A Coaching Power Tool By Ricky Koo, Leadership & Communication Coach, UNITED STATES
The Passive vs. PassiON Power Tool
Being passive is something that we typically experience when there are feelings of helplessness or situations that have a lot of negativity. We usually disengage as a form of self-preservation and protection, so that we don’t get hurt or “lose”. Being passive is tricky because it gives us a false sense of control, where we aren’t investing a lot of effort or energy into something or someone. Yet in reality, we are ruminating on the situation in our minds and consuming a lot of our energy by constantly trying to convince ourselves that we don’t care.
Passiveness is usually a temporary relief of responsibility or accountability around difficult situations or roles. It is often referred to as taking “the easy way out”. Passiveness may trick us into temporarily thinking we are relieved or free from our prior discomfort, but in reality, it just boils up more negative emotions and builds up our frustration. Because being passive does not move us forward. It keeps us stuck and holds us back in a place of disempowerment and inaction.
Being passive forces us to take on the role of a participant or observer, versus the role of someone who can influence or cause change. When I was a student, I was not a great test-taker and it was difficult for me to read and understand concepts without experiencing something hands-on. As a result, my grades suffered. I was constantly told by different counselors and tutors that I wouldn’t get into my dream colleges and that I should just set my bar lower so I wouldn’t be disappointed when I got rejected from all of the colleges. This caused me to retreat and believe that I actually didn’t have the capacity to be a successful student and eventually have a great career. It brought me into a deep place of passiveness, where I disengaged and stopped trying. Because “what was the point?”.
If I had continued to listen to, and believe, those people around me and stayed in that passive place, my career and business today would be vastly different. I very likely would not have become a finance executive for a large technology company and I would probably have not been bold enough to become a coach and entrepreneur.
What allowed me to move past the noise and negativity was tapping into the little glowing embers within me and igniting the fire. I turned to my passiON. From an early age, I knew I was different. I knew I wasn’t like other boys and I definitely wasn’t like most extroverted people who embodied what I thought were the only qualities that make up a leader. I’ve always had a keen interest in introspection and writing. So when the world got too noisy for me, I turned inward and began writing. Every opportunity I had, I turned inward and allowed my passion for writing to take hold of me. I wrote in journals. I wrote speeches that I imagined giving one day. I wrote about ideas and concepts based on my experiences. I wrote about different frameworks and systems that helped me navigate through my career as a minority. I wrote about what energized me and fueled me. Which in turn attracted others who were also energized and fueled by the same topics.
By shifting from passive to passiON, I uncovered my true purpose and what I wanted to do with my unique perspective and ability to write down my thoughts and emotions in succinct ways that helped others. The more people reached out to me and read/consumed my writing, the more it projected me forward. The many personal anecdotes and thoughts that people share after reading my work continue to light that fire in me today. They allow me to come up with more ideas and reach even more people who may also be sitting in a disempowered place like passivity, and help them shift to passiON.
At the end of the day, everyone will have their thoughts and opinions and there will never be a time or place where everyone values you or sees you as who you are. It’s not your responsibility to change that or to focus on that. All you have as a responsibility is to turn inward. To focus on your foundational core and your values, to determine what it is that lights you up. What exactly your purpose is in work or life? Ultimately, that type of intentional inward focus will allow you to know yourself and your purpose so intimately that nothing anybody says can shatter that. It will allow you to reach deep and shift from being passive to being passiON, and rise up to share your uniqueness with the world.