MERAKI ANISHA SUBBERWAL
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MERAKI MAY-RAH-KEE
(N.) The soul, creativity, or love put into something; the essence of yourself that you put into your work.
PREFACE It means to do something with passion, with absolute devotion, with undivided attention. No matter how difficult a task, it is done with all your effort, with enthusiasm, with eagerness, with complete love; it is done with all your heart, a labour of love, so to speak. Meraki is to put your soul into something, to put a little bit of yourself into it, be it singing, dancing, or painting. It can be the simplest of tasks, such as making a cup of coffee for your loved one; you made it with love, with devotion, with meraki! My final editorial focuses on people who put in meraki in their work, those people who are passionate about their jobs. There are also articles featured that talk more about passion, how to find it, how important it is to be successful. Being passionate about what you’re doing is difficult, if you don’t love what you do then why are you doing it?
FIND WHAT YOU LOVE & LET IT KILL YOU
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AMIRAH KASEEM EXCLUSIVE
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MARK MANSON
GABRIEL BELL
FABIAN GALLARDO EXCLUSIVE FARLEY ELLIOTT
INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN CHOW ANISHA SUBBERWAL
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INTERVIEW WITH ALISHA PHICHITSINGH ANISHA SUBBERWAL
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15 SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DESCRIBE PASSION LIDYA K.
EXTREME SUCCESS: IT'S ALL PASSION CRAIG BALLANTYNE
11 INSPIRING PEOPLE WHO FOUND SUCCESS BILL MURPHY JR.
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FIND WH YOU LOV LET IT K YOU.
HAT OVE & KILL MARK MANSON SEPTEMBER 19, 2013
“We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.”
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Yes, we’re all going to die. You and me and everyone else. One day and eventually that fateful moment will come calling and take us all away.
fired from various jobs. Eventually, he ended up working in a post office filing letters. All his life he wrote fruitlessly, a total unknown and a loser. He wrote for almost 30 years before finally getting his first book deal. It was When we die isn’t even really the interesting question, as a meager deal. When accepting it, he wrote, “I have one once you’re dead you won’t be around to care about what of two choices – stay in the post office and go crazy … or you did or didn’t do. stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve.” In my opinion, the honesty in his writing — No, the interesting question is how we die. Will it be his fears, failures, regrets, self-destruction, emotional cancer? Cardiac arrest? Anthrax attack? Choking on a dysfunction — it is unparalleled. He will tell you the best pretzel? and worst of himself without flinching, without shifting his eyes or even muttering a “sorry about that” as an Me? I’m holding out for parachute failure. Or maybe a afterthought. He wrote about both shame and pride withplane crash. OK, not really, but sometimes when I’m on out qualification. His writing was equanimous — a silent a plane, and we’re landing and there’s terrible weather I embrace of the horrible and beautiful man that he was. start daydreaming about what a crash would be like — the And what Bukowski understood, which most people oxygen masks falling, women shrieking, babies crying; don’t, is that the best things in life can sometimes be maybe I’d reach across the aisle and hold a total strangugly. Life is messy, and we’re all a little screwed up in our er’s hand in a final dramatic gesture as we wait for the own special snowflake kind of way. He never understood inevitable together. The earth would sweep upon us and the baby boomer obsession with peace and happiness or together we’d be slammed into eternity. the idealism that came along with it. He understood that Luckily that hasn’t happened yet. But it’s exciting to you don’t get one side without the other. You don’t get think about. love without pain. You don’t get meaning and profundity without sacrifice. When we think about our own deaths we typically think about the final moments. The hospital beds. The crying The concept of life purpose has exploded in popularity family. The ambulances. We don’t think about the long in recent decades. We don’t just want to make money or string of choices and habits which lead to those final build a secure career. We want to do something importmoments. ant. We want to be noticed. We want to be looked up to. Meaning is the new luxury. But like any other luxury, we You could say that our death is a work-in-progress over idealize meaning. People believe that all you have to do the course of our lives — each breath, each bite, each is find the thing — that one bloody thing! — that you are swallow, each late night and missed traffic light, each “meant” to do, and suddenly, everything will click into laugh and scream and cry and crashing fist and lonely place. You’ll do it until the day you die and always feel sigh — they each bring us one step closer to our own fulfilled and happy and prance with unicorns and raindramatic denouement from this world. bows while making a million dollars in your pajamas. So the better question isn’t when you’re going to die. It’s But we just need that one thing — if only we knew what what are you choosing as your vehicle to get there? If ev- we were meant to do, then everything would fit into erything you do each day brings you closer to death in its place! And while it’s possible to brainstorm some ideas own unique and subtle way, then what are you choosing to help one get started, finding meaning and purpose is to let kill you? not a five-day spa retreat. It’s a fucking hike through mud and shit with golf-ball-sized hail pelting you in the face. The title of this article is a quote from the author and And you have to love it. You really have to love it. poet Charles Bukowski. This entire article kind of doubles as an ode to him. Bukowski was a shameless drinker, As Bukowski said, “What matters most is how well you womanizer and all-around fuck up. He would get drunk walk through the fire.” on stage at his poetry readings and verbally abuse his audience. He gambled a lot of his money away and had Finding the passion and purpose in your life is a trialan unfortunate habit of exposing himself in public. But by-fire process. You don’t simply wake up one day and underneath Bukowski’s disgusting exterior was a deep become happy doing one thing forever and ever. Like and introspective man with more character than most. death, it’s a constant work-in-progress. You must try Bukowski spent most of his life broke, drunk and getting something, pay attention to how it feels, adjust and then
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try again. Nobody gets it right on the first try, or the tenth or sometimes even the two-hundredth. And then, when you do get it right, it’s liable to one day change. Because you change. And what Bukowski understood more than most was that doing what you love is not alwaysloving what you do. There’s an inherent sacrifice to it. Just like choosing a spouse, it’s not choosing someone who makes you happy all the time, it’s choosing somebody who you want to be with even when they’re pissing you off. It’s something that feels like an inevitability, like you have no choice because this is simply who you are, dysfunction and all. It’s your chosen vehicle towards death. And you’re happy to let it take you there. But you’re under no illusions that it won’t be a bumpy ride or without surprises along the way.
“Writing is easy; all you have to do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” – GENE FOWLER
Your study of speech therapy may lead you to voice acting which may turn into a career in children’s cartoons and then you may decide at age 55 that children’s cartoons are corrupted by corporate interests and you spend the rest of your days sketching comics you love but never publish. Your interest in fitness may lead you to a deeper interest in posture and form which then gets you into coaching people on body language and sub-communication. This leads you into a consulting business, but after dealing with the surface level issues for years, you discover that the body molds itself to match repressed emotions. So you take your big consulting pension, say fuck it, and open up an acupuncture and massage clinic where you dedicate the last of your days to promoting mind-body awareness. Just like few of us experience love at first sight, few will experience passion and meaning at first experience. Like a relationship, we must build it from scratch, piece-by-piece, until after years of brick and sweat, it can stand on its own. And once we’re there, like a plane in full nosedive, we let it take us to our grave, holding hands, blanketed upon the earth in a laughing roar of wind and fire and love. “We’re here to laugh at the odds,” Bukowski said, “and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.”
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AMIRAH KASSEM
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THE FLOUR SHOP
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MEET THE FASHION SET'S CAKE BOSS
GABRIEL BELL AUGUST 20, 2013
“I grew up in Mexico, playing in the kitchen with my mom and my grandmother,” says Amirah Kassem, as she adds yet another layer of buttercream frosting to a cake that looks like a 3-foot-tall ice-cream cone. “Little did I know that all that would wind up being relevant in the fashion industry. All I did was replace swatches for food coloring and sketches for flour sculptures. Oh, and I still get to go to all the parties!” As a matter of fact, after founding Flour Shop, Kassem has gone from just another fashion-world stylist, hanging out at the parties, to the artist whipping up its centerpieces. Following a six-year stint working for magazines and Johan Lindeberg’s BLK DNM, Kassem found herself at the center of a vibrant, inspiring world doing something that just didn’t feel genuine to her. “I realized it wasn’t for me,” she says. “I mean, I learned a lot, but it didn’t feel like it was artistic work I could call my own.” So, she reached back into her youth to find something she could grab on
“I bake all day. If I’m not baking, I’m thinking about baking.”
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to. “I stick to things that make me smile, whether it’s food, friends, jokes, balloons, surprises, fireworks, music, dancing, ice cream, or shoes,” she says, with a huge grin on her face. “They all come from a pure place. I mean, it’s okay to grow and learn, but there’s no need to stop liking the things you’ve enjoyed all along.” Granted, dropping out of the styling game to make, of all things, cakes is a bit of a gamble. But — somewhat surprisingly — Kassem’s work has quickly become the toast of the fashion set. Her giant, frosted (and completely delicious) cakes, which look like cartoon hamburgers, doughnuts, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and confections in other smile-inducing shapes, have starred at parties and promotions for Terry Richardson, Henry Hargreaves, Warby Parker, Olivia Wilde, Chrissie Miller, Phillip Lim, and dozens of other high-profile clients. “One of my friends describes me as an artist and that cake is my medium. I sculpt cakes, paint them with frosting, and top them off with sprinkles!” It’s absurd, wonderful art that’s all her own — until we get our forks into it, that is.
“My whole shop captures whats inside my head. I’m basically obsessed with my childhood.” tion. As for what’s in my imagination, well, my clients are so specific about what they want that they’ve become my biggest inspiration! The more I know about the person receiving the cake, the more detail it gets. That’s why my favorite part is seeing people’s reactions to my creations. The way their expressions fill me with joy is why I try to deliver every cake myself!”
Kassem’s Cronuts “The name ‘cronut’ is not my favorite. I like ‘doissant’ better! I don’t really have a million hours to stand in line, so I haven’t tried it yet, but the idea sounds fun — a combination of two treats into one. Personally, my two Dream Kitchen “I can think of many exciting things that have happened favorite treats are popcorn (I smell sweet stuff all day, with Flour Shop, but I think the greatest moment was the which naturally makes me crave salty!) and ice cream, so moment I realized I didn’t really need anyone else to do my take would have to be popcorn ice cream. Yum, yum, what I wanted to do. Now, I wake up excited to work ev- yum! Just like Donna Martin in 90210!” ery day. I’ve turned my kitchen into a playground, and I get to play with food all day! It’s a childhood dream come true! If you’re not feeling that way about your work, then it’s time to quit your job and start doing what you love. It doesn’t matter if you went to school for it or not. If you’re passionate about it, you’ll learn.” Perfect Is the Enemy of the Yummy “I don’t use fondant, which is a big challenge when my work is being compared to perfect-looking cakes done by other cake artists. Although fondant may look perfect and can take any shape, it doesn’t taste good, and I like every part of my cakes to be not only edible but enjoyable. I’d rather have streaks and imperfections with buttercream than to see people peeling my cake before eating it.” Baked to Order “When people order a cake, I can’t really explain what it will look like, because it doesn’t start to unfold until I start working on it. So, yes, although people know what they ordered, the finished product is only in my imagina-
FABIAN GALLAR
N RDO
LA ESQUINA
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EATER CHEF'S EXCLUSIVE LOS ANGELES
FARLEY ELLIOTT JULY 16, 2014
Beverly Boulevard’s Petty Cash Taqueria has quickly cemented itself as a loud, proud part of the L.A. Mexican food landscape. The colorful restaurant took over John Sedlar’s lauded Playa space a year ago, and immediately worked to get the neighborhood on board with their $5 tacos and uni guacamole, though chef/owner Walter Manzke will be the first to admit it wasn’t easy at first. Chef de Cuisine Fabian Gallardo runs the day to day at Petty Cash now, and both men sat down to talk about the restaurant’s frenzied beginnings and the true origin of the uni guacamole dish known as TheBomb.Com. Walter, how did it feel to come back to the LA food scene with such a strong restaurant like Petty Cash? Walter: It was very spontaneous in a way, but it was also something that I had planned on doing. I actually had the basic menu, the name, the concept, all laid out a few years ago. It was almost going to be in the space where Factory Kitchen is. I didn’t really have any ideas of opening Petty Cash at the time, but I was running into delays with Republique, and we had already hired kitchen staff and a manager, so we decided to do Petty Cash. We did it all in one month. We had virtually no training, and I’m not a chef who knows everything about Mexican food.
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There was no recipe testing. The first night we cooked in there was the first night that we served.
“I put love into the food I cook everyday. I tell all my staff to cook like they are cooking for their parents or a significant other.”
Mexican food is never an easy segment to get into in LA. Were you worried? Fabian: It’s really fun to be able to bring all of my flavors of Mexico and to cook for people here. It’s a tough environment, because there are great Mexican restaurants. We’ve played with different techniques and flavors in order to really stand out.
in there, who’s a typical East LA girl. Early on when I’d ask her opinion on a food she’d just tell me it’s ‘the bomb. com’. And it became kind of a funny thing in the kitchen. We had a service on a Saturday night, and at the time we weren’t open on Sunday, so we had this box of uni that was half leftovers that weren’t going to make it until MonHow has Petty Cash evolved over the year that it’s been day. And we had these fried chicharrones and a bowl open? from the guacamole was there. And unconsciously we all Walter: It took some time for us to get where we are, especially with the hurdle of $5 to $6 tacos. I think we’ve started eating what was in front of us, because we’d been gotten past that, but we took a big hit making that choice working all day and hadn’t eaten. So we’re dipping the chicharrones into this guacamole that’s got uni on it, and up top. And it had nothing to do with being greedy. It’s thinking wow, that’s a pretty good combination. And so just our dedication to the sort of meat and fish that I’ve we put it on the menu and named it after our cook. always been used to working with. It was the highest food cost that I’ve ever run in a restaurant, when we first I think it’s important to have things like that on any started. menu. You want things that are controversial and talked about. It may be something that not everyone likes. Some Fabian: For me, I was working in an Italian kitchen people may even be disgusted by it, and that’s fine. It’s in New York City for ten years, so there has been some something different and something to talk about. That’s adapting to California, which has been hard. But chef why it’s there. — Manzke has showed me around the farmers markets, which really allows me to get ahold of great seasonal ingredients. I’d still like to source from more local farms to get even greater quality ingredients. What one thing do you love most about Petty Cash? Fabian: My staff. I try to keep them happy, and they reflect that when they’re cooking. That’s why everyone enjoys the food. Are there any dishes that you think are quintessential to what Petty Cash does? Fabian: The aguachile. It’s really representative of Tijuana in the 1980’s; fresh seafood, just something simple but satisfying for a hot day. It feels like there’s a bit of mystique surrounding Petty Cash — the uni guacamole, the smuggled-in mezcal, the sort of hidden rooftop garden. Was that by design? Walter: The uni with the guacamole, things like that were purely accidental. It was named after one of our cooks
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JUSTIN CHOW VENTRIXPHOTOGRAPHY
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While shooting pictures of Justin Chow, I took the time to ask him some questions in regards to his work. The questions I asked felt relevant to his practice of photography.Justin Chow is an NYU student who is majoring in Economics, he pursues photography on the side. He has been interested in it from highschool, he started his own facebook page and company name "Ventrix Photography." He also has a big following on instagram under his name.
What do you think it means to put in your soul into your work? I think it means to put in your best efforts into what you do. That’s in general though. To elaborate, I’d say it’s to really try to let your emotions, thoughtprocess, and abilities in your product.
Is there some kind of ritual or something you just always do before you plan/do a photoshoot or after? I always listen to a bunch of songs that I think fits the mood of what I’m going to shoot. If I shoot a night with a lot of geometric lights or modern shapes, I listen to tron or something like that. Most of the time though, I listen to Sam Smith or Logic. They have powerful voices with strong bass in their songs which I use to relax and think. A glass of whiskey while doing so doesn’t hurt either.
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ALISHA PHICHIT /28
TSINGH FASHION DESIGN STUDENT
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While shooting pictures of Alisha Phitchitsingh, I asked her questions in regards to her work ethic and her passion for fashion design. She is one of the most hardworking people I know and she is constantly pushing herself to be more creative and challenge herself with new textiles, sewing techniques, and new materials for sculpture addition to her garments.
What do you think it means to put in your soul into your work? I think putting your soul into your work means caring about it with all your heart and making your vision come true.
Do you feel like you immerse yourself in your work? Yeah I do. I feel as though my work and I become one which is the hard part because I always feel like I need to show myself through my work.
How do you integrate yourself into your work or vice versa? I always try to create work that makes people question my process and how something was made. Once someones asks me how it was made, then I know i was successful.
Is there some kind of ritual or something you just always do before you plan/do a photoshoot or after? I don’t perform an ritual but music does help me work a lot. I also make a habbit to bounce back ideas with my close friends to always try and push what I’m doing.
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HOW 15 SUCCES PEOPLE DESCRIB PASSION
5 SSFUL E IBE N.
LIDIYA K. SEPTEMBER 12, 2015
Passion is one of those great things in life that have so many meanings (as it’s a different thing for each and every person), and at the same time can’t really be put into words. Defining it is merely someone’s desire to describe what he feels when he’s in the zone, when he’s found his true calling, when he’s next to the person he’s in love with. So let’s not underestimate the power of passion by limiting it only to love. That’s just your affection for a person. But you can have as strong feelings towards your job, hobby, city, traveling the world, communicating, etc. Whatever yours is, I know one thing: You need to follow it, put your heart and soul into that thing and dedicate as much time as you can.
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If you can’t do something 5 hours a day, every day, you don’t like it enough to be highly successful at it. I use 5 hours as my rule of thumb because it’s ambitious but plausible for most people. If you find something you can do for 5 hours a day, it’s probably worth going at it with all your energy. It’s rare. The upsides for people who can manage it are huge. If you are enamored with the benefits of a pursuit, but cannot work 5 hours a day on it, you are better off exploring other options.
LEO BABUTA –
ZENHABITS.NET
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…passions are built, but interests are discovered. I agree that the person waiting for life to provide them with a passion is a fool. However, I’d say the same of the person hoping they will fall in love with a pursuit that doesn’t interest them…if you’re trying to find out what you want to do with your life, look for sparks. If your interested in a topic, consider mastering it. You don’t need to fall head-overheels in love with a subject to make it your primary focus. Those feelings often come with time. Once again, I feel the approach to finding a career/life path is like finding a relationship. Most people aren’t naive enough to believe that they are going to be instantly in love from the first meeting. But at the same time, if you aren’t at least attracted to someone, there is little potential. The interest needs to be there before you can be passionate.
DAN ANDREWS –
TROPICALMBA.COM
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Finding the passion and purpose in your life is a trial-byfire process. You don’t simply wake up one day and become happy doing one thing forever and ever. Like death, it’s a constant work-in-progress. You must try something, pay attention to how it feels, adjust and then try again. Nobody gets it right on the first try, or the tenth or sometimes even the two-hundredth. It’s something that feels like an inevitability, like you have no choice because this is simply who you are, dysfunction and all. It’s your chosen vehicle towards death. And you’re happy to let it take you there. But you’re under no illusions that it won’t be a bumpy ride or without surprises along the way. Just like few of us experience love at first sight, few will experience passion and meaning at first experience.
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SCOTT H. YOUNG ARE PASSIONS DISCOVERED OR CONSTRUCTED?
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…many of the world’s most successful people dropped out of education entirely. Not because they were stupid – but because they found other areas where they were more skilled that education did not recognise. They created their own passions. If you can find something new that’s growing fast, and get skilled at it early, you’ll find it disproportionately easy to excel because of the lack of competition. And that’s your new passion right there. Passion is attractive. As passion comes from believing you’re unusually good at something, being passionate is a very sincere way of saying, “by the way, I’m awesome”. Passion will persuade people to follow you. It will persuade people to believe in you. But most importantly, passion will persuade yourself
MARK MANSON –
FIND WHAT YOU LOVE AND LET IT KILL YOU
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Passion is simply an emotional state, and a temporary and unstable one at that. The reason passion gets so much credit is that it helps motivate action. And action is what generates results.
OLIVER EMBERTON –
HOW TO FIND YOUR PASSION?
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If you do have a passion, by all means follow it: you’ll learn more about yourself and the world than you would from just sitting in an average office job. But unless you can find a way of making it useful enough for people to pay you to do it, happiness and success aren’t guaranteed. And if you don’t have a passion, don’t worry. Take the time to experiment, focus on producing something of quality that’s useful to people, and let your passion find you.… when starting out, there’s no real way of knowing how things will pan out, which initiatives will be successful, and what you’ll enjoy working on. So you may as well continue with your passion projects at the same time. They’ll keep you sane while you’re grinding away at your business or freelancing career, and they may well turn into something that can make your main business more successful – or even become the main business itself.
STEVE PAVLINA –
AMERICAN SELF HELP AUTHOR
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When I began to write for passion, at first nobody seemed to care. But I kept at it, kept doing the best work I could no matter how many (or how few) paid attention. And slowly over time, people took notice. Why? Because there is something attractive about passion. Our work is more than what we do or make. It’s the entirety of effort that goes into each step of the process. In a sense, it’s what we don’t see. So when you’re sweating and bleeding and loving every minute of it, remember: this is the reward. When we set sail in search of our life’s work, this is what we must seek: passion. Not fame or rewards or riches, but a willingness to quietly do our work, trusting the sowing-and-reaping nature of life. Remembering that good things come in time if we do our jobs well. So where does that leave us? Where, practically, can you go from here? Strive to do your work with gratitude and generosity. Because this part is not you paying your dues or delaying gratification until payday. This is the best it gets.
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ROB MAKINGITANYWHERE.COM
You probably don’t need any help “finding your passion”. I know what I like doing. Chances are that you do too. You don’t need to “find your passion”. Just do more of the things you like doing. If you’re not sure what you like to do, find more things to say yes to, and see how much you enjoy them.
JEFF GOINS –
GOINSWRITER.COM
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You are a lucky person if that kind of passion comes into your life once or twice. If it stays with you for years and drives your career, you are blessed. You can get that passion in your life. You can get it for your job, for your lovers and partners, and even for the place where you live. Contrary to what some self-help gurus say, passion does not come from choosing the right people and things in your life. It does not come from people and things at all. Passion comes from you and only you. And it goes wherever you want it to. If you want passion in your life, there is only one way to get it. Care. Care about your job. Care about your spouse. Care about your house, your town, and your country. The more you care, the greater your passion. The greater your passion, the earlier you’ll rise eager to tend to what you care about.
JOEL RUNYON –
IMPOSSIBLEHQ.COM
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EXTREM SUCCES IT’S ALL ABOUT PASSION CRAIG BALLANTYNE NOVEMBER 28, 2017
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“If you don’t get up at 3 a.m. and want to do your work, you’re wasting your time.” – HAROLD EDGERTON
Take another look at today’s quote by Harold Edgerton, the pioneering researcher in the field of stroboscopy and ultra-highspeed photography: “If you don’t get up at 3 a.m. and want to do your work, you’re wasting your time.” Three o’clock in the morning seems extreme to me, but I understand exactly what Edgerton meant. Have you ever been involved in some project or scheme that so arrested your imagination that you found yourself waking up early to get at it — sometimes as early as 3 a.m.? It’s amazing what you can do when you are consumed by passion. Wake up early. Work long hours. Skip meals. Focus with laser-sharp intensity. And get up early the next day and happily do it again. You are a lucky person if that kind of passion comes into your life once or twice. If it stays with you for years and drives your career, you are blessed. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be passionate about all three of the major decisions you must make in your life: what you do, where you do it, and with whom? You can get that passion in your life. You can get it for your job, for your lovers and partners, and even for the place where you live. Contrary to what some self-help gurus say, passion does not come from choosing the right people and things in your life. It does not come from people and things at all. Passion comes from you and only you. And it goes wherever you want it to. If you want passion in your life, there is only one way to get it. Care. Care about your job. Care about your spouse. Care about your house, your town, and your country. The more you care, the greater your passion. The greater your passion, the earlier you’ll rise eager to tend to what you care about.
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AARON IFFLET “I’m so lucky that I don’t consider training a chore, its part of my everyday routine. I motivate myself to become better, fitter every session, it just comes naturally.”
HUMO MAYA
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“Spirituality, frequency, vibrations it’s what I love & it’s the music I listen to and it’s the inspiration behind my work. It’s who I am.”
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GRACE JONES
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“I don’t have to think about it, it comes as second nature to me”
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BR BUT
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RANDY TCHEK “I love making people feel more confident and beautiful. It’s the best feeling, its why I love my job.”
11 INSPI PEOPLE FOUND -ESS TH PASSION BILL MURPHY JR. APRIL 2, 2015
IRING E WHO SUCC HEIR N There is no shortage of people who took their passions--the things they would and often did do for free--and turned them into wildly successful new ventures. Here are 11 such people who pursued their passions with faith that fortune would follow.
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1.BRANDON STANTION Stanton arrived in New York from Chicago in 2010. A self-taught photographer who had just wound up his short-lived bond trading career, he had the goal of photographing 10,000 people on New York City streets. His photoblog was basically ignored for the first year, but then it took off. Now, Humans of New York is massively popular, and Stanton has parlayed his success into two book deals.
2.JIM KOCH A Harvard Business School graduate and consultant with Boston Consulting Company, Koch took the Austrian beer recipe that had been in his family for generations and used it to launch Samuel Adams (Boston Beer Company). With Budweiser, Coors, and Miller now owned by foreign companies, Boston Beer Company is now the largest American brewery.
a Pro Bowl defensive end in the NFL, always loved food--especially barbecue--and told me in an interview that he was “always cooking” on his days off. After retirement, he launched a successful barbecue restaurant, and patented a way to debone spare ribs. He then convinced investor Daymond John to invest in his company in an episode of Shark Tank.
3.AL “BUBBA” BAKER A former Naval Flight Officer, Michel attended Harvard Business School and then launched Military.com, one of the first social networks in America, and Affinity Labs, both of which he ultimately sold to Monster Worldwide. (I wrote about Michel in my 2010 book, The Intelligent Entrepreneur.)
4. CHRIS MICHEL
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5. JENNIFER HYMAN & FLEISS Business school classmates Hyman and Fleiss turned their passion for fashion into Rent the Runway, which now has five brick-and-mortar stores and offers over 50,000 designer dresses for rent.
6. YVON CHOUINARD An avid climber, Chouinard bought a second-hand forge and began to make his own equipment. Ultimately he founded Pata
7. DEBBI FIELDS Fields was only 20 years old when she started selling homemade chocolate cookies--a tiny business that she and her husband, Rands Fields, ultimately grew into Mrs. Fields, which now has and 390 locations around the United States and 4,000 employees.
8. WENDY KOPP Kopp turned her senior thesis at Princeton University into Teach for America, a $229-million-a-year nonprofit organization that places graduates from some of America’s top colleges and universities as teachers in challenged public schools.
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9. BILL GATES Right, he created Microsoft. Long before that, however, he was an amateur programmer who was passionate enough about computers that in the eighth grade, he managed to get excused from math class to design things like early video games.
10. KEVIN PLANK A football player at the University of Maryland, Plank designed shirts that could wick away sweat, and convinced his former teammates who went on to play professionally to try his product and share it with their teammates. The company that resulted, Under Armour, had $2.3 billion in revenue in 2013.
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What did Disney spend his time doing while growing up? Well, working--but also drawing, from an early age. He was pretty young when he sold his first drawing (of a neighbor’s horse). Disney launched several unsuccessful animation companies before coming up with Mickey Mouse in 1928.
11. WALT DISNEY
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INDEX Manson, Mark. “Find What You Love and Let It Kill You.” Mark Manson, 6 Dec. 2017, markmanson.net/find-what-you-love. K, Lidiya. “How 15 Successful People Describe Passion.” Let's Reach Success, 10 Nov. 2017, letsreachsuccess.com/2015/09/12/describe-passion/. “Extreme Success: It's All About Passion.” Early To Rise, 14 May 2013, www.earlytorise.com/extreme-success-its-all-about-passion/. Jr., Bill Murphy. “11 Inspiring People Who Followed Their Passions and Found Amazing Success.” Inc.com, Inc., www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/ here-s-how-to-turn-your-passion-into-a-fortune.html. Bell, Gabriel, et al. “Meet The Fashion Set's Cake Boss.” Amirah Kassem Bonilla Flour Shop Twitter, www.refinery29.com/amirah-kassem-flourshop. Athanasakou, Susan. “Greek Word of the Day: Meraki: Doing It with Love, Passion and a Lot of Soul.” Greeker Than The Greeks, greekerthanthegreeks.blogspot.com/2015/03/lost-in-translation-word-of-daymeraki.html. “Ventrix Photography.” Facebook - Log In or Sign Up, www.facebook. com/pg/VentrixPhotography/pho “Alisha Phichitsingh (@Alishaphichitsingh) • Instagram Photos and Videos.” Instagram, www.instagram.com/alishaphichitsingh/. tos/?ref=page_internal. oogle, www.google.com/search?q=la%2Besquina&tbm=isch&source=lnt&tbs=isz%3Al&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6u-a9uf3XAhUEON8KHf1bBDkQpwUIHw&biw=811&bih=622&dpr=2#imgdii=VaY_ImVGAGQOpM:&imgrc=jAD80 Facebook - Log In or Sign Up, www.facebook.com/pg/flourshopny/ photos/.
COLOPHON This book was designed and styled by Anisha Subberwal. The photography is also done by Anisha Subberwal. This book was printed at The Village Copier. The font that is being used is Grotesque MT. All the credits for the article are stated at the end of each article.
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