Passion Will Make You Work Harder

I use to firmly believe the saying; “When you love your job, you’ll never work again.” How many times have you heard this phrase or something similar in regards to doing something in life that you enjoy doing. Perhaps from family members or teachers? Find something you love and turn that into your work.

However, when I talk to people today on the topic of passion and work, I am no longer as convinced as I was 15 or 20 years ago. I mean in regards to that specific mantra, I am living the dream. I worked corporate, work with amazing people on a daily basis, have a lot of flexibility around the clock, and hence in comparison live a very privileged life.

And when I reflect on this, all of the above, has been fueled by my passion for business, for my passion to create amazing opportunities, my passion for challenges, and my passion to start things. It took my less than a decade to go from the ranks of grunts to mid-management and build my business while at it. I love working with people. I love looking at processes and operations and seeing how it can be done better. I am passionate about a lot of things. I consider myself a jack-of-all trades, and have a deep knowledge (expertise) in a few, because I love learning and am generally curious. I look at the world from a different set of glasses, and my wife can attest to that. While that may be good on one hand, it is terrible on the other. Many of my passions have lead to dead ends or have turned to failures. When I first started my own business, my passion to create and get my hands dirty was my initial intention. It was supposed to be a side project that generated some income.

When I look back and take my corporate job as an example – I’ve worked for several companies in a few roles. Some roles I have enjoyed more than others, however the passion and excitement to create and expand boundaries and accomplish something always inspired me. Was I always passionate, at all times in those roles? No. Did I work hard and make sure I deliver? Yes.

I take my roles as if they were within my own company and every decision I make affects my bottom dollar. I easily pushed 16 hour days (and have even worked nearly 48 hours straight) fairly often, not because I was always passionate about excel, and you may call it naive, you may call it stupidity, however, to me it was the passion of challenge to get me to a personal end state of where I wanted to go. And generally speaking I love working when it is combined with progress, learning, and become a better individual.

However in working hard, I have also had to sacrifice many other aspects of my life. I am more than thankful for where I am today. The decisions and experiences both my wife and I have made,  give us what we have and where we are in life. There are many things that I am passionate about, but I consciously need to make a decision on where to draw the line. Nonetheless, I still need to feed the beast called passion. Does that make sense?

Success demands more success. While I am passionate about many things – creating my vision within the corporate world, building my business, succeeding at sports and so forth, at some point you no longer are passionate, because that “job” becomes more of a job, than a passion or hobby would have over the years. I wouldn’t say that is a bad thing, but you do need to realize that even the most fanatic cupcake baker will at some point learn that making cupcakes is more of a chore than a passion day in and day out.

So to me the secret to solving this is fairly simple – mix your ambition and drive with your obvious passions for certain things and you will accomplish more.

You will continuously struggle to maintain passion at all times, whether in your corporate job or your venture in building your own business, however, finding the right mix will allow everyday to be a holiday full of smiles. There will be days where it feels like you are making a deal with the devil and other times, it’ll be as if you are nurturing an amazing Bonsai. Regardless, you will be working quite a bit more as a result of that passion.

What’s your take on this? Leave a comment below!