There comes a point in your business or career where you have to truly allow your passion to help you make your decisions.
As a creative when you fail to ignore those passions you run the risk of fading away. Into obscurity.
There are a ton of people giving away free advice. Heck, I do it here. I do it on my social media platforms. I do it everywhere.
Some of those people actually know what they're talking about. Some of them don't.
The great ones, the TRULY great ones, they do it with passion. A passion that doesn't allow them to do anything else.
Most of the really great creatives who are having amazing success in their careers are doing it because they simply cannot do anything else.
So what about you? What keeps you up at night?
When you look at marketers like Jay Baer and Lee Odden you can feel their passion through their words and their content.
When you see the work of creative professionals like Trey Ratcliff and Thomas Hawk you know that there is nothing else in this world that they would rather be doing.
When you read the works of Dan Brown, see the films by Steven Speilberg, or listen to the music of Trent Reznor you know that they've allowed their passion to rule their world.
All of these people are successful because they've allowed that passion to guide their brand. Not the other way around.
Your business, whatever the industry, can be made better by showing people your passion.
You ever hear a company say they only hire passionate people?
Well they're not lying. Even the bad companies hire people who have passion. The reason is because everyone has passion. Some people, however, don’t have the right passion for what they do or where they work.
You may be passionate about family, food, crafting, knitting, poker, or photography but you've got it.
You may have passion that serves other people. A passion for helping people or solving problems. I run into those kinds of people all of the time.
Now it's just a matter of making sure those passions line up properly.
Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it just takes recognition.
Let's say you're a plumber. You may not have a passion for getting on you hands and knees and scraping your knuckles against someone's pipe but you might have a passion for other things. Fixing things might be your passion. Or meeting new people and finding friendly faces around every corner. Or maybe it's customer service (one of my favorite passions to find in people). That passion can come through in your "job" or career if you allow it to lead the way.
You can turn that passion into your mission statement.
That's what some of the best brands out there do.
The best thing about finding that passion and allowing it to lead is that it will make your whole life easier.
Let's go back to you, the plumber, who has found that you have a passion for customer service. It's not speed or price. It's not having the newest tools or the snazziest plumber van. It's customer service.
Now you think about your mission statement. Maybe it becomes something like: We'll do whatever it takes to make your plumbing needs go away and get you back to your happy life.
It's a little cheesy but it works for this example.
The thing is happy customers are key. You do whatever it takes to make your customers happy. You teach this to everyone in your company. Everyone. The people who answer the phone are taught to be friendly and empathetic. Remember, if someone's calling you it's because they have a problem.
You teach your technicians to smile when they arrive. Maybe they do little things like say sir and ma'am. Don't forget thank you.
You empower them to make on-the-fly decisions. If someone on the phone quoted them a time or price and it wasn't met what can your team do to remedy?
Hint: It starts with "I'm sorry." Then it leads to "Here's how we can fix this and we can offer a discount or this coupon you may not have been aware of."
You give them business cards with phone numbers with direct access. "If you have a problem that comes up please call me directly. We want to make sure this issue was taken care of properly".
Make the customer happy that they called you. They'll refer their friends. It'll pay off big time.
If you simply cannot find passion in what you do or a way to input a passion that exists inside of you into your job or career then maybe it's time to find something else.
Maybe it's time to start a hobby blog that you can later turn into a full time thing with some hustle and perseverance.
It can be done.