The absolute best advice I can give to anyone who wants to make a difference in their community, personal life or the world as a whole, can be effectively summarized with this little story:

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I decided that I wanted to make a little money. I don’t know exactly what for, but I wanted money. So, instead of being a normal kid and setting up a lemonade stand, I placed my stubby plastic green Ikea table and chair out on the curb in front of my house and sold drawings of my customers for $1 each. I whole-heartedly believed that everyone in my neighborhood would come flooding in crowds, bills in hand, shouting and pushing each other out of the way to get an artistically tasteful caricature done by me. My drawings were good, and I was convinced I had struck gold with this idea. But as the day unfolded, I quickly came to the realization that I couldn’t be further from reality. The entire day I sat out there, and maybe three customers stopped for an original portrait, and two of them were other kids who paid me in hefty mounds of pennies and nickels. It probably didn’t help that I mistakenly wrote “self portraits” on my sign, so people were most likely convinced that I was drawing pictures of myself and selling them. Nonetheless, I persistently sat in that green Ikea chair on the curb, and when the sun set I came inside. I loaded the change into a large Ziploc and tossed my days earnings on my bed. At the age I was, the literal weight of the money seemed more significant than the actual value, so I counted the day as quite a success. I walked out to the kitchen table as my family began to celebrate my grandpa’s birthday. After the usual cake and singing routine, it was time for gifts, and all I could think about was that bag of change. What kind of stellar gift could I get for him with all of that money? When all of the presents had been torn open and revealed, I walked back to my room and retrieved the loaded Ziploc. I dumped out the entire contents of the bag onto the table and said, “Happy Birthday, Grandpa”.

Though more cumbersome than generous, this gesture meant a lot to my grandpa, because I worked for that change all day. What I love so much about this memory is that it reminds me what passion is. It’s the reminder that using our talents with a trajectory of kindness and generosity, focused outward and not inward, is the greatest influence and inspiration we can give. Passion is having confidence in your gifts. I believed in my drawings, that something could come out of them if I jumped out into the world with my sharpened pencil and empty sketch pad. My creativity, my passion, is was what made each penny in the Ziploc valuable. I was assured that no matter the outcome, that it would be worth my time; and it was. Passion is believing in something in such a way that you are convinced that it will not let you down, and living that way is our best chance at putting forth change in the world.