In my trip to US early December, I had a chance to dine in a 176-year-old restaurant. What an impressing number. The restaurant is a family-run business with 5-6 generations on it already. The food was great and I liked it a lot with fresh and delicious seafood, well-served in a cold night outside, but warm inside.
The food is good, no surprise. Yet, my surprise was not the food itself, it was another one. It came to my interest once I overheard the main waiter, who hosted us, introduced about the restaurant and what they are proud of.
He stood there right behind my back, with his voice full of energy, talking about the food, the restaurant and his recommendation to us about wine and food for the night. You can’t miss the passion through his voice. 
And I couldn’t help myself to be addicted to the voice and started looking back to find who the guy was on my back. I couldn’t help but had to ask him if I could take a picture with him. The restaurant was great, the food was great. But he was the one who filled up the last piece to make it a completely beautiful night.
And why was that? From his energetic voice, I can feel that he is very proud of the restaurant, of the great food and services of the restaurant as well as the legacy that they have built, in the last 176 years. I can feel that he is very proud of the work that he’s doing. And that certainly sparked the fire within me that night. One more time, it confirmed that if you are passionate about what you are doing, you would do it well, not mentioning the fact that your passion would also help to clear your depression, tiredness, even if you have to spend long hours working through whatever you need to work on. Isn’t it great?
And passion is greatly contagious. That night, I couldn’t help myself, but had to stand up, taking picture with the guy and let him know that his passion had got me. Look at his face and his smile. Fulfillment and happiness are certainly there, don’t you see?
Ask yourself if you are working with passion or not? Ask yourself if you are proud of what you’re doing? If you are proud of the company you are working for? If not, I would challenge you to fix that. Either work on it for yourself to find your passion or find another place where you can really align your passion with the work you do. Most of the time, it would require you to change: change your attitude, change your thoughts. Start with you, not with the company. And I would hope from that you can have those happy smiles like the man in the picture that I am lucky to meet here. And remember, your happy smiles can be that greatly contagious to people around you as well.
