Working with Passion Part I

Being passionate about your job is more than the old adage "do what you love". It's looking forward to going to work. It's time flying by when you're there. It's working past quitting time, not because you're swamped with work, but because you were so intent you didn't notice the time. Passion Pays.

When you are passionate about what you do, you do better and you enjoy it more.

Do you look forward to Monday morning? Are you raring to go back to work? Or are you a TGIF (Thank God it's Friday) kind of person who can't wait to get away from the job for a couple of days? A person who works 40 hours a week spends and 60% of their awake hours at work. If you are a TGIF person you are missing something really important in your work life - passion.

If you are a TGIF person you are missing something really important in your work life - passion.

What is Passion?

Passion is a gift of the spirit combined with the totality of all the experiences we've lived through. It endows each of us with the power to live and communicate with unbridled enthusiasm. Passion is most evident when the mind, body and spirit work together to create, develop and articulate our ideas and feelings. Being passionate about a job is more than the old adage "do what you love". It's looking forward to going to work. It's time flying by when you're there. It's working past quitting time, not because we are swamped with work, but because we were so intent we didn't notice the time. We are more committed to the success of the operation if you believe in it passionately.

Putting your passion to work

The trick is not just to feel passionately about your job, but to act passionately too. Use you passion to move projects ahead, to find innovative solutions to perplexing problems, to work through the interpersonal conflicts.

If you act passionately, you won't sit passively through another boring meeting. You can't. You will share that passion with the others in the meeting. Your energy can lift all of them. Even if it doesn't, you will feel better knowing you are doing something to advance the cause in which you believe passionately.
Passionate people get more done. They don't spend time worrying about what they have to do next. They don't scheme about how to get out of doing something. And they don't have to waste time dreaming about a vacation they want to take to get away from the job.

People who are passionate about their work do a better job. Since they care so much about the work, they don't settle for anything less than their best. They don't ever "just go through the motions." The pour all their thought and energy into doing the job well.

It's just a job, isn't it?

If you feel that work is just a job, you are wasting 40 or more hours a week of your life. You are shortchanging your employer who gets less than your best effort. You are shortchanging yourself by wasting time on routine or even drudgery instead of spending that time doing what you enjoy. You could, and should, spend those 40 hours instead doing something that makes you feel good.

Not convinced?

If you have ever had a job that you felt passionately about, you know what I mean. If you have never worked at a job like that, you may wonder just how valid these statements are. If that's the case, think about something away from work that you are passionate about. Maybe it's a hobby or a sport, an activity with a special group of friends or that quiet activity where you recharge your energies.

Ever miss dinner because you were shooting hoops and didn't notice how late it had gotten? Do you know the intensity and concentration you feel when you are working on your radio-controlled models? Have you ever wondered where the day went when you were antique hunting with your best friend? Those are the the passions we enjoy in our time away from work. You get the same charge when you work at a job you are passionate about. Try it and see if you don't agree.

When you are passionate about what you do for a living you enjoy it more. You also do it better. You are more committed to the success of the operation if you believe in it passionately.

Putting your passion to work

The trick is not just to feel passionately about your job, but to act passionately too. Use you passion to move projects ahead, to find innovative solutions to perplexing problems, to work through the interpersonal conflicts.

If you act passionately, you won't sit passively through another boring meeting. You can't. You will share that passion with the others in the meeting. Your energy can lift all of them. Even if it doesn't, you will feel better knowing you are doing something to advance the cause in which you believe passionately.

Passionate people get more done. They don't spend time worrying about what they have to do next. They don't scheme about how to get out of doing something. And they don't have to waste time dreaming about a vacation they want to take to get away from the job.

People who are passionate about their work do a better job. Since they care so much about the work, they don't settle for anything less than their best. They don't ever "just go through the motions." The pour all their thought and energy into doing the job well.

Passion enables us to overcome obstacles (both real and imagined) and to see the world as a place of infinite potential. The passionate spirit looks at every occurrence and discovers the golden kernels of what can be, what should be and what will be.

Passion has its own energy -- an energy that's observable and transferable.

Best of all, you can't fake it. Almost anyone, with only a bit of intuitiveness, can spot the charlatan. We can smell the lying wolf. We can sense a lack of sincerity, authenticity and depth. We can inhale the bitter, infectious dryness of the imposter's soul.

That's precisely why passion is a powerful litmus in determining the authenticity of an individual, an organization, a product or service. It supersedes the allure of expensive clothing and luxury vehicles. It makes transparent the hyperbole of the marketing gnomes and branding banshees. It strips away the thin veneer that separates what is said and what really is. The power of passion forces us to see others as who they are, who they are becoming and often, who they can never be.
Many men and women run from personal and professional passion because they're afraid of being burned. Past relationships that ended in searing pain. Trusts and confidences that were betrayed. Risk that lead to reprimand. Grand visions that suffocated beneath the heavy pillows of nays sayers, soulless logic and overzealous egos.

Consequently, they're afraid of taking the risks that come with living life to its fullest. Most people have touched the fringes of true passion, if only for the briefest moments, at the most unexpected junctures in their lives. They've inhaled the aroma of chance and caressed themselves with the rich lather of genuine affection.

Until they pricked themselves on the thorns of that desire and intensity -- and fled at the sight of the warm crimson blood bubbling to the edges of their virgin fingertips.

And they haven't returned.

Year after year, they stay away, opting instead for a more predictable existence. Rather than taking a leap of faith and immersing themselves in the waters of their deepest joys and motivations, they insist on hiding inside a safety bubble, a sanitary, lifeless, colorless world where nothing new ever happens and the only thing that one can rely on is that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday, and that today will be more of the same.

What we all need is a global return to passion.

We must trust ourselves to being receptive to experiencing every second of every hour, of every day to its fullest.

Can you imagine how much more meaningful our roles as parents, lovers, business owners, marketers, teachers and leaders (community, corporate and spiritual) would be if all of our actions were predicated upon our diverse passions? Can you imagine a world where our marketing and sales strategies revolved around catering to the real needs of our customers' souls? If we only produced goods and service that contributed to our ability to live and communicate with passion?

Imagine a world where we lived for the moment and spent more time enjoying reality than trying to escape it. Imagine a place where we didn't need lawyers to go before judges, psychologists to tell us that we have emotional problems, or clergy to talk to the Creator for us.

That is the power of passion.

We, as a collective, can make this evolutionary step forward by realizing first that one of the tenaments of humanity is our capacity to experience and respond to feelings. Tears of joy and sadness, spirited debate, anger, unfiltered democracy, lust, pride, zeal, conviction, love, compassion -- these are not, can not be sins. Rather, they compliment another tenament of humanity; the gift of free will.
The real sin is lacking the courage to express our convictions and zest for life. It should be a crime to bottle up the passion you once felt as a youth so that you'll fit into a controlled corporate environment or circle of associates. In fact, the closest we can come to a physical hell is the unforgivable action of refusing to say what needs to be said, not singing what was meant to be sung or forcing ourselves to no longer feel what was intended to be felt.

Passion shapes our existence, fuels the fires of inspiration and makes the heart and mind open to changes all around us. It is food for the soul, a spark that re-illuminates our purpose and mission for being here. Passion is yours to experience and revel in. And even if it causes you to scrape your knees or fall into that raging river called life, passion is your birthright. It is within you. It is yours to discover and master.