Passions and the Following of Such

I am a creature of my passions. When I decided to lose weight and get healthy in 2003, I transformed myself, losing 65 pounds and culminating the journey by running a trail marathon. When I decided to get passionate about business, I found yet another new role within my company, and launched lots of initiatives through my blog, which brought me in contact with all kinds of great people.
Lately, I’ve been passionate about all things visual, especially with a focus on communication. I don’t really remember how I fell in with Dave Gray and his crazy band of blogs (Communication Nation, Visual Thinking School, etc.), but I’ve been passionate about visual things of late.
In the last several weeks, I have reacquainted myself with my digital camera, nearly filled a sketchbook, and have generated 8 new digital paintings for greeting cards (and probably posters). I have created a Visual Thinking School lesson, have followed along with countless other lessons, and have taken out over a dozen books on drawing, illustration and design from my local library.
Tonight, I saw a big photo walk-through of the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. It’s a 2 year school specifically geared towards cartoon artists (and comic book types), with all kinds of related materials. It made me salivate. I won’t go, because it’s not the right time, but it’s neat to even see such a school. It goes well with Joe Kubert’s school in New Jersey.
At work, I successfully lobbied for my next big project: I will be learning the guts of how all four of our big products work, and then building learning guides, documents, visuals, and teaching materials to share the information out. I think the work will combine a lot of my passions into one project: technology, learning, communication, drawing, teaching. I’m debating using a Web 2.0 methodology to get the work done. In this case, I mean to say, inviting several sets of hands to lighten the load. Think about it: Amazon didn’t hire a hundred people to write reviews. They let millions of people write the reviews for them. I think that could relate to what I’ve got coming up.
I was criticized recently for not sticking with a job for years and years and years. I have 9 years at my company, but with 5 different titles (approx 2 years a job). To me, this is a beautiful thing. I can stretch and learn and contribute in multiple ways. To the critics, I was perceived as flighty, someone you shouldn’t invest too much into, because I’d probably just move into another role in the company a few years later.
Hell with it. I’m in it for the passion. The passion is creating output that’s valuable to the organization as a whole. I can’t imagine lingering in the same food trough for years and years, “keeping my nose clean,” (as I was told to do), and waiting for a big break.
I’m in it for the passion.
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