Why do you do what you do? I’m sure you’ve asked yourself the question, or had it asked of you. I recently had the opportunity to be introspective for just a few minutes and to look at this question and how it fits into what I do on a daily basis. While in Austin for South by South West Interactive I met Jean Russell of thrivable.org. Jean has spearheaded a really interesting community project that you can learn more about at her website at http://www.thrivable.org She’s curated a book that features 64 contributors from 5 continents. The book explores thrivability, and answers to the question- How do you create a thrivable world? I was lucky enough to be there when Jean was interviewing Aliza Sherman (aka The Digital Marketer) for this project and Jean invited me to also be a part of the project by sharing my story – my answer to the question: WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO? The WDYDWYD (Why Do You Do What You Do?) series of interviews involve Jean asking people why it is that they do what they do. She helps them distill their purpose into a few words that the interviewee then writes onto a sheet of card. She then takes a photo of the contributor and posts it on her site. (You can see a collection of contributions here.) Sounds simple, right? So, here I am – sleepless – puffy-eyed – and a little weary and teary I’m way too inept with imovie to be able to make this more ‘flashy’ so here it is in its raw form. I enjoyed the process (Jean is a masterful interviewer) and I was reminded that when we are truly connected with that about which we are passionate we can indeed be moved to tears. I’d love to hear why you do what YOU do, so feel free to share publicly or privately. It’d be an honour to know.
For more information about Jean’s work: Thrivable.Org