Passion – Your Business and Our World Need It!

The actor Milton Berle once said, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” That sentiment is so true that it should really need no further explanation. But in today’s business environment and considering the current state of the economy and our world, I feel as if I should weigh in just a little.

Building a successful business and a meaningful life takes PASSION. I’m known as a person who doesn’t wait for things to happen. Rather, I make things happen. Sometimes my assertiveness makes me look a little brash. But you want to know something? No one ever died from being passionate. In fact, many people have realized that injecting PASSION into everything you do is the only way to truly live.

For example, I am passionate about my wife. I don’t just mean in the physical sense. Rather, I am passionate about our relationship, which transcends anything physical. I know that marriage takes work, but I am passionately committed to doing this work. In fact, I realize after a couple years of marriage that I have to be passionate in order to achieve the fullness that a blessed marriage has to offer.

OK — now that all the ladies are blushing and the guys are thinking I’m sappy — back to business.

Some 9 out of 10 businesses fail within the first two years. There are many reasons for that. Some of these include poor accounting practices, inadequate staffing models, lack of consumer demand, etc. But I think one of the primary reasons a business will fail is the fact that there is sometimes a lack of true passion on the part of the business owner and/or the employees who work for the business. Passion isn’t something that happens overnight. Like a marriage, developing and cultivating a passionate mindset takes work and commitment. If you are a business owner — you must find time to work on developing these things. If you are an employee and want to advance and achieve your goals (professional, financial, and personal), you must also cultivate passion for what you’re doing.

Go back to that quote from Milton Berle for a second. Too many times, we spend our lives waiting for opportunities to be given to us or fall into our laps. And we get disappointed when it doesn’t happen. We settle. We regress. We get depressed and give up. We feel miserable or unworthy of success.

But Milton challenges us and I’m challenging you — build doors of opportunity. Create opportunity where it doesn’t exist. You are responsible for your own future and the success of your business and your life. Success is contagious — hang around successful people and do what they do. Read books about successful people. Become a student of success. If you do, you won’t have to knock on doors anymore — you will be able to BARGE right through them. In fact, no door on the planet will be able to hold you back from achieving what you are passionately committed to achieving.