Passion Sundays

Here’s How Passion Works To Reinvent Transport

The Creative Director of Hyperloop One Colin Rhys says thinking of the difference you’ll make for people helps you push through when you get stuck

What’s passion’s role in creating unprecedented experiences? Actually, it’s the drive that helps one focus on the outcome and how it will improve people’s lifestyle.
Colin Rhys is the Creative Director of Hyperloop One, the company that reinvents transport by introducing the fifth mode of transport. The team works hard to redefine the passenger experience and create ‘something that’s never existed before’.
‘My biggest dream was to be part of something greater than myself. ‘ He always sought to create unique experiences and his passion manifested in different ways.
Colin says he is very passionate about impacting a large group of people. When times get tough, he thinks how drastically reducing the time spent commuting will help.
‘What I’m working on now will service the 100%.’ Colin wants to support people from all around the world to spend more quality time with their families instead of moving from one place to another.
Would you like to learn to make a difference through your passion? Click here and remember to share it with your friends and spread the passion.

Live Passionately

Moustafa Hamwi
Passionpreneur & Chief Energy Officer
Award Winning Author & Speaker

TRANSCRIPT:

Moustafa: Hello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays, the best way to end a week and start another. Our guest today is the Creative Director for Hyperloop One, the company that’s reinventing transport, what’s called the fifth mode of transport – Colin! Thank you very much for being with us today!
Colin: Thank you for having me today!
Moustafa: What an exciting project that you are working on! So tell me a bit more about what you do and what does your company do.
Colin: So I’m Creative Director for Hyperloop One and I also run our operations here on the ground in Dubai and across the Gulf. Hyperloop is the fifth mode of transport, as you said. We are developing a way for people to get from point A to point B in minutes instead of hours and trying to give you time back that you lost to traffic, congestion and waiting. We basically use a tube in which we suck out the air of the tube so it’s similar to flying at 160,000 feet. We use an electric motor to drive the pod, we use a vacuum to suck out all of the air and, most importantly, it’s a form of packetized travel. So instead of sending one train with 300 people on it, we send 30 pods with 10 people on each one directly to their destination. So you never wait for others to arrive, you never have to stop along the way. It’s always you go where you want to go. And our biggest thing at Hyperloop is… a lot of people say it’s about the journey… We believe it’s about the destination.
Moustafa: That’s interesting because usually we say it’s about the journey, not about the destination. For you it’s about the destination. Talk to me about your passion when you were younger. How did you end up doing this?
Colin: So I actually came from the Art and Design world. And I was brought into Hyperloop to help define what the visual language for the company was going to be. But also kind of helped develop: What is the passenger experience? What are people going to feel like when they go through this? And for me, the physical experience is everything. I never had any social media so I’ve been a voyeur into that world. So I’ve always said, my experience comes from the physical, from the physical interactions that we’re having right now versus having a Skype call. So I think they really saw that as an important aspect to developing what Hyperloop was going to be because when you have no precedent for what you’ve done before, you can really start from the passenger experience, which is the single most important thing to us.
Moustafa: How would you see the journey of you pursuing your passion when you were younger convert into what you’re doing today?
Colin: Yeah. Well, I can say that I never would have thought that I’d be sitting here doing this when I was younger because I’m not an engineer. When I looked at Hyperloop early on, I said ‘I’m not an engineer, I don’t have a place for that’ and when I started to understand what my strengths were and what my passions were, I said ‘ No, I can do this, I can be a part of this because they need what I have to give. So when I sit here now, say 20 years later, it’s surreal but it also feels very appropriate.
Moustafa: Nice. So in a way it was meant to be, you just did not know it was going to manifest in this way.
Colin: Exactly!
Moustafa: What was it that you originally dreamt of? What was your passion?
Colin: I originally wanted to be… My biggest dream was to be part of something greater than myself. So I worked in the art world for a long time and helping to produce artist careers and installations and, you know, really impacting a large group of people is what really got me off. And I moved then into design, interior design and creating spaces and physical human experiences was really interesting to me. And now it’s like a kind of combination of all of those: developing the human experience, developing, curating this kind of experiences for people on something that’s never existed before is a fantastic challenge to have.
Moustafa: Amazing! I love how somehow it manifests in just a different way. And how do you find passion when times are tough? Because on a project like this, you are pretty much disrupting an industry and there’s no precedent. And you’re surely facing failures after failures before you actually get to your success. So how do you find your passion in that time?
Colin: I find the passion in that time when I think about how this technology is going to impact so many people. You know, in my past careers I worked a lot with a sort of wealthier clientele and I was servicing the 1%. What I’m working on now will service the 100%.
Moustafa: Ok.
Colin: And when I get frustrated or I hit these blockages, I think about all the people that this is going to impact and how badly they need it. I think about the guy that has to sit two and a half hour commute each way to work and that’s five hours a day that he doesn’t get to spend with his family. And if I persevere and I push through this and I make this happen, that’s a gift that I’m giving back and our entire company is giving back to 8 billion people across the globe and if that’s not passion, if that’s not drive, I don’t know what is.
Moustafa: I love it! I love, I love the purpose behind your passion and that’s obviously giving you the nugget, bite-sized passion on a daily basis! This has been amazing. Thank you very much!
Colin: Thank you so much for your time! I really appreciate being here!
Moustafa and Colin: Passion!
Moustafa: What do you think? I would really love to hear your opinion. So if you found this episode as useful as I did, leave your comments on the blog below and do share it with your friends. And if you’d like more tools, tips, techniques and exclusive interviews that I only share on my website, go to Moustafa.com. And until next episode, live passionately!

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Hi, I’m Moustafa

Dubai’s real-life “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.” On a one-way ticket to India, I’ve gone from meeting a Swami out of 13 years in caves, to natural healing from a disease to become the Passionpreneur. I’m an international speaker and coach helping people find and pursue passion.

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