Your Passions are a Garden: Cultivate Them

We’re all on our journeys to discover our passions. It’s one of the key joys in life.

But perhaps the word discover is only part of the story…

I don’t think there is an exact moment when you find your passion like a pile of gold. Your passions are more like cultivating a garden.

Passions are like seeds that we must cultivate and grow

You may discover a passion that you want to spend time on. But once you discover that passion, it is only just a seed. It takes water and continuous care to see the seed grow into something beautiful.

Our passions take cultivating over long periods of time. We must continue to care for them.

I first discovered my passion for startups and entrepreneurship while in college. After college I moved to NYC and my passion for startups sat dormant. The grind of the 9-5, working down on wall street (non-startup vibe) and not meeting new entrepreneurs/startups slowly dwindled my passion.

My garden wasn’t growing. It was decaying.

What I realized, was in college it was easy to connect with startups and entrepreneurs because I played the college kid card. I expressed I was interested in entrepreneurship and most people would meet with me.

As I became a young professional, I didn’t know what tool to use to meet with startups. So, I didn’t.

Part of building and sustaining your passions is finding ways to fit them into your life as life goes on which it inevitably does.

Don’t let your passions die!

This is part of the game of cultivating your garden.

There will always be things that make your passions take the back seat. You need to find ways to get them into the front seat!

I recently started to help a colleague find businesses to invest in and support in the investment process by managing his investors. This role is helping me engage with startups and entrepreneurs again!

Just from this brief step of helping a few hours a week on the side, I am finding that my passion for startups has been reignited.

I am reminded by the importance of spending the time to cultivate my passion and make sure I find ways to spend time on it as much as possible. If I am not actively finding ways to build my passion, then I am just letting my garden die.

Cheers to continually cultivating our gardens!