When I am talking to someone who is highly passionate about a topic I am interested in, it is very hard for me to not get swept up in the emotion of the conversation. I especially become equally emotional when their is an injustice for them.

I want to help them and make it right. I want them to know how they can make it right and get themselves out of the bad situation. I want to twist them around and help them see how they can get out of the bad situation.

More lately, I have been catching myself as I get swept up in the emotion. I stop myself and monitor my feelings. Not because my feelings are negative but strictly because I go too far. The person I am talking to might be passionately explaining something at a 6 out of 10 but I am ready to take it to an 11 and just go overboard to the extreme.

Slowing down and checking myself has helped me measure my own excitement and extremist moments. More importantly, it has also helped me temper my response to whoever I am talking to. I deliver a measured and equal response to their passion. I do not stoke their fire and escalate them from a 6/10 to a 9/10. Instead, I help them process their response to be fair, equal, and healthy. Other times, I let them vent, and then I help them move on to another topic or take on a healthier topic.

How do you react when someone is passionate about a topic? How do you temper your response when someone has suffered an injustice? How do you decide what to respond to and what to let roll off your back?

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I often have to interact with people who are interested in getting involved in volunteering or partnering with me. My goal in the interaction is to help them find a place they can partner with us and be able to gain life and enjoy what they do. A place where they are not bogged down by the details but instead inspired to do what they do outside of their time spend volunteering.

Part of this process has revolved around what they are passionate about. “What do they love to do?” is the question I would ask them. And time after time, they would have no idea. People would either gravitate towards low hanging fruit they knew could be valuable to us or they would just spin around about how they have never known what they love to do and they have never had something they feel like they are naturally good at doing or inherently passionate about.

I have had a minor revelation in all of this. I realized it almost does not matter what they are passionate about, almost being the key word there. If they are passionate about something I want to know. But, given they do not know what they love to do I need ask a new question, “What could you be passionate about?” or maybe even, “What have they not tried that they want to try?”

I realized passions often do not start with some revelation or origin story tightly knit to my life. My passions started with a decision to try something and finding out I loved doing it. My passions and interests came from trying something knew and realizing I really enjoyed it. I have also tried many things I have not enjoyed. But those were the moments I found out I was trying the wrong thing and needed to try something else. The moments I have found out I do not enjoy doing something were blips in the story of finding what I can be passionate about.

Now I need to lead people down a road where I help them try new things and gain inside into themselves and see a place where they can be passionate and find life in what they do because they have decided to make this a place to play.

What could you try? What could you be passionate about? What could new thing could you do?

Passionately,

–JT

Gut Check

Passions