Finding Your Element Book Summary - Finding Your Element Book explained in key points

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Finding Your Element summary

Name: Finding Your Element
Rating: 4.3 (477 reviews)
Author: Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson

How to Discover Your Talents and Passions and Transform Your Life

4.3 (477 ratings)

22 mins

What is Finding Your Element about?

Finding Your Element (2013) offers engaging advice on ways you might discover your true passions and talents, and then reorient your life to incorporate more time for them. Written with a keen sense of wit, Finding Your Element offers entertaining and inspiring wisdoms that will help you not only to be more productive but also to improve your overall happiness and quality of life.

Table of Contents

Finding Your Element
summarized in 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

Appreciate your uniqueness: you are the first person to ever have your exact genes and experiences.

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 and your environment.

First of all, you are the first person ever to be born with your exact genetic makeup. Throughout the entirety of human evolution, there have been billions of different genetic permutations that have produced billions of different humans. In this unimaginably long genetic history, you are the first instance of your specific combination of genes. This makes you unique biologically, but also psychologically, because the makeup of your brain is also completely new and unique.

In fact, scientists have found that vast psychological and biological differences can even occur between identical twins.

A second factor that makes you unique is the environment you grew up in. You were born into a certain time period (which will never be repeated), and you've been a part of several groups and communities that will never exist again quite as they were: the people in your neighborhood, your family, your school class, etc. Our environments shape us tremendously, and only you have experienced your exact cocktail of environments, which will never influence another person in exactly the same way again.

So appreciate how unique your life is, both socially and biologically. Your exact experience has never existed in human history, and it will not exist again. You were born with an entirely unique biological makeup, and entered into entirely unique social circumstances. This results in a life experience that can never be recreated.

Forget long-term plans and accept the unpredictability of life: you'll 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're 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've only just finished their childhoods.

You have skills or inborn abilities you may not know about, so give yourself opportunities to discover them.

Human intelligence is extremely vast, and every one of us is born with aptitudes for different skills – this is part of what makes each of us unique.

Although you were born with many aptitudes, your environment or culture may have prevented you from discovering them: if you've never been to the sea, you have no idea whether you have an aptitude for sailing.

Institutional education often discourages us: don't assume you're bad at something just because you got poor grades in that subject.

If you ask people what's the best way to determine someone's intelligence, most would probably suggest giving them an IQ test or asking about their grades from school. But these standardized tests only measure only one kind of human intelligence: logical reasoning. In fact, there are many other ways to be intelligent that most schools don't value.

If you were intelligent in these other ways, your school probably did not support you.

Don't let your attitude prevent you from reaching your full potential.

Many things can hold us back from realizing our true potential. Often our environment prevents it, but sometimes we limit ourselves with our own attitude.

First off, you may have internalized a pessimistic attitude about your abilities. This feeling is often fostered by society. As we grow up, we're constantly encouraged to compete with each other – in schools and in our workplaces. This means you might have abandoned some talents because you felt you couldn't compete. For example, you might have shown promise as a guitar player, but abandoned it because you felt you would never be as good as Jimi Hendrix.

Find your passions: they are the key to your physical and mental well-being.

Having passions is an essential part of being human, and all people are passionate about something. If you feel like you don’t have any passions, it is probably because you haven’t discovered them yet.

When you're doing something that you feel passionate about, you should know it intuitively because you kind of “lose yourself” in it. This is why people often describe a change in their perception of time when they are doing something they are passionate about. Musicians often spend hours rehearsing or writing music without noticing the passing time. Ask yourself, what in your life makes you feel this way?

Forget established preconceptions about happiness and find out what it means to you.

Most people would agree that happiness is very personal. Despite this seemingly obvious fact, we are constantly told by society that there are two correct ways to achieve happiness: wealth and immediate gratification. This can be very damaging and may prevent us from finding more meaningful ways to be happy.

First of all, we're constantly told that happiness is dependent on making more money. This is simply untrue. Depression rates are far higher in wealthier countries. Money can sometimes help you deal with a situation, but if you feel unfulfilled in life, having more money will not necessarily help.

Finding a community of people who share your passions will help you realize your goals.

Your passions are your own, but it’s often very beneficial to pursue them with other people. Finding people who share your passions can lead to new opportunities to fulfill your goals.

Let's say you're passionate about do-it-yourself electronics. You could benefit enormously by sharing ideas and working together with people from different areas of specialization within that field. The “Maker” community has sprung up for exactly this purpose, with its own magazine and conferences. Through these mediums, DIY enthusiasts are able to share ideas and advice to the benefit of everyone. When you work in a community of like-minded people, you'll find others whose ideas you can learn from. They can teach you new skills relevant to your goals and help you to better realize your ideas, and of course you can share your knowledge and help them in return.

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About the Author

Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, is an internationally renowned writer, speaker and educationalist. He's best known for his books and TED talks on the value of human creativity, which he feels is the most important trait that schools should help foster. His work aims at encouraging people to get more in touch with their creative side, to improve not only their own lives but also society at large.

Who should read Finding Your Element?

Anyone who would like to focus on their passions more
Anyone who'd like advice on how to discover their passions
Anyone interested in improving the quality of their life in general

Categories with Finding Your Element

Psychology Motivation & Inspiration Personal Development

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