Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Passion 1

By Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
In my life I have been very fortunate to be around many very intelligent people and many people who are very passionate about their profession.  Passion and intelligence are not mutually exclusive, nor are they substitutes for each other.  You can be quite passionate about something, yet somewhat ignorant of it.  Likewise you can be quite intelligent or knowledgeable about a field yet have little or no obvious passion for it.
What I have noticed however is that people who are passionate about something also tend to be the most effective in it.  The same cannot be said for intelligence or knowledge.  Possessing intelligence or knowledge, while desirable, does not automatically make one effective. 
In my experience this also holds for risk managers.  Those risk managers who are passionate about risk management tend to be the most effective.  Those who are simply the most intelligent or knowledgeable tend to be quite ineffective (again in my experience).  Ironically though, those who are the most passionate also become the most practically intelligent and the most practicably knowledgeable.  Hmmmm…  Maybe it is practical knowledge and practical intelligence that I should be blogging about.  For now, I’ll stick to passion as the key ingredient.

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