The truly rich want to find purpose. There is no greater reward than to see your reaping bear fruit. Purpose has its own master, which is passion. With passion, humanity has given the sum of labour and time to building up great civilisations. In the fields of art, music, architecture, and all the natural and physical sciences, humanity has given to civilisation wonderful advancements to future humankind to benefit future generations.

Singapore had a passionate and purposeful leader in Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Few would describe him as passionate, but it is an apt description because he lived and breathed to advance Singapore and her interests. He never lost sight of his vision of Singapore. He what I term an “Exceptional Leader.”

The mind of a passion filled person is always striving. Whether be it to do better next time than before, or to think about how to improve things that are as they are now, the spirit of betterment is always present. The mind of a passion filled person is a hopeful one, one that harbours great imagination. Their imagination paints a vision of the future, and it is exactly how innovation is born.

“Exceptional leaders” are people particularly tenacious about something. Their minds are constantly brewing about their passions. Out of searching for their perfect vision do they find answers that they find acceptable which the world finds exceptional, like the iPhone, Leonardo da Vinci’s work in architecture and art, and Mozart’s compositions.

The question then comes to mind is: how can I find passion? Is passion really even needed in today’s society?

Humans intrinsically seek pleasure. Naturally, they seek out doing things they are good at. By practicing in doing that thing, they master them. The distinction between good and great is obvious in terms of usability, think the iPhone versus the Blackberry. Oweing to the passion and the vision, the products and outputs of imagination and passion are often revolutionary.

How can I find my passion? Firstly, one needs to be fulfilled in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When one has enough to live by and not be worried about the material day to day, can they begin to seek earnestly the pursuit of passion.

Firstly, the exploratory phase is one where people first find in school. In school, people get to try various subjects, sports, extracurriculars and music as well as the arts. They identify their interests and this is supported by their peer group. Their peer group reinforces their behaviour positively by providing friendship and sharpens their interest as they are able to provide feedback to encourage each other.

Second, the ignitive phase. I term it ignitive as it is a epochal phase of the whole passion process. When someone is ignited with passion, their focus and energy is solely concentrated on achieving. In music practice, the sheer tour de force of a musician inspires a future would be musician such that their performance is always in short, perfect. When one is ignited, their passion is activated and their life finds purpose. The purpose of passion is in essence to become better. Whatever the steps are to achieve a goal, the truly passionate never step down to make it happen.

“One can never quite achieve perfection but if I am your 100% in your eyes that is enough”

Thirdly, the process of refinement. The interest has been found, the ignitive process has been started, the next step would be practice and refinement. Skill and competency is honed by refinement, a constant performance, a constant struggle to beat one’s personal bests. By entering this stage, there is constant reification. This loop of constant reification where one rewards oneself with constant challenge and achievement marks one as a passionate person. Purpose is then found simply put by wanting to better oneself constantly.

Fourthly, flourishing. When one has achieved competency, one begins to exhibit the stage of flourishing: that is, to really excel at their chosen skill. By this stage, the determined practitioner has mastered self discipline and singular focus, both fundamental life skills of the successful individual that are traits in common to that which one sees in people who are recognised to be successes at their chosen field. These two skills are absolutely critical to this whole process of passion finding and making. This kind of productive identity formation is critical for individual development of self identity that is the precursor to innovative products being invented.

Fifth: making a difference. The people who make an impact often do so without intending to do so. A spirit of purpose makes the direction for each day purposeful and working towards a cohesive goal.

Whoever you are whereever you are, if you have fulfilled Maslow’s basic hierarchy of needs, do whatever it takes to find your passion. The rewards of igniting your interest before pursuing passion and in the process developing excellence can be simply put as the raison de entre of human existence.