Professor Meghan Sullivan explains how she made asking questions into a career #TEDTalks

Everybody's got the philosopher gene inside of them and you just got to start unleashing it somehow. — Hey, so what do you do all day? — I'm a professional philosopher. — And what does that entail? — Well, I work at a university where I teach classes and I run a research institute. — And how did you become a philosopher? — I got stuck in a philosophy course by my academic adviser and I just totally fell in love. In my other classes, the professors always wanted me to repeat the ideas of dead or famous people. But in my philosophy class, I was always asked, "What do I think? What do I believe? And how can I defend my beliefs? " And I was so exhilarated by the fact that my professor thought that there really were better and worse answers to these questions. I can remember being 18 years old and just realizing, "Oh my gosh, I want to know the answers to these questions. " And that really set a light off for me. And that was when I started thinking seriously about, okay, maybe I'll just keep studying philosophy till I run out of money. What's one piece of advice you would give to someone who would want to be a philosopher? — There are a whole lot of ways to be a philosopher that don't require becoming a college professor. There are lots of ways that you can incorporate philosophical practices into your workplace. There are ways that you can ask philosophical questions and ethical questions to your employees as a manager that can start up these debates and discussions. And so, if you think, "Oh my gosh, I didn't have a chance to take a philosophy course in college. now like this kind of life path is not open to me. It's like that's not true. There are all kinds of great books that you can check out that you can start looking into. There's all kinds of great content on YouTube. I believe what Aristotle believes which is that all men by nature desire to know. Everybody's got the philosopher gene inside of them.