Passion – the ultimate competitive advantage

After 5 years of graduate school and thinking about my future career, there is one piece of advice that keeps coming up over and over. “Find your true passion” says all of the mentors, supervisors, coaches and peers that have advised me over the last several years. Yet I’ve struggled at times to reconcile this advice with the much more tangible signs of success (money, fame, prestigious job titles) that the very people who champion the “passion” line possess. Recently however, while listening to Alan Pesky who founded the Lee Pesky Learning Center, a very successful non-profit which tackles learning disabilities, I realized that the reason for his success was precisely because of his passion. Beyond his business model, decision making, management and people talents because he had a child with learning disabilities, he had a passion that led to a success that money could not buy. For example, in 12 years the Pesky center has been funded by $16M compared to similar now-defunct efforts started in the same time, the Schwab center ($200M invested) and the Cosby institutes for learning disabilities.

I suppose the next question really is what exactly is my passion then. I really don’t know and I think part of what gets me up in the morning is the excitement of not knowing precisely what is going to happen that day. That said, I do know that I love medicine and the promise of helping people, I love making that connection with needy patients. I love the excitement of learning something new, the excitement of building something new and lasting. Its interesting to be in the presence of people like President Kim who have devoted their whole lives to good work and being a great leader who has devoted his life to all those things and realizing that the one thing that is missing for me in a career like his is the instinct to have to make money.

It is interesting to hear President Kim talk about his struggles with his identity and confronting his privilege.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2010/03/31/VI2010033100606.html

Could it be that the socialization by my family and society in Taiwan may be a barrier to my eventual ability to be that transcendent leader that I could otherwise be?