Follow Your Passion to Success

by Richard Tjomsland

This article was inspired by Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford University. In it, he says the advice we've all heard a thousand times:

"You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Steve Jobs

If you really want to reach my full potential for SUCCESS, you must find your PASSION. And, it is probably the biggest and most important decision of our lives along with really falling in love with the right person and "not" falling in love with the "idea" of love. You have "got" to find what you love to do to obtain success and who you love as your life partner. But for now, let's deal with your career.

In my youth, after leaving my hometown to find my own success, I read all of the books and listened to all of the tapes on finding your passion and success and they helped, but the real help came when I decided in my mid-twenties to seek out the best private vocational counselor I could find. Maybe that sounds Ho Hum, but the results where eye opening. Finding my passion to success was worth almost any price.

Not only did I go through a huge volume of tests and questionnaires, but I was also able to sit in sessions with my one on one vocational counselor when she would ask me questions like, "If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be and what would you be doing?"
But, sailing on a sailboat through out the South Sea Islands didn't seem like it was going to make me a fortune or support my family. So, it was necessary to be pragmatic.

In the end she gave me a detailed list of what my aptitudes and interest really where. At the top of the list was "psychiatrist", but then we discussed whether I really wanted to go through 8 years or more of education to obtain a doctorate. So, we still had to practical. Then, "psychologist", but the answer was the same. Both of these were professions that without a doctorate you would never reach the success pinnacle.

Well we had to eliminate several others and got down to Human Relations Manager. Or, perhaps being the Vice President of a small company. At that moment I didn't give a thought to why it was Vice President versus President of a company. None of these really sounded like they were going to help me make the kind of money that I would need to meet my long term success goals.
So, what do you think happened? I did what probably 99% of the population does. I took a JOB with a large corporation and at the end of nearly 5 years I realized this wasn't for me. I had been transferred 5 times in 5 years, San Francisco to Houston to Philadelphia to Houston to Los Angeles and finally to San Diego. Now the reality really set in. What was I trained to do? The answer was, since I had been the general manager of a national collection agency with branches across the United States, I would open a collection agency. That's what I knew and I knew I was good at it. And, I knew I could make good money doing it.

Not much money was needed, $8500 according to California State Law. So, my assistant manager at the branch that I was managing and myself decided we would strike out on our own and open a collection agency. It was what we knew. I had a car that was paid for, so I sold that and kept the one with a loan on it, and then I got a personal loan from my bank for a belated honeymoon with my wife, so I could raise my half, $4,250. First lesson here is banks only lend money to businesses that don't need it, since I had originally gone to several banks to try to borrow the money to start a "new" business and was turned down by all of them.
And, all of a sudden, I was the President of my own company, small though it might have been at the time.

The next thing I knew, despite this not being my passion, we made the business a success and known through out the United States. We made a lot of money, had nice cars, a beautiful home overlooking Lake Washington, Seattle in the background and the Olympic Mountains behind that; and we had a 43 foot motor yacht to cruise the Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands and the inside straights of Canada.

But, then the frightening reality, I hated what I was doing. I didn't look forward to getting up each morning and racing into the office and I hated the overwhelming stress that came with being the President of my own company . But, of course, now I was in my late forties so what was I going to do? The only practical thing was to continue going in to a job I hated and tough it out until retirement time. My life had flashed before my eyes and twenty five years had gone by, unfulfilled, unsatisfied and day by day.

The point is that this is what happens to most of us in life. We get rapped up in the day to day routine, the need to make enough money to pay our bills and raise our children and then all of a sudden, it is over. The children have grown and there we are.

The lesson should have come much earlier. In 1983, my wife, Susan, and I moved back to my hometown of Spokane, Washington. Routinely, I would run into people that I had known in high school. One day I wanted a quick lunch close to my office. So, I went into Denny's and sat down at the counter. The waitress came up and gave me a menu and said she would be right back to take my order. But, upon first seeing her, I thought she looked familiar.

When she returned, I asked her where she went to high school, Lewis and Clark, then where she went to junior high school, Libby Junior High, and then elementary school, Alcott Elementary. Sure enough I had known her from the time I was in elementary school all the way through high school. And, now she was serving me at the counter of a Denny's. Now, obviously, there is nothing wrong with that in and of itself. But, the real jewel of this lesson was, like me, she had gotten caught up in the rat race of day to day life. She had chosen to stay in Spokane, get a job and now 20 years had gone by and she was waitressing at Denny's as she had lived day to day for her whole life with no goals and no passion.

This was not the first such meeting that I had. There were many more to follow. Of course, the physicians sons were now physicians and the department store owners kids now owned the department stores. But even those individuals had not discovered their passion. They just went where the path of least resistance lead them and for the most part that meant following in their parents footpaths.

I had essentially done the same thing, but I left Spokane after high school and had been introduced to a whole other world, one with goals, goal setting, big dreams, Zig Ziglar's, Brian Tracey's, etc. What I lacked was the single most important thing of all, finding my passion and following it.

Do not let this happen to you. Barbara Sher has some excellent books, DVDs, CDs and seminars on helping you to find your passion. Get your hands on everything that you can until one of them turns on that light bulb and you discover what that passion is and then do everything in your power to follow.

One example: You have a passion for ice skating and competing, but you are not quite good enough to make it professionally. Well, there are still alternatives. Go to work for the Ice Follies in some capacity that keeps you close to your passion. Take a position in sales with a manufactures ice skates. You get the idea.