And when he was thirty, he was awarded the Fields medal for mathematics, which is the equivalent of the Nobel Prize. When he was twenty, he took his PhD in pure math and got it. When he was eight, he took a college entrance math exam and got 98%. So he has a rather curious accent as a consequence. One of the people we talked about in there is a mathematician who, when he was four, taught himself to read by watching Sesame Street. The sequel of it is called Finding Your Element. I mean, for example, one of the people I remember talking about in the first book I did, it’s called The Element. We don’t know what it is.īut let’s put aside those people who do not know what a swimming pool is, but we don’t care about these people, or the element, quite frankly. I mean we all know what it is, but it depends what condition when we jump in the swimming pool. And we all get things very differently don’t we? I mean, some people walk onto a sports field and they feel immediately at home, or they jump into a swimming pool and think, I know what this is. I did not make up the term, The Element, by the way, it’s a common expression as we talk about people being in their element.Īnd what I’ve really tried to try to is describe what that means and how you can bring that about in your life if you don’t have it already. It can be anything by the way, absolutely anything, but they would describe themselves, if I haven’t done it already for them as being in their element. When I do this, I feel I’m in my most natural and authentic self.” If you said, why don’t you stop this and try something else for change, they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about, because they’d say, “This isn’t what I do. They kind of get on with it and wait for the weekend.īut I also meet people who absolutely love what they do and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I’m not saying it’s true of you, but you know, it’s true of a lot of people. They don’t enjoy their lives all that much. Also, they don’t much enjoy the work they do, if they do work. They don’t have any special talents to speak of. I meet some people, quite a lot of people actually, who feel they don’t have any real talents. It’s what I call Finding Your Element.Īnd I want to say a few words about what it is, about why it matters and what you can do about it if you feel you haven’t found yours yet. Hello and welcome! I’m Ken Robinson, and I want to talk to you about how people can discover their true talents and passions and the difference it makes in their lives if they do that. He provides basic principles and tools to help guide us to do the work we enjoy with a sense of contentment and purpose. In this talk, Sir Ken Robinson, offers a guide to finding and being in your element. Full text of educator Sir Ken Robinson’s talk: “ Finding Your Element”.

The element by ken robinson