There’s such immense energy and comfort you get from finding and surrounding yourself with passionate people. When I say passionate people, I mean people who are passionate about what they do.
What makes a person passionate?
There’s no clear definition, but you can tell when somebody is passionate about something. It shows in their body language, the way they speak, their work ethic, and their energy. They are attractive. I had the very fortunate pleasure of reconnecting with somebody like this in Phoenix this past weekend. His passion? Introducing Taiwanese cuisine through classic Taiwanese night market dishes.
Little Ding’s
I was at Foodieland, a food and entertainment festival, because Derek, a friend of mine who I met back in 2012 in Taiwan (shoutout to Loveboat 2012 crew), started a little food business called Little Ding’s Cafe and was selling his Taiwanese food at this festival.
Another guy who we also met through the Loveboat program came out as well!
His most popular item is the Taiwanese popcorn chicken, which is what my friends and I got. They have two spice levels – non-spicy and spicy. The spicy was at a Hot Cheetos spice level, which was the perfect spiciness for me. It had a great crunchy outer texture to it and a juicy and tender interior. Overall a great dish!
They sold other items like Salt & Pepper Wings and Mushroom Fries. He started a blog about his food business journey; I encourage you to give it a read.
Time passes by when you’re with passionate people
Derek took me to the back of his tent and showed me his battle station. I saw how he was prepping, cooking, and delivering the food to the customers.
He shared about his humble beginnings, growing pains, and eventual upward hill progression of his food business. I was listening intently; I didn’t ask any questions aside from clarifying certain details. Afterwards, we chatted about our pursuits of our own passions and I swear, we could’ve talked for several hours, but you know…the man’s got a food business to operate!
Have you ever been in that situation where you’re so focused on something that you either don’t want to stop doing what you’re doing or you don’t realize that 2-3 hours passed by and you’re just like – where did the time go? That was like my talk with Derek. It was transformative.
Feeling more energized, comforting, and hopeful
I also felt more energized when Derek and I were sharing about our passions (food for Derek and writing for me). During our conversation, he smiled and was fired up whenever I asked him about his business, had incredible vision for where he wanted his business to go, and had a very positive and high-energy (despite the cold and rainy weather) attitude. That energy rubbed off on me. I felt fired up for him being so fired up.
It was comforting to know that somebody that I knew was going through the journey of growing his passions outside of work. Like myself, Derek is an engineer and has a day job outside of his food business. Although he spends most of the day at his day job, that didn’t stop him from working on his food business. To hear about his struggles and successes was comforting.
I also felt hopeful seeing the potential of where a passion could take you if you really work hard to nurture it. Even though Derek is not pursuing the same thing I am, his journey and the results of his hard work were proof that it is possible to do 2 things with your passion:
- Make money doing what you love.
- Inspire and teach others to pursue and cultivate a passion
Learning from passionate people
A great benefit from surrounding yourself with passionate people is that they can teach you lessons learned that could accelerate and encourage you on your journey to developing your passions.
People who are passionate about what they do will continuously and relentlessly search for knowledge to grow themselves. They will do the hard things and ask the tough questions to learn. That’s what Derek did – he sought out help when he didn’t know how to run a food business. He asked around and found the help he needed to learn how to food prep, run a kitchen, and build a strong team.
Although I can’t directly incorporate some lessons learned about handling food into writing a blog, there are some lessons learned that Derek has shared with me that I could apply. One of those lessons is if you have the opportunity to do something that could change your life, seize it and do it. Derek learned that you lose more if you give up on that opportunity than if you failed trying.
“He’s got guts”
On a somewhat related note, I had asked one of Derek’s team members how he would describe Derek in one word. He said “He’s got guts”.
While that wasn’t one word, he expressed his admiration for Derek’s ability to go out there with no food industry experience and try to make his idea a reality. This guy gave Derek free improvement tips when Derek was still in the beginning phases of his journey. He said what attracted him to Derek was the fact that he was making really good food and took in all the feedback he gave Derek to continuously improve his business.
Passion is something you develop
I’ve been extremely fortunate to meet some passionate people in life. When it comes to pursuing your own passions, I’ve learned that passion isn’t something that you innately have. It’s something you have to cultivate from an interest. Finding and surrounding yourself with passionate people assists in that growing process.
Whether it’s at work, online, or within your local community, I encourage you to find passionate people, surround yourself with them, and become somebody whose passionate about something.
