Category The Element

Twitter Summary: Has the thing you love to do become the thing you do well?

Principle

For my final post on Ken Robinson’s book The Element I want to clearly explain what Robinson means when he asks, what is your element?  Robinson starts off his book by writing, “My aim in writing [this book] is to offer a richer vision of human ability and creativity and of the benefits to us all of connecting properly with our individual talents and passions…I use the term the Element to describe the place where the things we love to do and the things we are good at come together.”

In other words, your element is when the things you love to do become the things you do well.

Robinson gives three reasons why people struggle to identify their individual element...

Twitter Summary: Do you possess a worthless degree? You’re not alone.

Principle

Towards the end of Ken Robinson’s book, The Element, he makes a statement that will resonate with anyone who has gone through a Western public  education system and felt like they ended up with a worthless degree.  He writes, “Of course, many people do well in their schools and love what they have to offer.  But too many graduate or leave early, unsure of their real talents and not knowing what direction to take next.  Too many feel that what they’re good at isn’t valued by schools.  Too many think they’re not good at anything.”

Robinson goes on to offer a few recommendations for this problem...

Twitter Summary: You feel accomplished when doing something that matters to you. Often we settle for doing things for security instead of things we love.

Principle

Ken Robinson’s book, The Element, makes you consider the value of what you’re accomplishing in your life.  He says, “..it’s difficult to feel accomplished when you’re not accomplishing something that matters to you.”

Robinson explains how fear in all of its variations is the greatest obstacle to finding your personal “element.”  And by “element” Robinson means, when the things we are passionate about become the things we are good at.

That fear is represented as a fear of failure, not being good enough, fear of disapproval, poverty, and just fear of the unknown...

Twitter Summary: Remember and rediscover your child-like unrepressed self.  Be Batman.

Principle

Ken Robinson in his book, The Element, talks about how the power of children comes from their unrepressed nature.  I think this ties directly to my previous post because it is this magical unrepressed nature that allows children to come up with the most original and amazing things; they’re not afraid of being wrong.  They haven’t learned to be afraid yet!  As adults, we need to return to that childlike nature.  We need to find our inner childhood Batman.  Robinson writes:

My daughter wanted to draw herself spinning. She came up with the idea to draw multiple heads by herself.

“It was free and it was the same kind of thing that I like when I see children do art...