Summer Fridays: How to find “your thing” (or your many things) (w/ Constance Hockaday) (re-release)

July 24, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In her early 20s, Constance Hockaday was queer, depressed, and renting umbrellas on a beach in her tiny South Texas hometown, having dropped out of college. Then one day she drove over a bridge and saw a spectacle that changed her life: a group of people living on homemade rafts. That group, the Floating Neutrinos, were psychospiritual voyagers who had built rafts as a tool for liberation—a way to escape rent, bosses, and the fixed expectations of land-based life. Their captain, Betsy, asked Connie a question no one had ever asked her: “What do you want?” That question, and the practice of articulating three deepest desires, became the foundation of Hockaday’s life and work as an artist, organizational development coach, and leadership facilitator.

The three deepest desires as a decision-making tool

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What you'll learn

1 (00:52) **Host Introduction: The Pressure of "One Thing"** - Chris Duffy frames the episode around the anxiety of not having a singular passion or identity, setting up why Constance Hockaday's perspective is valuable.
2 (05:04) **Connie's Self-Introduction: A Life of Many Parts** - Constance "Connie" Hockaday describes the challenge of introducing herself, as her life combines art, organizational development, and coaching.
3 (09:52) **The Floating Neutrinos: A Vision for a Different Life** - Connie recounts discovering a group of people living on homemade rafts, which offered her a tangible image of an alternative way to live.
4 (12:11) **World Building: From Rafts to Corporate Boardrooms** - Connie explains that her experiences living in intentional communities on the water and working with corporate executives are fundamentally the same practice: culture building.
5 (18:01) **Captain Betsy and the Three Deepest Desires** - Connie shares the story of Captain Betsy, the first person to ever ask her what she wanted, and introduces the core framework of the episode: the three deepest desires.
6 (21:47) **Connie's Evolving Desires and Chris's Live Exercise** - Connie reveals how her own three desires have evolved from wanting to "see a thing" to wanting to "embody a thing," and then guides host Chris Duffy through the exercise live.
7 (29:41) **The Power of Three vs. The Myth of the Singular Path** - Chris and Connie discuss how the "three desires" framework relieves the pressure to have one all-consuming passion, especially for artists.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Some people are born knowing exactly what they want to do with their life – and because of that, they’re able to get to the top of their field. But most of us have multiple passions and identities, making it difficult to visualize our own unique paths. So, how do we explore who we are and what we love to do in our careers and in our lives? This week, guest & TED Fellow Constance Hockaday helps us navigate and voice our deepest hopes and desires. She walks us through her perspective as an artist, what she’s learned from immersing herself into small and sometimes very isolated communities, and gives tips on how to find liberation by pursuing your passion.

(This episode originally aired in 2024.)

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