The 7 deadly sins of business - 1. Passion

I’ve had a few family milestones in my life this year and I can’t help but reflect on how passionate I feel about my business and my life.

Yes - I wear my heart on my sleeve - but I also know that passion is a driver - it forces you to confront obstacles and embrace change.

So how do we bottle this passion into a resource for your business ?

…..A place where we expose ourselves everyday.

We expose ourselves to ridicule, judgement and observation.

We all have passion - we just need to be able to talk about it.

Pop quiz - Can you do the elevator pitch?

Can you tell someone in 11 seconds what you do and why you do it ?

and NO

“I”m an accountant” does NOT cut it !

WHY do you do it ?

Go on - try it !

I am verbose and I struggled - To succinctly describe WHY I get out of bed most days at 530 am and head into the gym then the office to push myself to my limits in the pursuit of happiness and satisfaction - I struggled with the WHY ?

The easy answer is $$$$$$$

Sometimes when you are building a business - as much as it is all about the $$ - it is even less about the $$. Its about the fear of failure and judgement that tempers our passion.

So -yes it partly about $$ - not gonna lie - $$ buys stuff and I like stuff.

But it has to be so much more than that ….what ? and why did I care ??

Its about that connection - that burning feeling in your gut - when you engage with a client and you know that you can transform their business and provide VALUE. You don’t care about their tightly held beliefs because you know you can make a difference in their life. You know that IF they are willing to trust you, that you can provide enormous insight into their business. You know that you can work with their accountant to ensure that the accountant can provide awesome advice - because the numbers ‘add up”.

So what’s your passion?

Do you live it everyday ?

Or are you stuck in that elevator - unsure what to say ?

I am a scorpio - by the way - I think the whole star sign thing is a slightly wonky religion - but recently I read this

SCORPIO - DO IT WITH PASSION OR NOT AT ALL

Lightbulb moment - that is ME!

So how do you generate passion in your business ?

You find what you love, what you are great at and you invest in this area of your life.

Say for example - Rainbows - lately they give me great feelings of passion - why ?

They come after the storm - they are interchangeable, beautiful examples of the colour in our world - they represent happy things found at their end. So I need to find the rainbows in my business.

One of my software companies in recent years had a marketing campaign about loving what you do. I still often sign off phone calls with “love your work “ But somewhere across the journey I lost the focus of this statement.

I no longer believed in their passion - it didn't spell the truth. The words were empty promises.

So I started to look for the passion - where was the truth ?

What did passion look like ?

I found it in the most unlikely of places.

I found it in a simple formula of connecting what I was good at and what I related to.

Clients

The driver behind my passion were the very people that gave me the $$ to get out of bed in the mornings. (My obvious passion - remember?)

They were also the very source of my insecurities and fear - yes but what’s passion without a little bit of risk on the side ?

I stopped worrying about what people thought of me and just started to do what I was good at - what I was passionate about. Training clients to be their best.

Last week I started a Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment so I could be qualified in training. I developed a patience and a smile with those who were starting their journey in the business world. I listened to their stories and I honestly felt humbled to help them. I had found a new rainbow.

I never thought I would go back to study after so many years in a post uni haze of late nights and study notes.

Of course there was some down and dirty data entry and bookkeeping still to be done - but rather than dread doing these parts of my job, I enjoyed it as every BAS I reconciled led me to more time to devote to my passion - training.

I have seen many business owners passionate about their products - you can touch it, move it in your hands and market it. I always felt innately jealous of their tangible product. Having a service business makes your ‘product’ more intangible. Harder to grasp and relate to.

What I think I realised now is that passion has no rules, it has no logic, it is a innate desire that you cannot explain - it drives our actions - good and bad and when you harness it you achieve power beyond comprehension.

SO what’s your passion ?

Time to get out of the elevator and find out