that was good when I pictured myself doing this.

After two weeks of theory and instruction, we had to deliver our first lesson in front of a live audience who came from the local town for free lessons from these student teachers of English. This first lesson would last for 15 minutes, and I had no idea how I would have enough to say and do to last for 15 minutes. I spent hours preparing, but on the day I stood up in front of about 20 adult students and within a couple of minutes felt very comfortable and energised. I actually discovered a new person inside of myself during those 15 minutes. I really enjoyed the experience in a way that I had not when I was analysing balance sheets and drawing up financial proposals. I had found my passion.

Because I enjoyed the experience of teaching so much, I became good at it, and now, as a corporate talent developer with Egyii in Singapore, I wake up every morning feeling the same as Stephen Spielberg. Well, maybe not quite so excited – I still have time for breakfast!