Curiosity or Passion — A question every aspiring entrepreneur asks.
Being advisors with different incubators, accelerators, and colleges, I am fortunate to meet many successful and aspiring founders. Being a founder myself, I tried to find out that even though many people want to become entrepreneurs but why do very few manage to start something and a very small percentage is able to pull it?
Every aspiring or budding entrepreneur tells me how passionate they are about their startup or building something. I repeatedly hear the word PASSION or DESIRE in my conversation.
Every successful startup has one common thread. The founders face or come across some problem and they fell in love with it. They were not just curious but passionate to solve it whatever it takes.
If you are really passionate then you will take action, if you are just curious then you will do little research or will not bother about it. It is very similar to if you are in real love with someone or you are just attracted.
Check out the stories of some of the most successful founders:
Coinbase — Brian did not like the process of storing bitcoin and wanted to make it better as he was passionate about bitcoin. Coinbase was born.
Shopify — Toby wanted to set up a surfing board shop and saw the challenge for thousand of other businesses. Shopify was born.
Trexo Robotics — Manmeet saw his nephew suffering from cerebral palsy and want to help him and the other kids. Trexo was born.
Curiosity Vs. Passion
An important question is how to find your passion or purpose. I would say that you need to be curious to find your passion. Curiosity is the greatest gift but curiosity without action is a curse. Successful persons are curious souls but they take action once they find their passion.
How to find out if you are passionate?
I recently read a quote that says: “The greatest gift in life is finding one’s purpose early.”
However, it is very difficult to find a passion or purpose but once you find it then your life will be very meaningful. Passion does not mean making money or ruling millions of people. For Japanese chef — Jiro Ono, his passion was to cook the best sushi every day, better than he cooked yesterday.
If you find your passion, you will:
- Never hate your job even for one day
- Feel sleepless and want to wake up tomorrow to work on your idea
- Talk to every person on earth with passion as your prospective client
- Money will not be the key driver for you anymore, the work will be
- Add at least 1% every day towards your idea and will take action every day
If you did not find your passion yet, just stay curious and keep taking action. Would love to hear your views on Curiosity and Passion.
About The Author
Jaspal Singh is the Co-founder of Mobility Innovation Lab (MIL) and Host of the Mobility Innovators Podcast. He loves to talk about startups, mobility, and technology.
