tl;dr: passion is contagious — finding yours is much easier than you thought.

The Foundations of Passion

When I meet someone new, passion is one of the most quickly identified traits I see and admire. The excitement that is revealed when someone is talking about their passion is enough to get others interested in what they’re talking about and cannot really be faked. At a personal level, passion unlocks the ability to truly enjoy the things that you spend your time doing.

People perceive passion in various ways at different stages in life. Oftentimes, children who are passionate about something outside of the mainstream are called “Nerds” and “Geeks” simply because what they care about is not widely adopted or understood within their peer group. This certainly happened to me and I know many others who experienced this as well.

As people get older (and usually mature), impassioned individuals start to be perceived differently because of the fact that they start to perceive themselves in a different light. This inner change and self-confidence is palpable and is very, very real. I remember a time in college when one of my friends recommended that I, “stop reading so much ‘Internet stuff’ and watch more sports” so I could relate to people better. I am happy that I didn’t take his advice and now live and work in a place where Tech is cool. My passion brought me to Silicon Valley and the sense of tech culture and excitement is what will keep me here for a very, very long time.

About a year ago I read a great article by Cal Newport on Tim Ferriss’s blog called “How to Harness the Superstar Effect” that talks a lot about how people with narrow-focused passions are the ones who become top Opera singers, Sumo wrestlers and CEOs. He calls it the Superstar corollary:

“Being the best in a field makes you disproportionately impressive to the outside world. This effect holds even if the field is not crowded, competitive, or well-known.”

While I don’t believe you have to be the best at something to be happy or fulfilled, it is a great model to aspire to and in effect, it doesn’t matter what you are interested in — as long as you are willing to put the time into being the best at it, you will do well.

Find Your Passion

It might be easy enough to buy into the power of passion, but the challenge then becomes finding something you are truly passionate about. Fortunately, the answer is simple but not clear cut or well defined: try a lot of stuff you don’t like and eventually something will stick.

Here is a quick play-by-play of how I found my passion for social data and social media marketing:

  1. Identify a list of things you are interested in learning about from as wide a range of topics as possible.
  2. Take the first item on the list and read everything that there is to read on the subject. Familiarize yourself with the space, the trends and who the “Superstars” are.
  3. Once you have a good base of knowledge in the area (should take about 2 weeks of due diligence), reflect on whether this is something you’re more interested in than when you started. If yes, continue on; if no, move back to step 2 with the next item on your list.
  4. Reach out to some of the top bloggers, writers and “movers and shakers” in the area to learn more about their journey getting to where they are. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to reach out to people — don’t be afraid to try! Start writing and collecting your own thoughts on the subject to start figuring out your own story.
  5. Determine what it would take for you to become a superstar in this area. List out the steps between where you are and where you want to be. Rapidly start working through the steps but be conscious of the fact that expertise takes time.
  6. Give things at least 1 month to catch on and if, at that point you’re not more interested in it than you were at the beginning, move on.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what your passion is or how you end up with it as long as you make it your own.

What are you passionate about and how did you decide on that pursuit?