passion

How Using Our Talents in Service of Others May Help Keep Obsessive Passion in Check

In this series, I take you on a four-conference tour, starting with a conference at Niagara-on-the-Lake in Canada.

The Canadian Positive Psychology Association (CPPA) Conference had me at its title: I got to Exhilarate! for two days with hundreds of positive Canadians.

The world premiere of North of Normal will take place on September 5 as part of the Western Positive Psychology Association Conference. Ph.D. students Monica Montijo and Angela Mouton traveled to 22 countries on six continents in order to interview people about love, passion, and peak experience. In addition to their doctoral research, they were inspired to make a documentary film to transmit their findings to a wide audience through the stories of people in diverse cultures and situations.

According to several news reports, what Inamori did to re-engage employees and lead Japanese Airlines back into the black was to insist on compulsory philosophy sessions for all staff, washed down with free beer. I was so intrigued by this story that I wanted to delve a bit deeper. I hoped Kazuo Inamori’s business philosophy might yield some positive psychology gems like the ones I recently found with Honda.

What is passion? Is it always beneficial? Are there different kinds of passion? What actions can we take to nurture beneficial passion in ourselves, our colleagues, and our children?