Kevin Poon : Passion to Profession
Serial entrepreneur Kevin Poon of CLOT, Elephant Grounds, Juice and TOPFIT has been enlisted by Rémy Martin as the first creative to “inspire you to never think about your life’s work as a job”. Here, we get some detail on Kevin’s journey thus far as the Hong Kong native talks about moving off the beaten career path post college, setting up CLOT, the successful streetwear brand and navigating his working life as a “connector”, leading to new fields. I’ve attached session 1 below and you can click through for the rest here.
Session 1: Get Started "Don't be afraid of anything"
I can’t help but draw some parallels with Poon. Whilst I’m not in love with the Rémy Martin spin on things, I do suppose they are cutting the check and perhaps I’m being a little too cynical. I came away after ten minutes feeling unexpectedly challenged, not perhaps by what the marketing campaign they want me to hashtag is but purely by seeing that Kevin’s path has worked for him. There are some great takeaways from each piece. Fearlessness without being bullish is a major one. I think it took me about ten years to be comfortable and somewhat confidentwith the fact I had a decent skill set that wasn’t necessarily confined to one thing.
Unfortunately for me I spent much of these ten years doing jobs that I wasn’t passionate about, putting my creative endeavours on the back burner. I don’t think it’s too late to try and make things happen for me in a creative capacity. Otherwise, Deadbeat simply wouldn’t exist. Session 3, where Kevin chats about being a “connector” is an inspiring piece for me as I feel that’s what I’m trying to establish with the journalistic element to Deadbeat. I love the idea of promoting others work, whether they have a shared vision or not mightn’t particularly matter but I feel the people I have sat down with for interviews so far have been organic. None of it is forced. Those people are passion led and as someone who wants to further the creative ladder in my city, that’s what I’d love to do more of in 2016.
Session 4 is essentially about collaboration. “Teamwork makes the dream work.” Poon uses the narrative of his other creative endeavours to explain that one must know their limits if they want to explore their passions and interests professionally. Again, this is where the creative network I speak of in the Work With Us section comes in. In my experience, that’s something that doesn’t come so naturally in my city and it’s an aspect I’d like to challenge. If you want to make something happen, reach out and ask. There’s no harm in that surely?
The last piece of wisdom Poon imparts is that “There is no quick fix solution to be successful”. It’s something that I have to constantly remind myself of when I’m wondering where my next piece of paid work is going to come from or seeing that my downtime turns into guilt ridden idleness before starting to work again. That being said, just about anyone can draw something from these little digestible two minute videos so when you can, press play and enjoy. Cheers!