*This article is a transcript of The Nontrepreneur podcast episode titled Passion. Listen here.
Entrepreneurs are great.
Entrepreneurs are open to new ideas, willing to take risks, optimistic, creative and passionate and CNBC says they fail over 90% of the time.
That’s why we created The Nontrepreneur. To become wildly successful without all the risk.
That might sound counterintuitive, but in a five year study of rich people, including interviewing 177 millionaires, Thomas Corley found that the top two categories of millionaires were savers (people who saved their way to wealth) and employed executives, those who through hard work, smart office politics, constant self-improvement, and powerful relationship-building skills rose up the ladder in their respective companies. If that’s not you yet, it absolutely could be! But you better be passionate!
As you know, the five tenets of The Nontrepreneur are Creativity, Awareness, Mindfulness, Passion and People.
Let me explain to you how I know these principles work, specifically passion.
As a teenager I was a knucklehead, arrested a handful times, kicked out of my mom’s house when I was fifteen (rightfully so), my beautiful amazing daughter was born when I was 16 and yet I did manage to graduate high school with a very impressive 1.86 GPA. Seriously.
Yet, with no college education I’ve led marketing and creative teams for some of the largest media companies and sports brands in the world. I’m fortunate enough to be able to say that my work for these brands has earned me 25 Emmy Awards to date.
I assure you; I am NOT any smarter or more talented than you.
I just did things a little differently than my co-workers, yet they couldn’t figure out why I was a VP in my 20’s as the youngest person in the department and they were getting passed up for promotions.
All I did was show up every day and passionately acted like an entrepreneur, I was all in.
I was a Nontrepreneur. I was an employee, getting a paycheck every other Friday just like everyone else, but I treated the work I did, like it was my own company.
I raised my hand when I had an idea, built consensus, I fostered environments of spontaneous collaboration, I created teams that thought like entrepreneurs. My army of Nontrepreneurs. And so many of them have gone one to start and own their own businesses today.
It was along my journey that these tenets were discovered and tested, modified and proven. And passion has been vital.
Passion – the value of being all in and power of bringing passion to everything you do.
When you think of a successful entrepreneur, I’m talking about someone famous, someone who defied the odds and made it, do you ever think of an unmotivated, negative, unenthusiastic entrepreneur?
No of course you don’t – you think of enthusiasm, motivation you think of PASSION!
Genuine passion can help propel you to where you want to be. Now, obviously passion alone isn’t going to cut it, you’ll also need hard work, people skills, constant self-improvement, creativity and curiosity.
But passion & enthusiasm are absolutely points of personal and professional differentiation.
John Lennon said “When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy. They said I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them, they didn’t understand life.”
Passion and happiness go hand in hand.
Passion and success also go hand in hand.
Now I’m not for one second going to try to sell you that I have extreme passion about every single aspect of my job. I’m not talking about having passion for everything you do – I’m talking about BRINGING passion to everything you do.
One afternoon the General Manager in the hallway – “How are you liking the internship Zeigler” he asked me. I replied, “It’ll do until you hire me.”
He told me right then and there to follow him to his office. When we got to his office, this is what he said:
“John, you are incredibly lucky. I have an amazing opportunity that just opened up today. Do you want to learn the television business from the inside out?”
Heck yeah, I did.
“I have an open position that is literally, the epicenter of this television station. It is the heartbeat, it is the single most important thing we do. You will interact with sales, programming, production, public relations, promotions, marketing. You will learn what it takes to make run a highly successful broadcast operation, if you’re in, I’m going to need you to be ALL in – I’m going to need you to OWN this job, are you in!?”
I WAS IN!
A handshake, the promise of a salary of 12 thousand dollar a year and I started the next day learning data entry in a windowless room with two other people.
I could not have been happier.
The job was in the Traffic department. Now in media, traffic has nothing to do with cars or train delays, it’s about trafficking the television commercials that the sales people sell so they run in the right show at the right time…it’s data entry.
But I didn’t see it that way, because Jason Elkin, that General Manager, didn’t position it that way, he gave me permission to take pride and ownership of this position. He made me believe my contribution would matter to the success of the company and I was all in.
This windowless room, doing data entry in Tucson Arizona is where The Nontrepreneur was born.
I showed up every day, passionate, curious, enthusiastic – getting really strange looks everyday from the two women who had been sitting in that same room doing that same job for years before I got there.
They could not for the life of themselves figure out why I was so happy to be there.
I quickly learned a couple of things, things that are still applicable today:
The first thing I learned was that some people are really good at stretching about four hours of work into an eight-hour day.
The second thing I learned was how many people quit looking for something to do, as soon as they get a job.
They show up and doing only the thing they were hired to do…and nothing more.
Let me repeat something I said earlier - I’m not talking about having passion for everything you do – I’m talking about BRINGING passion to everything you do.
Brett Baughman wrote an article on how passion can set you apart from your colleagues and competitors and in it he identifies the four myths surrounding passion – and I think he really nails it:
Myth No. 1 is that passion is a personality trait, something you’re born with.
When the truth is it’s a feeling, it’s a drive, it’s a desire and it CAN be found or learned.
Myth No. 2 is that passion is only for a select few – politicians, preachers & sports coaches.
Myth No. 3 – That you can force yourself to be passionate about something you’re not.
I hate doing expense reports; I’m not going to pretend that I love to reconcile receipts, who does? But you can find elements in what you currently do that you can be passionate about.
Myth No. 4 – Is that everyone knows what his or her specific passion is.
This is huge. Most people have no idea what their passion is once they realize they are not going to be a famous actor or athlete, signer or celebrity. But this does not mean you stop looking.
I had no idea that an entry level job in Tucson would in just a few short years later find me walking the halls of major studios, on location for epic productions or working with some of the most talented actors and famous athletes of our time.
I can’t say I was passionate about sitting for hours on end staring at a computer screen, but I was curious, so when I had breaks, or when I was done with all my work at 2:30 – instead of finding something mindless to fill the remaining hours - I would go to other departments and ask if they needed any help with anything.
And when the production department gave me some menial task or creative team needed an errand run, I brought my full attention – I brought a passion.
And people noticed. Why is this guy so happy to go get us coffee? Because when I got back, I got to stay in the room with them and watch and learn. I got noticed.
And passion is contagious. When you're fully present and passionately engaged with your life, your career, your staff, your coworkers, the people around you will take notice and they will want to be a part of it.
Be enthusiastic. Be curious. Bring passion.
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