Passion

By Gall

I guess that some folks think that John Taffer (Bar Rescue) and Anthony Melchiorri (Hotel Impossible) are just mean spirited jerks … we don’t!  We believe that they are just passionate!!!  They love what they do, and they want to do it right!  Maybe that’s why they are tops in their respective fields.  Anthony made the comment tonight (on Dad’s DVR’ed episode) along the lines of “… I’m disgusted with what I’m seeing … but I see that you do care, so I’ll stay and try and help you.”

Yeah, they yell a little bit – they can be critical of people and policies – but it’s only because they care about the people and places … yeah, they ARE passionate!  They try and help because they want to see other folks become successful too – and they believe that this is most achievable when you truly care about what you’re doing.  You have to get “wired and inspired”!  This can be a tough task when the folks that you’re trying to help need some educatin’ and schoolin’ and gets really complicated when the helpees have (or get) tunnel vision, have a negative attitude, and/or can’t seem to ever think (or even see) outside of the box (or when their “self-constructed” box is WAY to small)!  It proves to be downright impossible to pull anything resembling success when the helpees lie (either to themselves, their colleagues, or the helpers) and especially so when the helpees lack the passion and desire to do the best that they can do … are uninspired … or are just plain ignorant.

While researching this article, I came across a YouTube Video on The Eight Traits of Successful People by Richard St. John.  His premise is that not every successful person gets successful the same way, but they all still have some traits in common.  He traveled around the world for ten years conducting face-to-face interviews with successful people from all fields, such as Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's, Bill Gates, Arianna Huffington, James Cameron, Matt Groening, and even Dan Ackroyd, among others.  After analyzing everything he'd learned, he came up with these eight traits:

1. Passion:  Love what you do.

2. Work:  Really hard.

3. Focus:  On one thing, not everything.

4. Push:  And keep on pushing yourself.

5. Ideas:  Come up with some good ones.

6. Improve:  Keep improving yourself and what you do.

7. Serve:  Serve others something of value.

8. Persist:  Because there is no overnight success.

This is a pretty good list … I think!!!  But, you know, it’s not really all that sophisticated – kinda seems like common sense after you read it and think about it for a little bit.  These are the traits that are great if you have them, and should be sought after if you don't. Success doesn't come easy, but when you know what you're aiming for, taking the shot is much simpler.

I’m not real sure if Richard is necessarily saying that this list is ranked in any specific order or not … and while I do agree that all of these items are certainly important in helping you be successful … also, I believe that passion is definitely a key and critical component to the success in ANY and EVERY endeavor.  If you do not truly love, enjoy, and believe in not only the task at hand, but also those that you are doing it with, and for – you will be less successful than you would have otherwise been.  You may still be semi-successful, but you will enjoy that success less and will ultimately be unhappy.

Here’s to Passion!!!!!  Cheers!