As a second semester senior, I now have a lot more free time on my hands. This means more Minecraft, outings with friends, and no more college applications. It also means I can now further explore my passions such as lifting as well as delve into new interests like rock climbing and golf (both of which, I’ve come to learn, are a lot harder than I thought they’d be). 

Last Thursday, I went with my friends after school to the Stanford golf range to practice my swing, trying to get a more fluid motion. 2 hours and 500 balls later, I was sad to report little improvement in my swing. Instead, my forearms and wrists were tired and my stomach was empty. We decided to head down the road to Town and Country, a complex of restaurants and shops near Stanford. We elected to eat at Gott’s Roadside, a popular, California burger chain. 

Now at this point, you must be wondering why the blog post is called Tomcat. Well, you see, after ordering our food, we struggled to find a table to sit at. So we squeezed in at a long table with benches in between two groups of people. To the left of us were two men sitting across from each other and to the right was this larger group of some 4-5 Stanford students. As we sat down, one of the men to the left of us finished his food and left. The remaining man to the left of us was Tomcat.

Tomcat was a nerdy middle aged man who still reminisced about his high school days. He had ginger hair and an orange mustache and beard and wore the kind of glasses that didn’t have a frame that the glasses were slotted into. He was an odd man. He attended Stanford as part of the class of 2012 but dropped out a third way through his senior year to start working at a biotech company. He now runs a startup with a friend of his. Their company focuses on biotech and investing having around 12 employees.

Tomcat began talking to us after seeing my school’s cross country shirt I was wearing. He said several of his friends went to my high school. This is where the conversation began. We started to ask more questions about what high school he went to, if he graduated from Stanford, and what he does now in life. My friend and him ended up going down a rabbit hole about investing and biotech (my friend knows a lot about the biotech industry because of all the podcasts he listens to) which slowly segued into a discussion about career paths, finance, investment banking, and quantitative trading.

Tomcat began to preach to us his philosophy. He found value in dropping out of Stanford. He claimed that he realized what he wanted to do in life after realizing his passion for biology in his first months in college, deciding to pursue a career in biotech. He said that he didn’t want to remain in school when he could be making a difference in the world and the field that he was passionate about. He expressed his immense passion to a biotech company that he applied for a job at. The company actually recognized his drive and passion for their work, agreeing to hire him despite not having a degree. However, the company urged him to complete his undergraduate degree rather than dropping out. Tomcat, instead, was determined to drop out and debated with the company to let him start working with them earlier. He was successful and dropped out with only a couple months left till his graduation.

He told us about the finance pipeline, the career path for those trying to be successful in fields like private equity or venture capital. He said that the pipeline only limited individuals and that the most successful people he knew were those who never followed the pipeline or had, and I quote, “a mid-life crisis and broke out from it in their mid 30s”. It was a very interesting take to say the least. His experience was definitely an example of survivorship bias as he didn’t really consider the experiences of those who failed. 

Tomcat’s story got me thinking about the balance between discipline, motivation, and passion. Like yes I didn’t fully agree with what Tomcat was saying about pursuing one’s professional career, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t impressed by his drive and overflowing passion he had for the field he worked in. It made me question what I wanted to do in life and whether or not I’ll find that same passion. It also got me thinking about my work ethic–how can I achieve the perfect balance between discipline, motivation, and passion? Without passion, discipline and motivation quickly fall apart. Without discipline, passion and motivation are meaningless. And without motivation, there is no drive to fuel passion and discipline. Only the perfect balance of the three would result in an effective and enjoyable work ethic.

So now, I have to find my passion. In my college essays, I talk about biology and the science behind running and human physiology as my passion, but it’s not something I’ve really explored myself. I feel like if I could figure out my passion, I can approach college with direction, I can figure out what I want to do early on. Even if that’s not what I end up studying or majoring in, it at least gives me confidence for my first year. I know, it seems like I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s still the argument that I don’t need to figure everything out now, which is fair. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to seek out what I love. 

After our conversation with Tomcat, I realized a new-found emphasis on my future. It wasn’t oriented around resume building or trying to do more work now, but rather ascertaining what I’m truly passionate about. Hopefully, this coming summer I can shadow doctors, bioengineers, and investors to get a better idea of what I want to pursue. This was a long one, but I give Tomcat’s discussion 3.7 mushrooms out of 5.