Nothing to lose…but which idea?

A Facebook share calling for speakers for a TEDx event in my hometown made me think. As I ended the last blog, I thought it would be a ‘cool challenge’ and even if I failed or just plain sucked, I’d learn something and meet some great people. It kept top of my mind for 2 weeks. I didn’t just run and apply to speak because if I were to go for it, I wanted it to be something I went after purely for a personal challenge and it had to be a BIG idea.  Something that reached outside my comfort zone. something real but outside of what I do at work. something that focused on an idea worth spreading.

Now I’ve outlined in prior blog posts about my thought documents…and I dove into my library to search for an idea. Some of the ones that stuck out as potentials were:

* the social revolution in facebook, twitter, google, etc. have all got it wrong. these companies are just leveraging content shared by normal people and profiting off of it. what if facebook paid people a cut of their ad revenue? google is really doing the same with the web as a whole. It’s sorta like a book publisher getting stories, making a ton of money but never paying the writers. If a picture of mine drives 100 likes and 10 people to click on a paid ad for something, then shouldn’t I get a cut? Youtube has a model that pays back consistent content generators…but they only pay the videos that get big views. regardless no one else on the internet really followed suit.

* what if there was a simple and easy way to moonlight your talents/services on your smartphone? I need a plumber right now over video for 5$ per minute to advise me on my sump pump cause it’s overflowing into my basement. there needs to be an app for this.

* Our reality is created by your brain…that’s why we’ll never find the edges of space…or other life forms…because all of this doesn’t really exist. — yea yea i know this one’s a bit nuts…I must have been on a Matrix binge when I wrote this one.

* music with feeling…what does this mean? why at a concert do you feel really alive. why does the top 100 pop list suck. a garage band can change the world.

* of course the passion formula and you not deciding what you do in life, others do that for you.

* and so on…

I ended up talking many times with my beautiful wife, Dana, about doing a talk and the potential topics. We kept coming back to the passion formula and the concept that you don’t decide what you do in life, others do that for you. She and I routinely watch TED talks and she thought it fit the TED style, had legs and we agreed that our network of connections could really be leveraged to qualify, research and write about it. Plus I remember her saying ‘you’re bored of all your work pitches…so maybe this will give you a good distraction’ — damn she’s so smart!

I also recently finished a book by Ryan Blair titled ‘Everything to gain and nothing to lose’. It’s a great story of having a mindset and setting up your life to take risk…an inspiring gang member to riches story. With Dana’s support and Ryan Blair’s inspiration, I decided to go for it…cause I had nothing to lose.

With that I started to flush out a short summary in that document titled ‘You don’t decide what you do in life — the Passion Formula drives it’ and on Dec 7th I submitted this to the TED.

I believe there is a formula for passion. It isn’t about finding your ‘passion’ in life and focusing on that, it’s about approaching everything in a passionate way. I fundamentally believe that people who choose to live passionately and challenge the status quo more often than not — are not only more successful, they drive us all forward and have the potential to bring ideas to light. I’ll talk about how I believe that everyone has the potential to be passionate through a simple passion mindset ‘formula’. I think through this formula, passion can be found by many people and it can spark action so small towns can grow and thrive.

The idea is to make the audience ponder about how they act and inspire them to take steps they otherwise wouldn’t have taken. Passion in everything I do is a fulfilling way to live…it has driven me to great things and I think I can inspire others to do the same.

I’ll also inspire others to tackle something outside of their comfort zone…because this topic is outside of my comfort zone and I haven’t done a talk on this subject ever! Now I could talk about something I’ve been doing in my career (engineering, technology, software) or do one of my ‘stock’ GE pitches…but this topic is a new challenge I’m interested in and if it works, perhaps that might in itself be the inspiration.

With that, I hit the submit button and it went into the dark abyss of the TED website. The TED application system simply sends you back a ‘thanks for applying — if we chose you, we’ll let you know. if not, don’t expect an email back’ type of email.

Two weeks went by and I didn’t hear back…but I couldn’t get the passion formula out of my head…so I kept writing on it…and talked more with my buddies Ryan, Alan, Ed and of course Dana to hone the formula down to something simple. The week before Christmas I had written over 4000 words on it. I had flushed out a structure, an overall message, a 3 variable formula and some real life examples. I was well on my way of writing a short novel…so I told myself why not keep writing? Worst case I don’t get selected and I end up with a book that I can pimp to an agent — that would be cool. Needless to say, December was a perfect month to do this in for that I was on planes every week and writing during that quiet time became a pastime…and a good distraction from work.

New Years went by and I still hadn’t’ heard back on the TEDx event…so I wrote it off but kept on writing. I forgot about it until I got an email from John Lyons on Jan 8th,14.

More to come on my TEDx journey…I think I’ve got ~2 more posts to round out the story up to the event. Stay tuned!

BTW — They have posted the video already (ahead of schedule!) so if you want to jump ahead and watch it go ahead! TEDx Youtube Link: The Benefits of Passion – Kyle Reissner.

Be sure to follow the posts on twitter @passion_formula and subscribe to this blog via email to get updates when new posts are up!

With that I’ll leave you hanging until my next blog post. THE NEXT BLOG POST IS UP. READ ON!

— Kyle