This Issue: Love What You Do

There is an ingredient for success that is often overlooked, maybe because it sounds out of place in business lingo. But I know for a fact that it is absolutely necessary to achieve any kind of long lasting success, and I know this from experience. That ingredient is passion.

Enthusiasm on a big scale equals passion. If you don’t have passion, everything you do will fizzle out, or be mediocre, at best. You have to love what you’re doing in order to make it in a big time way. People with passion never give up, because they’ll never have a reason to give up, no matter what their circumstances might be. It’s an intangible momentum that can make you indomitable.

Another way to see this clearly is to realize that passion conquers fear. This is an important fact when considering achievement of any sort. Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it.” I agree. Think about that statement and keep it close to you.

Next, assess your interests. What do you love doing? What is your imagination presenting to you? Can you develop any of these interests into a viable source of income? Can you come up with a personal blueprint? Do you have a foundation in place, or in the works, for this blueprint? Ask yourself these questions, cover your bases, and then move forward. Without momentum, you will simply be daydreaming.

Very often the dividing line between success and failure is a lack of passion. I’ve known people who have had fantastic ideas who can’t seem to get them off the ground because they approach everything passively. They think the idea will somehow get off the ground by itself, or that just coming up with the idea is enough. Let me tell you something--it’s not enough. It will never be enough. You have to put the idea into action. And if you don’t have the motivation or enthusiasm to do it yourself, it’s likely your great idea will sit on top of your desk or inside your head for a long time to come.

Passion is a catalyst. Use it to your advantage and you can start achieving tremendous things. Whatever you do, don’t overlook or underestimate this important ingredient for success. It can take you to some amazing places!

Hope to see you there.

In years past, continuing your education past high school meant applying for admission and taking classes to learn skills that other people said you would need in your career. Today, thanks to self-directed learning, all that has changed. In self-directed learning, you design your own curriculum. You empower yourself. You don’t have to ask permission to start. You are in control. In so many ways, this is the right kind of education for our entrepreneurial age. Self-directed learning can help you accomplish two important goals:

1. Add the specific skills you need to reach your career objectives.
2. Explore and identify career options that will help you build a career that you not only like, but love.

What are your options for meeting these two important goals? In self-directed learning, you can take advantage of the following learning options:

Online learning. Online learning is surging because it offers a flexible way to learn when you can, where you can, no matter how busy you are.
Multimedia Home Study Program. Look for programs produced by people who have actually accomplished the things being taught. Learn more.
Books and newsletters. Before you buy a book or subscribe to a newsletter, read what you are about to buy to make sure it meets your needs. Be a tough, critical consumer of information.

Have you made the decision to start a program of self-directed learning? If so, congratulations! You have empowered yourself to achieve a success that is yours alone, based on doing what you love - a success like no other in the world.

Loving what you do is a principle indication of happiness and general fulfillment in life. Many people, though, have no clear idea about what it is they love. Others, who know what they love, often do not consider their passions to be relevant to a job or a career. These people have a tendency to distinguish between the work they do and the rest of their life; passion and happiness are distinct from the job, which is seen as essentially just a means of survival.

The dictum “love what you do” is an ideal that goes largely unrealized by the general population. The schism between work and life is a major culprit in this pandemic of disappointment. It’s no small problem. After all, the constitution guarantees us all “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The pursuit of happiness, of course, isn’t happiness per se. But if the pursuit is not attempted or self-sabotaged or thwarted along the way by external pressures, a person will definitely miss out on something significant, something that is, in a sense, our natural birthright.

The pursuit of happiness is a proactive endeavor. People need to cultivate interests and explore their own skills and talents to really find out what they love. But it doesn’t end there. People interested in happiness--and who isn’t?--must also discover or create outlets to enhance and sustain their passions.

Happiness, as a function of loving what you do, is a complex phenomenon that encompasses temperament, talents, and deep-rooted personality traits. There’s a lot to sort out, but it’s more than worth the effort because you can’t fix problems you don’t understand. A good self-evaluation, undertaken through a formal assessment that’s based on validated, statistical sampling, can go a long way toward helping one learn just what it is that makes him/her happy, and finding a suitable career.

Psychometric assessments, of the type offered by Trump University, are designed to match people’s personality traits and aspirations with the type of career situation that will result in optimum professional success, and by extension, personal happiness. At the root of these assessment tools is self-discovery. Understanding the intangibles of personality and how they relate to a person’s goals and the way he/she works carries with it the promise of finding the right career fit.

For more information, and to take the first step to a better tomorrow, start here.