My Principle #3: Passion

Foreword

It has been a while since my last blog! Finally, I have time to sit down and publish this last edition of the 'My 3 Principles' Series.

I want to extend my deepest gratitude to everyone who supported my blogging journey so far! I feel so happy that all of you found my blogs impactful, meaningful and thought-provoking 💡

In my very last article of the “My 3 Principles” Series, I will explore the concept of passion, finding your own passion and the idea of reality versus one’s passion. If this is your first time reading my blogs, I would suggest you read my previous blogs to get some context. Now let’s get into it!

The Concept of Passion

Under my three principles at life, I believe that while the principles of integrity and self-honesty govern the way we walk the path of life, passion points to the road you wish to take. To simply put, doing what you love at life.

“If you enjoy what you do, you will never work a day in your life.” – Tim Cook

This quote perfectly encapsulates the principle of passion. Being passionate about something means you care about it, you love sharing it and most importantly, you enjoy doing it. If you are guided by passion, you will naturally stay curious and go above and beyond to learn more and feel excited to grow. For me personally, I am deeply passionate about finance and technology, and thus, I would go out of my away, beyond university courses, beyond work, beyond my comfort zones, to learn everything there is to learn in the space and grow as an individual in the finance and technology world. It all comes naturally.

Of course, while you may enjoy doing something, I acknowledge that there will inevitably be grunt work. However, I believe this is what makes the “fun” parts truly fun, because you learn to savour those “fun” moments. If the “fun” moments occurred all the time, it would just become nothing special at all. In building a crypto start-up, the admin work is definitely grunt work, but building a cool product gets me excited and makes me look forward to getting the admin work out of the way, and focus on the “fun” stuff. This is the power of being guided by passion.

Create Your Own Passion

“So how do you find your passion?” – Many Many Friends

“My friend, passion is not something that is found, it is created by you.” – Ronson Chau

Personally, I feel like the common mistake people make is that they would try to “find” their passion by “trying out” different things and see what they enjoy or not enjoy doing. This rarely works. What you may often find in individuals who are passion driven, is that they have developed and honed their craft for years before arriving to where they are at now. If you do not spend quality time with your craft, dig deep and truly understand the area, it will be impossible to make a proper judgement of whether you are passionate about the field or not.

The truth is that even if you are working on something you are passionate about, not every day will be smooth sailing. However, what drives an individual through tough times is that they are deeply connected to what they are passionate about, and that their love for their work triumphs everything. You simply cannot develop this by always “trying things out” at a surface level. One of my friends once said…

“If you had a billion dollars, what are the first three things you will do?” – Wise Friend

Those are the three things you should try to explore in depth first in the journey of creating and nurturing your passion.

Reality vs Passion

One can be passionate about anything; however, we do not live in a fairy tale. Some passions are easy to make a living, some are not so easy to make a living. That is the reality.

Then what?

“Be so good that they can’t ignore you” – Cal Newport

In the book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, the author highlighted that when you are the absolute expert in your craft amongst your peers, you will often be given more opportunities, which creates a positive cycle of developing further passion for your craft as you are given more creativity and control over your work, which would subsequently attract further work opportunities in the field – creating a positive feedback loop. Naturally, being the best in your field means you are going to be rewarded with much more than just “a living”.

As such, while it is undeniable that the income distribution curve for industries such as design, art and media is significantly wider than industries such as finance, law and consulting, the tail or the top 1% of both of these categories are broadly similar. For example, top photographers in the world would make similar and if not more than the compensation in in traditionally higher paid industries such as finance, law and consulting. Therefore, if you really care about what you are doing, be the best in your cohort at that particular thing to truly make an impact. This way, you can bridge reality and passion by doing something that you are truly passionate about, while being properly rewarded for it. Ultimately, your reward shall correlate with the impact you make on this world.

Final Thoughts

What you are passionate about may change and evolve over time, but the principle of passion shall remain constant and paramount: that you are driven by an internal compass pointing you to where you want to go. Following your passion is one of the oldest phrases in the books, and yet it undoubtedly holds a special sort of value to all of us. As such, it is only fitting that I recall a phrase from the first article of the “My 3 Principles” Series”:

“Missionaries change the world, not mercenaries”

Now with a heavy heart, I shall mark this as the end of the “My 3 Principle” Series. This has been a significant journey for me personally, as I have never had the chance to lay bare my inner thoughts, struggles and principles to everyone – but this was a deeply refreshing experience as writing has empowered me to feel peace and tranquillity that I have not felt in a long time. To be honest, as much as I am sharing my small pieces of wisdom and advice on BULB, I am much more of a learner than a teacher, and thus, I am always open to intellectual, meaningful and well-intentioned advice. No one is perfect, myself particularly, but nonetheless, I strive to be a better version of myself everyday by sticking to my three principles of integrity, self-honesty and passion.

Echoing what I wrote in my very first blog, your core principles determine what kind of person you are, and ultimately what you will achieve at life. Therefore, I deeply believe in investing in your body, mind and consciousness, so that you are the best that you can be, and achieve all that you can achieve.

Peace out – Ronson Chau