How to Transform Your Passion into Success | Mind Over Money

Passion. If you do work that you love and work that fulfills you, the rest will come. Oprah Winfrey. When I sold my first business, I was searching for something to do. I didn't need to work, but I wanted to. Selling my business was like losing a part of me. I was looking for my next big thing to do. I spoke with my local YMCA and asked if I could present to their entrepreneur group, give back and share. They said yes, and for the next few weeks I went to work creating a great presentation. It was my best stuff, everything I had learned from the past couple of years in building a business from making $300 a month to international success and being acquired. I spent the next few weeks promoting my free event. The YMCA also promoted it to their audience. The big day comes. I remember walking into the building and my heart was pounding. I spent so much time on this and I wanted it to be perfect. I get in the elevator and I'm going over my presentation in my head, hoping I don't make any mistakes. I get off the elevator, walk into the room where I'm presenting, enter inside. I stopped breathing. Only 3 people had shown up. I spent weeks preparing and promoting. I created some life-changing content that I was excited to present, and it was free, and only 3 people came to listen. The show must go on. What could I do? I wasn't going to cancel. So I gave my presentation and got to know the 3 entrepreneurs who came. It was amazing. All 3 of them walked out as new people. They had confidence in their business again. They had a plan for what to do next. Their lives were forever changed. Failure? Most people would look at this and say it was a huge failure. All that time spent in creating the content and promoting the event. Weeks of my life that I'll never get back. How can you turn this into a business if you can only get 3 people to come to an event that was free? This idea didn't work, so I should go do something else, right? Wrong. I loved helping those 3 people. I knew I had to do more. I knew I had to do it again. I didn't care if only 3 people came out to each of my presentations. As long as someone came, I was going to do my best to help them. Even if I couldn't make a single dollar from this venture, even if I ran out of money and had to go do something else to support myself, I had to find a way to keep doing it. Because I loved it. That's all that matters. If you love your business, you'll find a way to make it work. It's going to be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. People will tell you you're crazy and you should go get a job. Be realistic. But it's the love of what you're doing that's going to push you through. It's that passion that's going to make you succeed no matter what. Passion. So many entrepreneurs start a business just trying to make money. If that's your only goal, you won't have success. I don't care how hot the market is right now. You can make money in any industry, any industry, but only if you're passionate about what you're doing and are committed to seeing this through. Success. If you look at any successful entrepreneur, look at how they got started. Look at why they did what they did. It was never for the money. It was because they had a deep passion for their work. They wanted to change the way things were done in their industry. You need to find your passion. If you want to have similar success, you need to build your business around something that you are deeply passionate about. Something that you're prepared to fight for when your friends and family tell you you're crazy. Something that even if you run out of money and have to go get a job, you'll keep doing because you love it so much. You have to find a way to keep going. Every day, keep going. If you don't have that passion, you won't make it. But if you do, the world will eventually open itself up to you if you can hang in there. Believe.