Finding Your Element summary

Introduction: Finding Your Element

Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson. What if the traditional rules of success are actually set up to make you fail? Have you ever felt like you are playing a role, in someone else's script, doing everything you are supposed to do, yet feeling completely unfulfilled? This is Finding Your Element, by Ken Robinson.

A guide to discovering your unique talents and passions, so you can live a life of true satisfaction. We all know that every person is special and different, but have you ever considered the full extent of what exactly that means? You are special, not only because of your unique thoughts, but also because of your biology, your psychology and your environment. Think about it.

You are the first person ever in the history of human evolution to be born with your exact genetic makeup. Even identical twins have vast psychological and biological differences. Your brain is completely new and unique. And then, there is the environment you grew up in.

The specific time period, the neighborhood, your family and your friends. No other person will ever experience this exact cocktail of circumstances in the same way. So appreciate how unique your life is. You were born with an entirely unique biological makeup and entered into entirely unique social circumstances.

This results in a life experience that has never existed before and can never be recreated. This is Finding Your Element, by Ken Robinson.

Chapter 1: Forget Long-Term Plans

Forget long-term plans and accept the unpredictability of life. You will find lots of new opportunities to achieve your goals. Have you ever felt pressured to live your life in a certain way?

Society often encourages us to follow a certain linear plan. We are supposed to graduate high school at 18, enter university, and then become a professional person, get married, and have children. This narrative may work for some people, but for many of us, it can be limiting and steer us away from opportunities in which we might excel. We often have to commit to forming this plan at a very young age.

Teenagers are expected to enter a specialization in university and then base their career off that decision. This means that many young people commit to a general plan of their entire career when they have only just finished their childhoods. Planning our lives when we are so young certainly does not leave much room for unexpected opportunities, and yet life is full of the unexpected. You have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow, but that is not a bad thing.

You might find something that will lead to an opportunity you never expected. Rather than fearing the unpredictability of the world, use it to your advantage. Unknown situations may lead to something amazing. When you accept that you cannot predict or control the future, you will discover many new opportunities.

Here is someone who experienced this firsthand. In 1954, in Liverpool, England, a four-year-old boy contracted polio. At the time, it was a terrifying epidemic and the disease paralyzed his leg, forcing him to wear heavy iron braces. His dreams of running and playing sports with his brothers were shattered.

His father even built him a crude wooden cart, just so his family could pull him around. This boy was Ken Robinson. His life seemed to have been derailed, before it even truly began. Yet this very constraint turned him toward books, writing, and imagination.

Years later, at school, he unexpectedly discovered a passion for theatre and drama. He did not plan to become a leader in education reform, or to move to America, or to give the most watched T E D Talk in history. His path was not a straight line, but a series of unexpected doors that opened only because he was willing to step through them. Here is another example.

A young woman named Meg Ryan was studying journalism at New York University. She had no aspirations to become a famous actress. None at all. She simply needed a way to earn extra money to pay her college tuition, so she started auditioning for commercials and minor roles in soap operas.

But something strange happened when she was on set. Whenever the director called action, she felt completely absorbed. The self-consciousness vanished, and she lost herself in the moment. She realized that acting was not just a side job.

It was her element. She ended up leaving university just one semester before graduation, To pursue a life she had never planned, but one she was uniquely meant to live. In short, do not be afraid of the unknown because everything is unknown.