The most important thing

Following is my second speech at the Toastmasters.

[4/11/2013 (500 words, 5:50 minutes)]

In 2010, Spanish movie, The Secret in Their Eyes, won The Best Foreign Film at the Academy awards. In this movie 2 detectives desperately look for a murderer, without much success, because he changes his location frequently. At one point they get hold of, few of his letters--all of them have one thing in common: soccer. In all his letters at one point or another he mentions soccer.

It occurs to one of the detectives, that no matter how hard you try to hide your identity, you cannot really run away from your passions. They wait for him at the next soccer event, and finally catch him.

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Every one of us is passionate about something. If you don’t have any passions, you should find one. Find the one thing that disturbs you most. Child abuse, War, abortion, Unhealthy Food, Expensive Medical and Education.

If you were in charge, what changes you would make?

My passion is writing.

Someone asked Stephen King, well known writer, how to know when one is ready to start writing? King says, new writers should Read-a-Lot. Read, Read, and Read. And, One day, you’ll come across a book, you read a few pages, and you say to yourself, this book sucks, I can do better. Then you are ready to start writing.

Find out if you can do anything better?

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Once you have found your calling, How to ensure success in your chosen field?

Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times best selling writer of, Outliers & The Tipping Point, has a formula. Gladwell says if you invest 10,000 hours in any activity, you’ll become number 1 in that field. That is little over 2 hours per day for 10 years. That’s a lot of time. Even if you don’t become number one, you’ll be one of the top key players.

The more and more you invest time in your passion, The number of people who have invested similar amount of times narrows down. That increase your chances of success.

                   

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when you do something passionately, it shows.  e.g.

Apple products. Google etc

                  

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Jonas Salk was a virologist in the early 50s. He noticed many children are becoming victims of Polio. He joins the fight to eradicate Polio. Soon he realizes, the more they delay to find a vaccine, the more children will become victims.  So finding a vaccine becomes the number one thing in his life. He worked for 7 years. In the last 2 and half years he worked 16 hours a day , 7 days a week. When the vaccine was ready of test on human beings, 1.8m American children participated in his test. One of the biggest in medical history. The test was a success. After the test, he had an opportunity to become rich, by patenting his vaccine. He refused to do so; when asked said, his invention is like sun, universal, one cannot patent sunlight.

Find your passion, change your life, touch people.