Do you have Passion?

I took my 11 year old daughter to the movies over the weekend as she is a huge Twilight fan and she was busting a gut to see New Moon. I have to admit I am bit partial myself to the new buff looking Jacob and his pack of spunky werewolves, but I digress. The movie really got me thinking about passion and how that applies not just to teenage romances, but to business too. I have often been asked how I have managed to make a success of the Academy and my standard answer has always been hard work, but after watching New Moon I realised that’s not quite true.

Sure, I have worked my backside off to get where I am today, but in all honesty it was more than just hard work that got me there, it was passion too. An overwhelming, all consuming, burning desire to be successful. Not dissimilar to Bella’s feelings for Edward in the movie. I have lived, breathed, ate and slept my business. There were times when I shut out my friends and focussed completely on the business and sacrificed nights out and fun social events in order to push the business that little bit further. I have gone to bed thinking about it, dreamt about it and work up thinking about it. I’ve had nightmares that have woken me up in the middle of the night screaming in a cold sweat and on the flip side of things, it has given me an undescribably amount of pleasure too. All of these things were experienced by Bella in the movie.

I guess what I’m saying is that the relationship you have with your business should be similar to the one you share with your life partner or spouse. You need to love your business. It should stimulate you in the same way as your life partner does both mentally and emotionally. To be really successful it doesn’t come easily, you need to work hard at it the same as a marriage or relationship. When you are in business for yourself you can never be in a monogmous relationship with a human as you will always have to share yourself with another partner, your business.  

I am not saying that you should let it consume you completely, but you have to prepared for it to consume you for the first couple of years. It will need to take priority in your life, certainly above your social life, but never over your family. You will need to learn how to strike a balance between the two, but you will also need to have passion. Think of the all the successful people you have read about, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Madonna, Kylie Minogue to name but a couple. All those people had a burning desire to succeed – a passion.

Let’s face it, if you’re not passionate about your business why should anyone else be?