Fueling People's Passions

After having spoken to a lot of people, I was stunned by how many of them would much rather do something else in life than what they are doing currently. They spoke of their so-called “passion” with so much vigor and zeal that I couldn’t help but imagine a world in which these people had actually lived up to their potential and become for example, great cricketers or musicians, instead of working at a 9-to-5 job. And there was born my personal challenge – to make more people follow their passion.

Amongst all the possible things that could be done to solve this challenge, I thought of starting out with an implementable solution of introducing after-hours workshops at offices, similar to after-hours yoga classes. This would allow people to experiment with their passion as a part-time activity. Although this will not be able to address the issue of people not taking up their passion as a full-time employment opportunity, it attempts to make a step, however small, in that direction. Most corporate offices nowadays make employees work a lot without much regard for the development of their personal hobbies. This is a challenge for companies that want to foster a healthy work environment. Including the workshop as a part of company activities could boost employee morale and goodwill towards the company.

Initially, the workshop will focus only on artists who want to improve their drawing and painting skills. Inclusion of other fields such as poetry, music, sports etc. can be done subsequently post getting feedback from the workshop participants and the sponsoring companies.

A prototypical workshop could look something like the picture below. A 1-day experiment can be conducted across 3 locations in Bangalore for 1 hour each. We could reach out to Amazon, Samsung and Microsoft for the workshop and request them to provide their conference rooms for a period of one hour post 6 PM. Material will be provided to the participants and there would be 2 trained artists apart from the workshop presenter to go around and help them out individually with any issues/queries. Participants would be taught how to sketch an overall drawing, how to draw proportionately and how to create shadow effects. They would also be taught how to mix colors, how to create light and dark patterns as well as when to use different types of paint. They would then be guided in the process of discovering their creative potential on a 1-on-1 basis.

The 3 pilot workshops would cost INR 8650 in total (10 sets of painting brushes at INR 190 each + 10 sets of water paint at INR 225 each + 5 painting boards at INR 300 each + 3 artists for training at INR 1000 each). These resources could be re-used across the 3 workshops being conducted. The hypotheses being tested during each workshop are as follows:

• People are willing to dedicate their time to passion-related workshops post working hours
• Companies would be willing to pay for such a workshop to boost the working culture
• Participants in the workshop get a feeling of accomplishment, having worked on their passion
• Participants in the workshop are eager to attend another such workshop, if given the chance

The pilot workshops will be deemed successful if all or most of the below criteria are met:

• If the participant turnout at the locations is at least 10 people
• Companies are willing to cover at least the basic costs per workshop (INR 8650/3 = INR 2883)
• At least 50% of the participants report a feeling of accomplishment post the workshop
• At least 50% of the participants mention that they would like to be a part of a future workshop