Finding Your Passion In Business

You want to start your own business and have been told that it takes passion to really succeed

You admire the passion that others bring to their business and wonder…”how did they find their passion” or “what drives them to try harder and ultimately succeed?” 

Surely, finding your passion is both one of the most important, yet misunderstood and elusive things we all struggle with in life as well as in business. 

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need passion…but what if you don’t have 100% passion?

Re-Thinking The Role Of Personal Passion In Business

Funny how people think that you will automagically find a magical passion in your life and that somehow, without effort, this will turn into a pot of gold at the end of the Rainbow.

Know that this is not a criticism of you, but rather how we are all taught to think by a personal development industry that largely tells it to us this way so they can continue to make money as we try.

In my experience, here are the facts:

1. Money is made by giving people what they desire, sometimes they are aware of this desire (they want to lose weight to look better), sometimes they are not (who would have predicted the interest in iPod – nobody came right out and said I wish I had a device that played music, was a phone and connected to the internet). 

2. Building a business is tough and exhausting: The process of finding or innnovating around market opportunity and then rolling out products/content and growing your business takes near superhuman endurance, determination, persistance and hard work

3. So, what improves your chances of succeeding with #1 and #2?  Passion for some aspect of what you do.  That doesn’t mean you have to be passionate about every aspect of your business, but the more passion you can bring, the more likely you will have what it takes to accomplish #2. 

Finding the Passion In Your Business

Here are two examples that help explain the role of passion in starting and running your own business:

1. A 60+ year old grandmother who overcame a rather debilitating disease and then became passionate about sharing that with others – that passion to help others overcame the challenges she had with learning how to start a business, market online, etc…in her 60’s – she certainly did not like all aspects of the business, but she was driven by the passion to help others

2. I follow Wine Library guy Gary Vaynerchuck – he tells the story often of a passion for running his own business, having control of his own energy, time and earning potential as his PASSION.  Wine was his first opportunity – taking the family business online so he became passionate about Wine NOT because he loved wine but because he knew this was the way he could run his own business. 

The lesson….find SOMETHING about your business you are passionate about (creative, solving problems, talking with people, networking, control, etc…) and then use that to drive the determination and persistance you need to get it done.