EP. 022 - EUGENE

CREATIVE. CURIOUS. COMPETITIVE.

EUGENE

'WHAT'S THE SCORE?'

Age: 35

Location: Hong Kong

Eugene is the Co-Founder of Adam Studios, a multi-disciplinary creative agency, and MAEKAN, a deep dive into the people, process, and products that influence and shape our dynamic world. Stories for the curious.

Growing up in a small town shaped a lot of me. My parents moved to Canada where I was one of the only Asian kids at school. My dad was big on soccer so I played it growing up. Sports equalize the playing field. Your skin tone doesn’t matter. Your socioeconomic background is irrelevant. If you are good, your value will be determined on the field.

This shaped me into being pretty competitive in areas where a score was involved. Scores give you an objective measure to define your success. But when I’m in the creative world, there is no score metric. Competition is replaced with creativity, curiosity. Instead of thinkingwhat is the score?I'm thinkingwhat is the point?

When I first started my career, I was writing about product, sneakers, and fashion. It was vapid and temporal. I didn’t want my legacy to be defined by what I sold people.

Now when I communicate, I do so with the intention to align people with ideas that build bridges. I create with the intention to share human history. I document things that may not be the most popular thing today, but if I do it justice, someone 15, 20 years from now can look back on it and understand what life was like for us. I’ve moved from the temporal world to the eternal one. What is everlasting? The human spirit. The human experience. If I document mine well, then an Asian class clown in Canada who plays soccer can know that he’s not the first, and won’t be the last.