Love What You Learn, Learn What You Love: Building Leadership Through Your Red Threads

We talk a lot about “finding your passion,” but Marcus Buckingham’s Love and Work offers a better map. He suggests that love isn’t something you find — it’s something you notice. The moments when time disappears, when you feel strong and alive — those are your “red threads.” Follow enough of them, and they form a pattern worth building your life around.

That idea matters deeply for students, because college is not just about collecting credits or preparing for a job — it’s about discovering what energizes you and learning how to turn that energy into contribution. 

In my Education Reimagined article, I wrote about giving learners a starting point — a chance to connect curiosity, agency, and purpose. Leadership begins the same way: with awareness of what draws you in, what challenges you, and what lights you up enough to take initiative.

The beauty of college is that it’s a built-in leadership lab. You can test your red threads everywhere — leading a club project, mentoring peers, volunteering, taking on a creative or research challenge, or just saying yes to something that stretches you. Each experience gives you new data: What do you love? What drains you? What do you want more of?

Leadership isn’t a title. It’s the practice of noticing what matters and taking responsibility for it.

When students learn to approach their education this way — as a series of experiments in purpose — they’re already developing the habits that define great leaders: curiosity, reflection, courage, and alignment. They’re learning not just to succeed in college, but to build a career and life shaped by the work they love.

At NextReady Studio, that’s our goal — helping you translate those red-thread experiences into the foundation for your next chapter. Because the world doesn’t need more people checking boxes. It needs leaders who bring energy, creativity, and genuine love to what they do.

References

Buckingham, M. (2022). Love and Work: How to Find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life. Harvard Business Review Press.

Wilt, G. (2025, September 25). Why Every Educator Needs a Starting Point for Learner-Centered Education. Education Reimagined. https://education-reimagined.org/why-every-educator-needs-a-starting-point-for-learner-centered-education