Everything Starts With Passion

There are a many businesses as there are ideas. A good idea executed poorly has a much slimmer chance than a poor idea executed well and with passion.

It took the inventor of Velcro 7 years to perfect his idea. Without the conviction and passion that he could invent a fastening system that would replace the zipper – we would probably not have a product that has been embraced so widely that it has changed industries.

Almost every industry game changer you could think of has come in the from of an idea that has not been thought of, or felt to be feasible, or not widely embraced by conventional wisdoms. Early on in my career, when I was working on product development I was fortunate to have a boss and mentor who is a man of great talent and vision. I was despondent and spinning my wheels on a design and devlopment project. I expressed my frustration and doubts and all he asked me was " did I truly feel I could make it work?". After a moment of reflection and introspection, my answer was yes. His response was simply not to give up then. I kept at it, made the breakthrough and while not an earth shattering advance in science and technology, we were rewarded with patents, a long term contract for the process and a systems design award from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

What I realized in retrospect was that the passion had been there all along but I had got confused between success and passion. I saw a quote once that "Depression is merely anger without purpose". I like to think of success as the result of combining passion with purpose. They may not come in the form that we expect, but if we can allow ourselves to celebrate the wins as we find them, this keeps us motivated.

No matter what you do for a living, you are in sales. People buy you before they buy your product or service. Passion is infectious - use that for it is the most powerful sales tool out there.