You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

Most of us have been told to follow our passions.

Author Bill Gurley spent six years researching the people who built extraordinary careers

and has come to believe we may be fixating on the wrong

thing. You see, passion doesn't invoke work. You could be passionate about the Cincinnati Reds and

sit in a chair for three and a half hours, drink a beer. In this talk, Bill shares what that research

uncovered, making his case through the stories of people who found what they

were meant to do, often because someone in their life asked the right question at the right moment.

He shares the story of Uncle Richard, a man who sat down to dinner with his nephew Danny and said

exactly the thing that needed to be said. That one conversation changed the course of everything that followed,

and it's the kind of moment Bill believes most of us are capable of creating for others.

Maybe all the world really needs is many, many more Uncle Richards, and I hope there's a bunch of

you out there in the audience today. And stick around after the talk. We caught up with Ted's head of media and curation,

Helen Walters, who shared a few more thoughts about Bill's idea

and what it was like to work with him behind the scenes.

That's all coming up right after a short break. And now our TED Talk of the Day.

I'm going to start with a story, a good story, a true story.

In 1983, my friend Danny was 25 years old.

A few years earlier, he had graduated from Trinity College

with a PolySai degree, bounced around for a while,

but fell into a really cool job in sales.

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