The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

The "Element" is the thing that you are both passionate about and can do well. Ideally, you should devote your time and energy being gainfully employed in the field of your element. However, often times, the element cannot immediately pay the bills. Many examples are given of highly successful creative types that struggled in the wrong fields before finding their calling and succeeding greatly. However, the story was also given of the car salesman that was an accomplished surfing photographer.
The Element criticizes the modern education system. Schools are modeled after the needs of industrial production. They fail a great number of people that do not match the prototype. We need to encourage writers, dancers and others that just don't meet the system, but have great talents that can help elsewhere in society. He compares our education system to fast food. A McDonald's restaurant follows a precise formula. However, a better system is something like the Michelin guide. Provide general criteria of what we expect, and let the schools do it however they see fit. This produces a higher quality diversity (but is not as predictable.) It does require high quality teachers (while the current system treats teachers as mindless cogs in a system.) The arbitrary age grouping and the hierarchy of educational subjects are also problematic.
It is also helpful for people to find their tribe to be able to realize there are others like them. This is not to be confused with group think, which is confining instead of liberating. Youth often "rebel" against societal norms, but then have a subculture with its own norms.
Finding a good mentor is also extremely valuable in the pursuit of one's passion. There are many challenges in the process that a mentor can help with. There are many things on the road that can be discouraging. One example mentioned was the music teacher that managed to turn half of the Beatles off of music. Luckily, they "recovered" from their music education to find "mentors" that could help teach them what they needed to know.
I do wonder how many people really can find "the element". Doesn't society also need the conformist industrial workers? It seems we need a lot of people that are passionate about being the best department store attendant or restaurant server. What if the passions do not match the needs of society? How can he help people to find what they are passionate about doing, while still providing all the cogs that are needed for the world to function?