At my college, it was pretty easy to see how they assigned us to first-semester freshman classes. All of us in freshman English Comp had last names that started with A, B, or C. It turned out we in this alphabetically privileged group had most of our first-semester freshman classes together. As a result some of us are friends to this day.

Ms. Janosz was our writing teacher. She taught with passion, and inspired us to read and think and write creatively. Sometimes she’d have us read in front of the class. I guess we all had our turn, but nobody read like Matt did. He was one of our group, a B I think. To say the least, he had a gift for reading aloud. When he read angels sang and emotions soared high and crashed hard. We were a bunch of 18 year olds with little appreciation for art, but we were in awe. He was a read-aloud genius, and I admired him for his rare ability.

One day Matt wasn’t there. Upon asking around I learned he had flunked out of school. The genius I admired got failing grades, he couldn’t do the academic work. To me he was better than all of us. To the school, he wasn’t good enough to stay there. I was shocked.

That day I learned there is more than one kind of genius. I learned that assigning the same success criteria to everyone doesn’t fit the real world. I learned that remarkable ability can coexist with remarkable inability. Maybe it’s always does.

None of us A’s, B’s, and C’s will ever forget that guy. Matt if you’re out there I hope you’re reading on a big stage, and I hope I get to hear you again some day.

When I post here I often credit an advisor, coach, or mentor of mine. If you’re getting the impression that I have a lot of them, you’re right. I connect monthly or more with a business peer group, two business coaches, a financial advisor, a personal coach, a personal counselor, and a personal small group. I didn’t always reach out like this, and it’s taken years to build a network, but I wouldn’t think for a second of going it alone now.

I absolutely could not perform at the level I do without their support and input. I depend on them every week for courage, confidence, insight about myself, and the wisdom of experience. I have many counselors on purpose, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

This idea is what I remember from a talk given by Dr. John Townsend in 2010.

Passion is loving what you do.

Ability is being good at what you do.

Meaning is believing that what you do makes a difference that matters.

The sweet spot is the overlap of all three – doing something you love, you’re good at, and that matters.

A huge range of abilities can be developed, so there’s no need to limit yourself to the abilities you already have.

A huge range of activities are potentially meaningful, so that doesn’t narrow the field much either.

Passion is different, it’s unique to you. So look at what you love first, then look at what ability and meaning you can pair with your passions. Far better to learn a new skill to enable your passion that to spend a life doing something you’re already good at, but don’t care about.

P.S. Having a day job that fits your passion is a wonderful privilege, but it’s not always a realistic possibility. If you can’t do what you love for a living, there may still be good reason to keep your day job. Plenty of passions are brought to life outside of working hours.

The space between the end of one phase and the start of another is uncomfortable. Between losing one job, and finding another, it’s uncomfortable. Between realizing that the current product line is no longer competitive, and coming up with an idea for a new product line, it’s uncomfortable. Between a milestone reached with great success, and discovering the next meaningful goal, it’s uncomfortable.

In those times I find it tempting to seize on the first reasonable-looking thing that comes along, just to get out of that uncomfortable transition space. A wise advisor told me recently that she believes transitions are fruitful times not to be rushed through. She’s right.

Transitions are course changes that set the direction for decades to come, pretty important. They are also rare opportunities to brainstorm freely, because “keep doing what we’ve been doing” is taken off the table. It’s hard to think of what else 2+2 might equal when 4 is flashing on the screen. The discomfort of “we have no idea what we are going to do” brings about the priceless discovery of new possibilities.

I think the key is to be proactive about generating and exploring options yet patient about settling on one to the exclusion of the others.

A concept I heard Dr. Henry Cloud speak about:

When you confront someone with negative feedback, they will respond in one of three ways. A wise person will say, “Thank you, I want to understand more about your feedback.” They will change when appropriate. The best way to deal with them is simply to talk honestly.

A foolish person will say, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong.” They won’t change. Deal with them by creating real-world consequences. Foolish people don’t listen to words. If you treat them like wise people, you will talk yourself hoarse and they will never change.

An evil person will try to intentionally harm you in retaliation. The best way to deal with them is to protect yourself and, to quote Dr. Cloud, use “lawyers, guns (police), and money”.

If you treat evil people as anything buy, you will be vulnerable to their attacks.

In this world there are some wise people, lots of foolish people, and a few evil people. If you can’t accept that there are some evil people in your world, you’re gonna get hurt.

If foolish people need consequences, what do evil people need? If I remember right Dr. Cloud said it often takes severe life circumstances for them to change. He half-joked that wise people change through self-correction, foolish people change through other-correction, and evil people change through the department of corrections.

The key is to know what kind of person you’re dealing with, and respond accordingly.