Passion Project Incubator Pilot: Meet Carole
This piece was written by Olivia Barrow, whose “Passion Project Incubator” helped me in 2017 to launch my current work .
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I found Carole Trone’s “why” and her perspective on her passion project to be inspiring and super relatable.
What is your “why”? What drives you as a person?
I like history but also new ideas and thinking about how new ideas can change lives. I want to help organizations with social and educational causes achieve their goals. What drives me at this point in my life is a resolve to push myself to see where my talents can take me in making a difference in the world.
What are your hobbies? Why do you think you are drawn to those activities?
I like to walk in my neighborhood and engage with what I see. I have recently begun playing more board and card games and my family has indulged me in this. I play Ultimate Frisbee (badly) and run (slowly) and walk my dog (diligently) and enjoy being active. I am most excited about the bike camping trips that I’ve started doing in the past year and hope to plan a trip on the Trans Canada Trail, the world’s longest stretch of recreational trails.
If you could change one thing about your life right now, would you? What would it be?
Yes, I would make a change. I would like to get over the hump of feeling occasional panic that my passion project will fail. I look for tangible markers that I am making progress and approaching the project in the right way. Failure seems scary but the bigger lesson is to push ahead!
Is your current age turning out to be anything like what you expected 10 years ago? What’s the biggest surprise?
Ten years ago, I was so caught up in the frenzy of career and family that I don’t recall even thinking about my 10-year (or beyond) plan. My biggest surprise right now is that I have allowed myself the time to take a step back, think about what I really want to do, and build a strategy for achieving it.
What are your favorite kind of problems to solve (could be in your personal hobby, or in your job, or just in general)?
I love hearing the kernel of a new idea or product and then thinking about how I would expand upon it. Derek Sivers gave a hugely popular explanation of the “First Follower” in a TED talk that describes what I like to do best.