Find Your Purpose - Part 2 - Turning Passion into Profits
Finding Your Passion
Consider iconic sportsmen and women such as Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam. These professionals have become very rich as a result of professionally competing in sports that they love to play…doubt that for a moment? Do you really think a dedicated professional such as Roger Federer would still be winning tournaments and grand slams at an age when most of his contemporaries have retired, if he didn’t love playing the game?
Switching to a completely different field what about famous authors such as Stephen King, Robert Harris or Bill Bryson. Harris has wrote over a dozen books covering topics such as espionage and the Roman Empire (a clear passion of his), Bryson has penned over 20 novels in particular focusing on his passion for travel whilst King, the grand daddy of them all, has knocked out almost 100 books covering a vast array of literature from hard case crime, to horror and all things through to baseball.
Just like the professional sportsmen and woman, these authors are both commercially successful and prolific because the have a passion for what they do. Stephen King has been writing for over half a century, but when he started out, he was teaching and working shifts at a laundry to make ends meet. Despite multiple rejections from publishing houses, it was his passion for writing which ultimately brought him success and world-wide fame.
King’s short novel, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, which focuses on one of King’s passions, namely the systemic corruption inherent in certain authoritarian institutions, has gone on to be produced into what is routinely voted as the best film ever made. When King started out with virtually nothing, did he think he would become a multi-millionaire? No, he was just looking to put food on the table for his young family, his passion for literature did the rest.
Follow your passion. Don’t listen to detractors, remember that if you have plenty of naysayers then you are probably on the right track - visionaries swim against the tide not with it. Are you really talented at something and so passionate for it, that you could literally talk forever on the subject? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should proceed with your passion no matter what others say. You have an innate ability to turn your passion into profits.
Coming Next: Part 3 - Passion, Profits and Principles
