Are You Following Your Passion?

You’ve heard people say time and time again – do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life. Easy to say, more difficult to practice.

Say you’ve got the passion, the tools and the entrepreneurial spirit. But maybe you need some help manifesting your dream business into reality?

First, you need to know where to begin. And the best place to start is with identifying what it is you love. Take Joe Reynolds of Chicago, for example. He is adventurous by nature, and explored over 40 countries on his own before deciding to turn his passion into a business. He pulled in Ryan Kunkel, and together they formed a company that eventually lead to hosting the famous Warrior Dash races all over the country. If you don’t know anything about the Warrior Dash, it’s a 5K race with “natural” obstacles: rock walls, mud pits, flaming tunnels and log-filled ponds, and it’s massively popular.

These races are growing exponentially in size and are going international for the second year in a row. In just five years, their revenue has grown from $50,000 to a projected $85 million in 2012.

“We’ve had a tremendously successful start over the past four and a half years, but we continue to be excited about what will come next,” Reynolds says. “When you’re really passionate about your business, you can see lots of tremendous opportunities.” [source]

The reason this idea worked is because Reynolds was able to successfully combine his love for competition with a fun environment. Through hard work and dedication, he was able to provide an outlet for the public that provided just that.

So what key points can you, as an aspiring entrepreneur, take away from these successful guys?

First – you need more than passion to get your business off the ground. Passion is great and will be the fuel for the long nights you will most certainly be working, but you also need to take inventory of your dedication to work hard and whether or not there is a market for your product.

John Torrens, a serial entrepreneur and an entrepreneurship professor at Syracuse University says, “the one non-negotiable factor for any sustainable business is that they solve a problem for a specific customer segment in a way that is appreciably better than the next best alternative.” [source]

Second – hire people who share your vision. If your business has a foundation where all employees are passionate about what they do, it will be able to expand easily as it grows. Plus, the more people you trust with your business means the more you can delegate responsibility, without having to have your hand in every aspect of the business.

Third – share your passion with others. If you’re passionate about something, chances are you have a lot of knowledge to share. So share it! There are people out there who are interested in the same thing, and they are just looking for a little guidance. Be their gateway to more knowledge.

What are you passionate about? Have you been able to create a successful business based on doing what you love and working hard to get it? We’d love to hear your feedback! Next week I’ll share three more points with you that will be key to your success.

tags: Articles,entrepreneur,passion