so when I was younger my friend and I
had a dream that we would open up her
very own pie shop
we knew what pies we would serve we knew
where we wanted our shop to be located
we even knew the name we wanted to call
our shop and I was thinking about all of
this because I'm currently in my fifth
year in my last semester I have one
month left to school and I have no idea
what I'm going to do when I graduate I
was complaining to a friend of mine a
very dear friend of mine that I was so
annoyed with all of these people that
were asking me you know what are you
going to do when you graduate in my
first week here at school 29 people
asked me what are you going to do when
you graduate and I was complaining to my
friend of mine and she showed me this
photo
needless to say I was really tempted to
run home and change my facebook profile
picture but I didn't but I did have some
big questions that I wanted answered and
I wanted some career advice in solid
career advice that would guide me so I
did a quick google search of top career
advice that's out there and let me tell
you there is a lot of vyse that you do
not want to go through but I want to
share some of that with you here today
when entrepreneurs said that you should
just do what caters to your strengths if
you're good at it just go do it
but then she ended her article by saying
just do anything really so I was kind of
confused when one artist said just moved
to New York another writer said don't
move to New York if you want to be happy
and one CEO said whatever you do just
listen to your dad I can see some dads
nodding today but the top advice that I
found this theme that came up over and
over again was the theme of do what you
love
follow your passion and Steve Jobs even
went so far to say in his commencement
address to the Stanford graduating class
of 2005 he said don't settle for
anything less than work that you love
and this is a theme that I see when I
look to role models of mine mother
Teresa who devoted herself to helping
others
Muhammad Yunus who I loved not just
because his name sounds like mine but
because he eradicated poverty in many
areas and by basically developing this
concept of microfinance when he started
the Grameen Bank and empowered women to
become the breadwinners in their family
and Nora Ephron who was able to turn
every tragedy in her life into a comedic
masterpiece she wrote movies like When
Harry Met Sally and I look at these
people and whether you admire them or
not
the point is that you could substitute
any of your role models into these slots
and I guarantee you that they would be
passionate about the work that they do
too and it seems to me that it's this
big question that graduates have it's
this question of choice do I go down
this road where I choose what I love
this path
of mine where there's probably more
uncertainty or do I go down this other
road and get a job find some financial
security and maybe worry about loving
life later on do which one do I choose
or maybe I find a road in the middle if
I'm lucky for the past three years I've
actually erred on the side of telling
students to choose their passions in my
second year of university I co-founded
an amazing project called the passion
project and with a dear friend of mine
and my roommate at the time - Renae
Fernando and terrine and I had these two
big frustrations it was the middle of
December 2009 and and if your student
you know this is a very bleak time it's
the middle of exams and we just got to
talking one night we had these two big
frustrations we had on the one hand this
frustration that we weren't doing what
we loved anymore because we were too
busy studying and we saw our fellow
students in the same predicament and on
the other hand and all of these students
wanted to make a difference in their in
their communities but they didn't
necessarily know how and we were
wrestling with these two questions of
how do we do more of what we love and
how do we make a big difference in our
community and so we thought can we
answer these two questions in one
project and so the passion project was
born we had no resources no funding we
didn't even really know how to explain
this concept that we had in our minds to
our peers but nevertheless we went ahead
with it and we've had some amazing
successes the first event that we put on
was a concert at the Pitt pub and we got
just under 100 students to come out we
raised just under a thousand dollars for
charities that all the musicians chose
another event that we had was a
photography exhibition which you can see
in the bottom corner and again all the
money that we raised went to charities
that the photographers chose and over
the years we wanted to move away from
this financial model of doing things
where we solely donated money to
charities that the artist chose and we
wanted to take a more hands-on approach
and how we made a difference
our community and so we partnered with
the UBC Community Learning initiative in
February of this year and we put on a
three day reading week project in areas
of slam poetry and photography and music
and we worked with grade sixes and seven
or I don't know if that's a word
seminars and in a local inner-city
elementary school here in Vancouver and
one of my favorite stories that came
from those three days was there was a
little guy named Sam and Sam didn't want
to share anything that he wrote in his
slam poetry workshops at the PO the
poets that were in the project Mikan
Francis and Alberto they worked with him
every day Sam you know it's okay you can
get up and share what you've written and
and we came to the last day and he still
was reluctant to share he's really shy
but we had an assembly that day in front
of the whole school and Sam gets up in
front of the whole school and shares not
just a poem but a full-on rat and I
thought that was a huge testament to the
courage that can be borne if you're
really passionate about something so
we've had these successes it's been
three years the project is still running
now and two amazing women
Hritik and Fon now run it and it's still
going on at UBC and all this time I was
looking at it and I thought that we
weren't doing anything wrong I thought
we were doing a great thing here I
thought that we were leading students on
the right track and then I read this
article in the Harvard Business Review
and I can only compare this article to
torrential rain on a beautiful summer's
day it was the type of article that I
needed to take deep breaths while
reading it was the type of article that
I needed to put down and go for a long
walk and then come back to and it was
the type of article that really made me
question if we're doing the right thing
at the passion project and yeah if we're
just doing the right thing and leading
students on a good path so by now you're
probably wondering if you haven't read
this article what the author of this
article said Cal Newport a professor who
wrote this article he said three main
things the first is that our generation
Generation Y so that's everyone born
from 1983 to 2000 so if you're born
before that or after that you're in the
Claire and he said that our generation
is known as lazy as pampered as
high-maintenance actually one critic
said that were the hardest generation to
maintain when we come into the workforce
and the New York Post call this the
worst generation ever Cal Newport then
went on to say that it all boils down to
the fact that our generation is entitled
and that that entitlement actually comes
from the fact that we've been told over
and over again to follow our passions in
fact he shows this graph from Google
Analytics that shows the rise in the
amount of times that the phrase follow
your passion has been published in the
English language and as you can see
there's a dramatic increase in the years
when Generation Y or Generation was in
our childhood years when we were young
and impressionable and didn't know any
better and took this advice Cal then
concludes that the only solution to this
problem this problem of us being the
worst generation in history is to
completely throw out this advice follow
your passion I heard a gasps Wow oh
sorry so it was a little devastated that
that was the end of it
but the first thing that really struck
me was the fact that we're called the
worst generation I had no idea one
critic said that we were probably too
busy at home on Facebook to really
notice
so I wanted to see I wanted to
understand if we were really the worst
generation and I wanted to kind of study
the generations before us to see are we
really the worst generation so I want to
invite you on this tour that I took
we're going to call it a generational
history tour so I want you to imagine
that you're in an art gallery but
instead of art on the walls each piece
of art is actually a generation so I
want you to walk with me down this long
hallway that's an art gallery and the
first piece that we come to is the
Silent Generation that's the generation
of our great-grandparents and our
grandparents they were children that
grew up in times of war and depression
they were children that grew up to build
great institutions and bureaucracies and
they didn't like risk they were much
more adaptors if we walked this next
picture we see the boom generation
that's the generation of our parents the
baby boomers they took more risks one
critic said they were self-absorbed
yuppies and they were the age of
flowerpower flowerpower and really
rebelled in questions Authority if we
walk to the next generation we see
Generation X those just above us those
are the ones who many say are children
of divorce so they have much resilience
in them they were big risk takers and
then we come to our generation I've
chosen this mosaic which will come back
to you later to represent our generation
a technically savvy generation we
invented Facebook and Twitter
we demand work-life balance and the
title of this generation is the worst
generation so even after taking that
huge tour of all these generations
before us I still had no clear answers
as to whether we were the worst
generation and I thought to myself maybe
I really do have to accept oh these
critics were saying that were the worst
generation and maybe I really do have to
except that this advice follow your
passion was really to blame but we're
completely refused to accept Cal
Newports article was where he says the
only solution is to throw out this
advice I refuse to believe that we can't
become we can't become a better
generation and follow our passions I
don't think the two are mutually
exclusive and so I think that we can
become a better generation and follow
our passions at the same time but maybe
we just have to remember a couple things
along the way while we're following your
passions so the first is we can follow
our passions but remember to work hard
where generations before us grew up in
times of war and oppression I would
argue that our generation has probably
grown up in a much easier time and so
for me myself personally I don't know if
I really know the meaning of hard work
we can follow our passions but not
expect it to necessarily be our job I
went to this talk from the spur nature
designer named Martha sturdy and
Vancouver and she designs amazing for
Anna Turner art and I went to her talk
expecting her to talk about her work but
instead she spent the entire talk
talking about horses which was her true
passion and it just made me realize that
here's this woman who's incredibly
passionate but it wasn't necessarily her
work we can follow her passions even if
we don't necessarily know what it is yet
Julia Child this legendary woman who is
known for bringing French cuisine to
America she didn't know that she loved
to cook she didn't even know how to cook
until well into her mid 40s and we can
follow our passions but we have to
remember that passion is a privilege
about a year ago Turini Fernando the
other co-founder of passion projects she
wrote a blog post about how passions are
privileged and it's something that I've
taken with me all of this time this is a
photo from one of our latest events so
many of us can only follow our passions
because maybe our parents worked really
hard and gave us opportunities that
they themselves never had and so we can
follow her passions with gratitude some
of you in the room might be wondering
what about student loans I have so many
bills to pay passion is the last thing
I'm thinking about I would actually have
to argue with you that you're living in
one of the best times to follow your
passion there's so many examples out
there of men and women who are following
their passion without even leaving their
responsibilities if we look at sites
like Etsy you can sell anything that you
make at home online if we look at other
websites like Kickstarter men and women
start businesses without any money they
just post their ID online and people
from around the world donate money to
their idea I actually also read an
article about a woman who landed her
dream internship just by tweeting at an
executive from a major corporation so
there's so many ways in which you can
reach out to communities just from where
you are you don't need to to fly to New
York the biggest lesson I learned didn't
come from any of my role models it
actually came from looking at our
passion project framework this Venn
diagram was designed by a woman named
Jackie Chong she's an amazing designer
and she designed this diagram for us
just explain better to people what we do
at the passion project and the biggest
lesson I've learned about following your
passions is that it doesn't mean
anything to follow our passions if it
isn't in the service of others and so we
need to spend just as much time
discovering what our passions are as we
do understanding the needs in which the
communities that we live in and that's
where the true potential lies there's a
quote by a theologian named Freda
greener who said that your vocation is
where your passion meets the world's
greatest need your vocation is where
your passion meets the world's greatest
need I like to think of it as simple
economics where your passion is the
supply and the world's greatest needs is
the demand and we need to find that
sweet spot that intersection between the
two it's not about choosing our passions
or choosing to not follow our passions
it's really about marrying or
to a greater purpose in the communities
that we live in as I was writing this
talk I was losing a lot of confidence in
what I was saying because when I looked
to all the people who write amazing
career advice out there they're really
successful people in this world they're
people who have made it so to speak and
Who am I to be giving this advice to you
when I haven't even made a dent in what
I'm supposed to do when I graduate um
and out of nowhere I heard Nelson
Mandela say that quote about how our
greatest fear is not that we're
inadequate but that were powerful beyond
measure and then he goes on to say who
are you not to be who are you not to be
bold and beautiful and so I turned this
question back to you if we go back to
the mosaic that I've chosen to represent
our generation I want you to imagine
that you're one piece in that mosaic one
tiny piece and you have the power to
change what critics are saying about our
generation that's currently called the
worst generation for now and I ask you
you little piece of mosaic you I ask you
who are you not to be who are you not to
choose passionate and purposeful lives
and to all of those people who still ask
me Eunice what are you getting to when
you graduate I have to tell you that I
still have no idea but I do know that
I'm going to be passionate about it
thank you very much
you