Hey everyone! 🙂 We’ve now reached the end of the year — how has your year been? Are you looking forward to 2016?

Initially I was thinking of not writing a 2015 year-end review (and possibly stop my public year-end reviews), as I wasn’t sure if anyone even followed my reviews. But a PE reader, Jessica Gonzalez, recently sent in a comment saying that she is looking forward to reading my 2015 review, which surprised me as I hadn’t mentioned anything about writing a year-end review on PE this year. The only way someone would know would be if he/she is a long-time reader who followed my past reviews, so thanks, Jessica! 🙂 If writing this would matter to even one person, then yes, I’ll continue to write my annual reviews on PE, at least for this year. 🙂

Overall, I’d say this year has been a year of distractions and health concerns. But first, let me start with the positives.

2015: Positive Highlights

My first major milestone this year is actually a financial one. During the start of the year, I set a personal goal to hit six-figures in my business revenue (I stopped announcing monetary goals since 2014 because I feel money is the result of giving value, and since this result is not always immediate, it then becomes pointless to give it a yearly deadline). I’m happy to say that I’ve achieved this goal this year. I haven’t done my final accounting as the year isn’t over yet as of this writing, but based on current figures, my annual revenue is up by at least 40%, and my profit, 50%. This is despite retiring 2 of my lucrative product lines, Blogging Success Program and The Passive Income System, as I didn’t feel they fit with my long-term vision for PE.

To me that’s great, as that means more cash reserves for future plans, be it hiring help, buying new equipment, or perhaps migration. This achievement is actually long overdue as the income I was earning was quite “low” considering PE’s reach or the value I’ve been giving, largely because I’m not sales-driven as much as I’m value-driven. I had originally set this monetary target as a personal challenge, both as a coach and business owner. I felt that in order for me to effectively coach other business owners to achieve business excellence, I needed to first achieve this as a personal milestone. I’m glad to have now done so. 🙂

Now that I’ve realized this goal, I plan to return to big-picture goals like content creation and course building. This may well cause a dip in my income next year since I won’t be focused on short-term gains, but I believe that as long as my big-picture focus is right (to give value and help others), everything will sort itself out.

My second positive highlight is seeing more clients and course participants through their transformations. With my focus on income building, I’ve also been spending much time on courses and coaching. With this, I’ve witnessed many major transformations in my coachees this year. Just to name a few…

1. a course participant who, after procrastinating on weight loss for over 10 years, has lost 7.5kg (16.5lbs) in 2 months
2. a client who, in just 3 months, started a new book project, wrote all her book content, secured a publishing deal, and is publishing her new book next year — and she is a first-time author!
3. a client who discovered her passion and is working on switching careers to an entirely different field;
4. a client who, after many years of being troubled by a negative past, has finally let it go and is now living as her true authentic self;
5. a course participant who, in just 3 months, started her business to help girls with needs and has swiftly built her blog with a budding readership despite her day job and family commitments; and
6. a course participant who, after 11 years of procrastinating on her self-healing, has achieved all-round transformations in her career, health, and family relationships, plus has 2 job interviews waiting for her!

To me, their amazing transformation is merely a taste of what’s to come in the years, decades ahead. And I look forward to seeing more great changes ahead. 🙂

My third highlight is my PA (personal assistant). After being overwhelmed with work for a while, I finally hired a PA in March. Now, I’ve actually been hiring help since 2011 by way of contractors and a VA agency. While helpful, I found outsourcing tiring after a while as I had to continually brief and re-brief people every time there was a new task, since outsourcing is transient by nature. I soon realized that what I really needed was a single-point of contact, a PA who would support me in a series of tasks while competent enough to pick up new skills and grow as my business expands.

In comes my assistant Lina. She is actually a long-time reader of PE and has been following my work since 2012. In fact, the whole process that led me to hire her was really serendipitous — she was contacting me for advice one fine day (on an unrelated matter), and after some exchanges, I saw an opportunity to hire her. Subsequently, I set up a simple work arrangement between us and she has been an amazing help. Come next year, I’ll be having her on part time to take on more tasks, and I’m excited about that. 🙂

2015: The Downs

Along with the ups, there have been downs. On the personal front, this year has been fraught with health sagas. I had a record number of hospital/clinic visits this year, either for my mom, dad, or myself (but more for my parents than me). These were not “positive” visits like visiting the hospital in preparation for a baby, but “negative” visits where you follow up on symptoms/ailments that may turn out to be serious issues — and has actually turned out to be so in some cases. My mom, in particular, has been diagnosed with several health problems. Both my parents also had to go through a surgery this year (my dad broke his collarbone at work which I mentioned in this post). While everything is fine for now, next year will see more treatment visits and possibly uncovering of new issues, which I see as a natural part of old age. As for me, mine were follow-ups on symptomatic signs that turned out to be nothing (in fact got a very good overall report for my health), so all is good.

The second “down” point I’ve experienced this year is overwhelm from all the connections I’ve built since starting my blog. I wrote about this in my 2014 review (under the part on distractions and Dunbar’s number), and was dismayed to see that I’ve been fighting the same thing this year. The truth is that during the past 2 years, I’ve begun to feel like my life isn’t my life, and that as long as I’m alive and awake, I’ll always be expected to read, tend to others’ requests, emails, messages, questions, comments, etc. (I’m not talking about course/coaching emails which are part of my work). A part of me feels obligated to tend to these due to my life purpose; another part, afraid of disappointing others if I don’t reciprocate. This has unfortunately led to much unhappiness and misery as I no longer have my own life or time to work on my own Q2 goals, including the mental space to write new content. This is something I wish to change as of 2016.

The third thing really isn’t a “down” point as much as it’s an issue to be addressed. Now that PE is entering its 8th year, it’s no longer just a blog or coaching business, but an online business with multiple arms and layers of complexities. This has caused me to be pulled in different directions with different responsibilities. No longer am I just the coach or writer — I’m also the CTO, CEO, COO, editor, producer, marketer, coder, administrator, designer, and content creator. Coupled with the fact that the web landscape isn’t static (no business landscape is) and there are more changes than ever with the huge influx of web entrants in the past 5 years, these have kept my hands full with background operations and plans on how to keep PE relevant and at top quality, many of which are not visible to the blog reader.

While most business owners will start to hire people and set up teams at this point, I’m not sure if this is a business model that I aspire to have. Ultimately, my passion is to help the world, not to manage people and deal with turnover/recruitment/managerial issues so that I can help the world. Most importantly, I believe it is possible for me to scale up my operations with a very lean setup (i.e., with myself and 1–3 assistants), without having to hire a big team of people. More on this in my plans for 2016.

Last but not least, the death of my cat, Nancy, was a saddening event. Even though Nancy has passed away for more than 11 months, I continue to miss him from time to time. His death — along with several other events this year — made me realize that often times, the death of someone really causes the most pain to the living, not the person who died. This made me realize that much of our pain regarding the dead is often a reflection of our own pain about what we feel we’re missing as well as our own views regarding life and death vs. something that reflects the true nature of death. Death, at the end of the day, is a natural part of life (just like illness), and when we stop resisting it, we can then start to live more fully and in the present.

My Plan for 2016: Returning to Scale

As 2016 approaches, my direction is clear:

1. Return to scale-based work. This means focusing on content creation, course building, and anything to do with building PE as a platform.
2. Remove anything that requires or demands 1-1 attention, so that I have the mental energy and time to focus on the scale-based stuff.
3. Prioritize my own needs and health (including being there for my loved ones). This year, I realized that I have sacrificed much of my health in trying to be there for everyone and anyone, and I can’t do this anymore now that I’m in my 30s. In a way I’m glad to realize this when I’m 31, and not when I’m 40 or 50. Hopefully my past self-neglecting actions (like sleeping late) haven’t created too much damage on my health.

With these 3 guidelines,

1. I plan to return to creating more content. Because I believe in quality over quantity, and every article (and video) takes me a lot of time to write (and produce), I think one article or video every week would be a nice target.
2. I won’t be doing 1-1 coaching anymore, at least not in terms of individual coaching packages. I’ve removed my 1-1 coaching page since June and I’m wrapping up the last of my 1-1 coaching engagements in the next month, after which I won’t take on anymore clients.

   Why remove 1-1 coaching? For years I was flicking between having 1-1 coaching and not having 1-1 coaching, and each time I would justify reopening for new clients by increasing my rates (to commensurate the opportunity cost involved). Yet, I’ve come to realize that at the scale I operate my business, it’s difficult for me to continue 1-1 coaching without raising my fee to an exorbitant level. The reality is that 1-1 coaching comes with a very high level of customization, tailoring, and follow-up, and when a client signs up for my coaching, they aren’t just paying for my time — they are paying for results, transformation, and dedicated support. Hence, whenever I opened myself up to 1-1 coaching, I wound up devoting a lot of my personal time and energy into each client’s case, time that would get taken away from say, running a new course where I could help 30 people simultaneously, or writing an article that could benefit 10,000 people in a week. Ultimately I really enjoy working with people be it at a 1-1 or group level, but if I stay true to my bigger mission of helping everyone in their growth, it’s clear that I need to return to group-, scale-based mediums to help others and remove the 1-1 channels.

   This doesn’t mean an end to all things 1-1 though, as I may integrate 1-1 coaching into my live courses as add-on tiers. Meaning, a limited availability, 1-1 coaching tier where live course participants could pay an add-on fee for 1-1 calls that would build on the live course experience — similar to what I did for Soulmate Journey and Anti-Procrastination in 2015. This could work as it’d add synergy to my live courses, as opposed to standalone 1-1 engagements which stood independently from my projects.

3. With the distancing from 1-1 coaching, I’ll be focusing on course building. For 2016, I plan to build a new, self-administered members portal for my current courses — and along with that, upgrading my existing video courses (this upgrading will be a 2-year long project though, since I have a handful of courses). Ultimately I wish to move away from live course, and for me to do so, I need to create a very comprehensive and immersive course experience that anyone can easily follow through without my teaching live. This is something I’ll be working on in 2016, starting with Anti-Procrastination Program.
4. On the business front, I’ll be adopting new systems and processes that’ll help me manage PE more effectively. In the past month I’ve registered a new newsletter service and bought a comprehensive list-building plugin that I’ll be implementing in 2016. If all goes well, they should make it easier for me to analyze and improve on my list building methods.
5. Last but not least, I’ll be safeguarding my personal priorities and space. As the internet becomes increasingly noisy and cluttered, and as I become connected with more people by way of my blog, I no longer have the time or energy to deal with individual communications without being mentally exhausted in the process. What I really need is a “gatekeeper,” someone to help me screen and separate the wheat from the chaff, as I regain my focus on the things that matter. This is where my assistant comes in. This year, I’ve already been having Lina manage my emails, social media accounts, and messages, and this has helped me free up mental space to focus on other things. Next year I plan to have her be more involved in PE’s operations as we explore the areas she can add the most value, and this is going to help me in points #1, #3, and #4 above.

In short, 2015 has been a personal year of realignment and regrouping, and for 2016, I hope to get back to increasing reach and creating more great content through articles, videos, and courses, and supporting all of you in your life’s journey. 🙂

How About You?

How about you? How has your 2015 been? What are your goals and plans for 2016? I recommend you to spend 30 minutes to reflect on your year and write your plans for the new year — it’ll be worth it, I promise. 🙂

Check out these posts as you do your year-end review and set your resolutions:

• Why I Do Year End Reviews (And 6 Questions for Your Review)
• 58 Resolutions For Anytime in the Year

What do you do when you want to learn EVERYTHING? What do you pursue when you have many passions, interests in different things? I often get this question so I’d like to answer this in today’s post.

Gaming

First, let me share my passion story. When I was really young, like 7, my brother introduced me to video games. I still remember the first console our dad bought for us was Micro Genius, an 8-bit console. Ancient, I know — this was in 1991. One of the first games we played was Super Mario. We subsequently got newer consoles as they got released over the years, from Sega Genesis to Dreamcast to Playstation to PlayStation 2.

My brother and I would play games together, though as we grew older, I became the one playing the games. From RPGs, to fighting games, to horror games, to action-adventure games, I played them ALL.

I didn’t just play as a casual gamer too — whenever I played a game, I would play it to the extreme where I would get absolute high scores, learn every Easter egg, unlock every bonus, and play it continuously to ad nauseam. For the RPGs / story games, I could even retell the scene and the exact dialogue. And we’re talking about over 100 games in total!

My intense gaming would continue into my teens, all the way till I graduated from university.

Web Development

When I was 14 (1998-1999), the internet boom came. Almost everyone got a PC and my parents, despite their limited savings, pulled together money to get one for me too.

During this period, I learned to navigate the web, use IRC and ICQ (which were the most popular chat programs back in the day), and play LAN games. One day, when chatting with an online friend, he told me about this guy from China who was running a popular website (that was in Chinese) on desktop enhancements like wallpapers, skins, screensavers, and the like — and supposedly making good money off it!

Intrigued, I thought, You can earn money just from making websites? If I could earn money and get started on my long-term goal to support my parents and do them proud, then I was all for it. So I looked up, “How to start a website.”

Within that week, I created my first site. Since I already knew that desktop enhancements was a tried and proven topic, I based my website on this topic, but with my own style and content. Every day, I would rush home after school to build my site. From HTML coding, to web design, to graphic editing, to online marketing, to web administration, I learned everything needed to build a great site.

My site grew, fast. Because I was massively building the site, marketing it, and creating a lot of good content, I was gaining quick traffic. Within a year, I was getting over 100,000 visitors a month. My site had evolved into one of the largest portals online for desktop enhancements. I was sort of living a double life: while in the day, I was this introverted kid in school; outside of school, I was the owner of this large web portal that many people were visiting. Every day, I worked on my site tirelessly; every day, I updated it with something new. I was creating a lot of high quality content on my blog and getting immense satisfaction from doing so.

By then, earning money was no longer the key to me. I was more enticed by what the web could offer — the ability to learn new skills, to create something of value, to meet talented webmasters online, and to make a difference to others.

So, I began to launch more sites. And by sites, I mean many of them:

By 2001, I had created 10 different websites, each with their unique content and layout. Each site became very popular and were receiving over half a million visitors a month in total! I was having all these visitors from around the world visiting my sites, sending endless requests, and leaving grateful feedback. This web experience was one of the best things that happened to me in my teenage years and I remember feeling very happy and excited whenever I was working on my websites.

Web, Graphic Design

During this period, I also cultivated an interest in web and graphic design. While I started off with absolutely no knowledge in it — I was in the science stream and knew absolutely nothing about web/graphic design — I picked up the skills myself by randomly downloading graphic software, reading up online, and spending countless hours fiddling in it.

Design was fun in a way. I saw it as my way of connecting with seasoned wallpaper/skin creators online, who had been around and creating digital works long before I started my sites. I found it aspirational that everyone was creating such beautiful artworks and wanted to be great in my craft too. I constantly studied others’ materials to see what they were doing, and used them as benchmarks to get better at my work.

So be it ICQ skins, winamp skins, wallpapers, web layouts, or digital artwork, I would spend many hours working in Photoshop and perfecting my creations daily. It was normal for me to work till the wee hours every day, like 3-5 am, and then wake up at 6:30 am and go to school like a zombie. I still remember my dad would rebuke me and ask me to sleep earlier, which obviously didn’t work. In total, I created nearly a thousand desktop enhancements during those years!

Some of many wallpapers I created then:

Some winamp skins I created:

A couple of my digital artworks:

Business, Marketing

By 2002, I began to drift away from online. Part of it was to focus on my real life priorities; part was because my webmaster friends were beginning to drift away for that very reason. One by one, I stopped renewing my domains; one by one, I shut down my sites. By 2005, all my sites were gone.

When it came to university in 2003, it was time to choose my course of study. With no strong passion in the available courses, I opted for Business Administration. It seemed like it would be a good choice, one that was in alignment with my goal to earn a lot of money.

Over the next 3 years, I dedicated myself to making the best out of my university course. I soaked myself in everything the school had to offer, from the coursework, to classes, to case studies, to project work. To build up my leadership skills, I participated in core-curricular activities and case study competitions. I also started a graphic/web design business and gave private tuition 3 times a week (2 separate things) as part of leveraging my skills to earn money.

Finally, since I specialized in Marketing, I pitted myself against a thousand candidates for a highly coveted internship in a Fortune 100 company, which was essentially the dream job for marketers then. After multiple rigorous tests and interviews, I got the internship. I would eventually get a Marketing job offer after a grueling 2.5-month internship. I also graduated from my school as the top student in Marketing.

I would later discover my real passion and purpose — to grow and help others achieve their highest potential — which ironically turned out to have nothing to do with video games, web development, web or graphic design, business and marketing, or even making money. I’ve since turned my passion into my career, from discovering my ideal vision, to quitting my day job, to pursuing my passion with no money, to earning my first passion dollar, to building my skills, to turning my blog into one of the top personal development blogs in the world, to hitting over $100,000 in annual revenue (I share the early steps of my passion journey in my passion series). It’s been 7 years of doing this and I can’t imagine doing anything else for life.

5 Lessons I’ve Learned in My Journey

Now, why am I sharing this story? There are 5 lessons I want to highlight here:

#1. It’s okay to want to learn, do everything

I’ve a lot of readers who tell me they are interested in EVERYTHING and they want to learn, do EVERYTHING. They in turn freeze up and do nothing because they don’t know what they should pursue over others.

But, guess what? It’s okay to want to learn EVERYTHING. It’s also okay to want to try your hand at EVERYTHING. After all, if you don’t try, then how are you supposed to know what exactly you like?

During my passion journey, I was constantly learning, exploring different things. Firstly, there were the video games which I played intensely in my childhood and teens. Every time I played a game, I would immerse myself in its universe. With 100 games, it was as if I had been in 100 different universes. With anime, I would watch them intensely and be very wrapped up in everything about each show, from the characters to the plot. When it came to web development, I soaked myself in everything I could find on the WWW. I started with WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) cookie-cutter site builders but quickly switched to coding HTML myself when I realized the limitations of such editors. I saw people creating fancy graphics and I wanted to create high-quality artwork just like them — and then started to learn graphic editing by myself. I created a website and felt it wasn’t enough — I ended up having 10 whole websites in less than 3 years because I wanted to try my hand at everything. In total, I created a total of 13 sites during my teen years!

Now some of you may say you don’t have time to do everything. Yet, trying everything doesn’t mean that you quit your job or studies to do things full time. It literally means what it says: Try. Dabble. Explore! For example,

• Interested in becoming a YouTuber? Start a YouTube channel and post a couple of videos for fun.
• Interested in drawing? Do some sketches and post them on Facebook for feedback; join a drawing club to meet other artists.
• Interested in stand-up comedy? Practice a few stand-up routines by yourself, then try it out at your local comedy club.
• Interested in cooking? Experiment with some recipes; start a food blog. 
• Interested in coaching? Read coaching books, join a weekend workshop to learn some basics, and offer to coach your friends for free.

What are your interests? Your passions? Your hobbies? Write them down, and then start pursuing them, perhaps one or a few at a time. Don’t restrict yourself or hold yourself back. Experiment and let yourself learn freely, like a child. Let yourself soak up in everything the universe has to offer. Embrace everything with curiosity. 🙂

#2. As you learn/do, you’ll learn new things about yourself

The great thing about trying everything is that you’ll readily get insights into what you like / don’t like. Rather than wonder if X thing is right for you or not, you can get this answer by testing it out and seeing how you feel when doing so. The great thing is that you’ll probably get some good insights after a while without literally having to try everything.

Each time I pursued something to the nth degree, I would eventually realize something about myself or what I was doing. The realizations were never big ahas — most of the times they were unconscious shifts — that contributed to me discovering my purpose later on. For example,

1. After playing the nth game and getting the top score for the nth time, I began to realize that I wasn’t getting much out of games. I realized that I was putting all this effort into gaming — yet, getting nothing back in return. I realized that it made more sense for me to get out there, live my life, and create my adventures than live vicariously through fictional characters. I subsequently distanced myself from games and worked on building my real life.
2. With web development, after making so many sites and bringing every one of them to success, I began to lose interest in web development as a whole. In retrospect, I was really passionate about what I was learning and creating and the people I was meeting through my sites, not web development per se. Websites were more like the proxy for me to build my skills, create content, and add value to others.
3. Same for web/graphic design — while I developed a good level of skills and even started a web/graphic design business, it was ultimately a proxy for me to grow, learn, and develop myself, vs. my true passion.

These insights slowly nudged me to my true purpose later on.

How long does it take to get such realizations?

Firstly, think of awareness as a gradual process. As opposed to thinking of it as you reaching sudden “enlightenment” one day, I’d like it’s more of a gradual shift — marked by several small revelation moments — where you become more aware day after day. This awareness is built up through experience. Constant self-reflection is also important to accelerate your self-discovery — and I share my exercise to discover your life purpose here: Discover Your Life Purpose in the Next 30 Minutes

Secondly, it depends on how far along you are in your growth journey. If you’re 16 and just getting started on your personal growth, your realization probably isn’t going to happen tomorrow. If you’re 30, have always stuck to what’s “safe,” and have never brought a goal to fruition, then there’s probably some work to be done too. If you’re 40 and have lived a busy life pursuing many goals, then it’s probably not long before you figure out what draws you.

With the things you like, continue doing more of them. With the things you dislike, cut down on them or drop them altogether. The goal here is to keep building on your likes while distancing from your dislikes. This will eventually lead you to your ideal path.

It is very important to note that “exploring” comprises 2 parts: exploring in breadth(variety) of interests and exploring in depth (intensity) of each interest. Some people say to me: “Hey I’ve been trying, exploring so many things; why is it that I don’t know my passion yet?”

My question back then is: “Well when you ‘explore,’ how exactly are you ‘exploring’? Are you just tapping and going at every single thing? Are you just searching Pinterest and checking things out on Google? Or are you rigorously bringing your goals to fruition?” Because while you should absolutely drop the goals that don’t interest you, ultimately you need to learn to see your goals through to their highest results. There are important learning points that come from doing so, such as developing a core competency, persistence, grit, hard work, critical thinking, and the ability to work through obstacles and overcome them. (For more on “breadth” and “depth,” read How to Know What You Want To Do In Life.)

The point here isn’t to turn your exploration into some race. You want to use this time to properly learn, explore, and pursue your interests to the highest level, as you figure out what you really want to do in life.

#3. All knowledge is applicable — just a matter of how you use it

In the opening, reader Nana asked what she can do about the things she wants to learn, such as philosophy, history, religion, and anthropology. Besides enjoying the knowledge, what can she do about it?

Well, this depends on the field. As I’m not directly familiar with these fields, I can’t comment on the above. Rather, I’ll put it as this way:

1. When you learn, it doesn’t mean the knowledge must be applicable right away or at all. Applicable as in being put to practical use, say to earn money or get a job. Sometimes knowledge is meant to enrich, to help us understand more about the world, and to push us to think critically. These are a kind of application too.
2. Just because the knowledge can’t be applied right away in the practical sense doesn’t mean it’s useless. See #1.
3. Your newly acquired knowledge and heightened awareness will come into play, be it directly or indirectly, some time down the road. It just depends on whether you’re able to synthesize the raw knowledge in your mind for the respective situation and whether you’re able to spot opportunities when they arise. Think of knowledge as an essence that’s formless and shapeless, and it’s up to you on how you want to use this knowledge.

Example #1: Steve Jobs and Calligraphy

Most of us know Steve Jobs as one of the key shapers of today’s tech, but what’s surprising is that he actually studied calligraphy when in school. Actually, just one course, and he took it after he dropped out of college — because Jobs didn’t want to spend his parents’ money on expensive tuition as they weren’t rich. Despite dropping out, he spent the next 18 months dropping in on the college classes, including a calligraphy course.

This calligraphy course proved to be monumental for Jobs would later use what he learned in the course and build that into the Mac.

As it turned out, what Jobs learned in the calligraphy course didn’t just influence the design of Mac — it also influenced how he approached the creation of products at Apple. Apple products — MacBook, iPhone, iPad, and iPod — would become associated with a sense of artistry and sleek visual style that’s equally matched by functionality, something which subsequently set them apart from all their competitors.

Example #2: Natural Ecosystem and Architecture

Have you heard of a mall that can keep itself cool without air-conditioning? Well, Eastgate Shopping Centre does just that. It’s the first shopping center in the world with a natural cooling system — it can cool itself without air-conditioning, despite being located in Harare which can go up to 40°C / 104°F in the hottest season! How does it do that?

Its architect, Mick Pearce, got the idea from termite mounds. Termites can only survive when their environment has a constant temperature of 30°C / 86°F as that’s the temperature needed to grow fungus, which is their food. Termites cleverly keep their mounds at a constant temperature by regularly creating new vents and closing off old ones. Since warm air rises, convection air currents then draw the warm air through the openings and out of the mounds. The constant opening and closing off of vents helps maintain the heat and humidity inside the mound as well.

Yet, how would Pearce, who studied at an architectural school, know anything about this though? As it turns out, Pearce happens to have a passion for understanding natural ecosystems, a field that extends far outside of architecture.

By implementing this same design, Eastgate Centre is able to use only 10% of the energy than other buildings its size, leading to significant savings. In the first 5 years alone, the building’s owner was able to save $3.5 million from energy savings; Eastgate became a reference of architectural breakthroughs; and Pearce wonmany awards for his work with Eastgate. The design was subsequently used by the Portcullis House in London.

Suppose if Pearce has always kept to studying only architecture and never ventured out in learning, exploring his interests in natural ecosystems. Then perhaps the idea of the natural cooling system wouldn’t have existed (or at least, not invented by Pearce).

Example #3: Web Development, Consumer Goods, Personal Development

When I learned web development, I didn’t anticipate that I would set up a web business in the future or that it would play such a big part of my business today. I just learned it because I was interested to. Subsequently, when I decided to start my self-help business, I was able to leverage my past web knowledge to build my site. Not only that, I also used ideas that I learned while working in my previous job to market my new business — even though my previous industry (consumer goods; skincare) is totally different from personal development.

Would PE be so online-centric if I hadn’t learned web development before? Maybe yes, maybe no. The thing is that we can never predict how the information we learn today can help us in the future. However, what we can do is to learn as much as we can and to explore enthusiastically, with a learning mind. When you gain mastery of the knowledge, you then become more aware of situations where this knowledge can be applied and how to best apply it.

#4. Develop Mastery

Many people ask me how to become great at something. How to start X and become successful. How to pursue Y and make it their living.

Well you got to keep at it. Build your skills. Build your experience. Level up. Earn your credits. There is no shortcut to expertise and success (except if you’re born into the rich/famous, but this is hardly our interest).

How do you choose what area to get good at? Well, you pursue your general areas of interest (see Lesson #2). Keep at the ones that excite you week after week while dropping the ones that don’t. The process of doing the same thing continuously will help you get good at it. Over time, you’ll find that you’ve moved from very lousy to okay. And then, from okay to good. After that, from good to better. Before you know it, you’ve become so good that you’re one of the best in what you do! The goal here is to devote yourself to mastery in what you spend time in.

Perhaps you are worried about developing yourself in a field that you eventually tire of. Perhaps you don’t want to invest your time and energy unless you’re sure it’s something you really like. But as I’ve shared in The Superstar Effect, when you achieve expert status at something, the path to success in other areas does become easier, even if they are unrelated fields. That’s because (1) there will always be soft and hard skills you can carry from one area over to another, and (2) in the process of building mastery in area X, you will likely build connections, credibility, and resources that can then be used in other goals.

So rather than ask “How can I earn money from X?” or “How can I turn X into a living?,” think about how you can become great at X first. When you become a master at something, the possibilities on what you can do with it will be boundless.

On developing mastery:

• Skills Development
• Level Up
• 10,000 Hours To Develop Talent
• Why Do Some People Have Innate Talent? It’s Not Fair!

#5. Your ideal career is something you need to fight for

So you’re not doing work that’s in line with your passion. So you hate what you’re doing. So you wish to work in field X but you can’t find any opportunities.

Well I can tell you that almost everyone starts off working at a place that’s not their ideal job. I was once in jail-like job environment where I was required to stick tape all day long in exactly the same set moves. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone, look at my phone, or go to the loo except during stipulated 5-minute breaks. I felt like I was going to die. I shared before in The Night I Cried where I was trapped in a dreadful job assignment and had a boss I really hated at that time. And before I started PE, I was in a job that I didn’t feel passionate about anymore and couldn’t be more different than what I’m doing now — I was working in a FMCG company (fast moving consumer goods) and leading million-dollar business initiatives for a global skincare brand.

What do you do? Do you let yourself be run over by your situation? Heck no. You step up and make a difference. You fight for what you love and what you believe in.

When you’ve fully implemented Lessons #1, #2, and #4, you would have (1) good clarity of what domain you want to step into and (2) a portfolio of hard and soft skills that you can bring to the table. You are now ready to work toward your ideal career. I’ve written a lot on how to work toward your ideal career:

• Passion or Money?
• How to Discover Your Ideal Career: Your Message and Your Medium
• The Day I Quit My Job to Pursue My Passion: 6 Things to Do Before You Quit Your Job
• Should You Work On a High-Profit Business or Do Something You Love But with Low Money Possibilities?
• Other articles in my passion series

End Note

To Nana and all of you who are cluttered by many passions, interests, remember to just get out there and try, do, and build your mastery. Awareness doesn’t come from sitting down, doing nothing, and feeling fearful/conflicted. Awareness comes from stepping forward to gain the experience. I wish you all the best in your passion journey. ♥

Check out all the articles in my Passion & Money series: How to Pursue Your Passion & Earn Money (series)