In my most recent episode of “white wine +introspection,” I came across this excellent article about productivity and finding your passion and purpose. The premise is that once you find your passion and pursue it, productivity and goal setting will follow.
If what you do with the best hours of your day is not also the thing you’re passionate about, stop right now!
Stop right now and confront the cold hard facts for what they are: no amount of effectiveness training, time management skills, productivity tips and tricks or goal setting know-how will replace the critical missing ingredient of your life: passion.
Until you discover your “fire within” you will remain condemned to a life only endured, not lived; to delicacies only tasted, not devoured; to joys only imagined, not experienced. And in old age you will lament the days of your youth, when fears about money and security kept you from taking the leaps of faith and courage in the direction of your dreams.
A life lived in moderation is not the stuff of stories told to grandchildren with a twinkle in your eye.
When Goal Setting Hardly Matters
Robert Allen wrote a book a few years ago about making money online. I have forgotten most of what I read (the stuff about making money!) but I have always remembered a point he made about how people who do what they truly love don’t have to set goals the same way many of the rest of us do.
Please take the time to read this rather long quote about financial goals, because it really drives the point home well:
Many years ago, before I understood why goals don’t always work, I was teaching in Dallas on the power of goal setting. A woman came up to me afterward with a puzzled look on her face. “Mr. Allen. I’m a full time real estate investor. I get up in the morning excited. I love to make deals. I have so much fun making money, I hate to go to bed at night. And yet, I’ve never written down a financial goal in my life. What am I doing wrong?”
I was stumped for a moment. She didn’t fit into my picture of the successful person (since all successful people have financial goals, right?) I stammered something about how much more successful she’d be if she did set goals. She nodded, wisely. And I shrugged off the whole incident.
About this time, a good friend and fellow real estate investor, told me that he was going to liquidate his small portfolio of properties and concentrate on his painting. I said, “But Sam, if you stick with real estate for 5 more years, you can retire and be free to paint for the rest of your life.” His answer was mildly unsettling. “Bob, I’ve discovered I don’t like real estate. But I love to paint.” I walked away shaking my head at this soon-to-be-a-poor-and-starving artist. But a year later he was doing rather well financially. And loving every minute of it.
Then, I read an article about how billionaire Donald Trump spends a typical day. He arrives at the office, talks a lot on the phone and does deals… whatever deals he feels like doing that day. No written goals. No specific agenda. Just a passion to do deals… the bigger the deal, the better. How could this be? I wondered. Don’t all successful people have written, financial goals?
And then, one day all of these seemingly unrelated incidents coalesced into one gigantic AHA! It happened while I was watching a golf tournament on T.V. featuring Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Fuzzy Zoeller and Arnold Palmer. As they asked these four great golfers why they golfed, I suddenly knew why they were so successful: “I love the game of golf.” “I love the competition.” “I love to try to beat the best players in the world.” “I love the people you meet in the game of golf.” “Challenge is important to me.” “I could play golf every day, all day long.” “I’m one of the luckiest guys in the world. There are very few of us who get to do what we love and make a lot of money doing it.”
That was it! These guys weren’t playing for money! They were playing because they loved to play. Sure, maybe in the beginning money was a part of it… maybe a big part… but money was never the primary motivator. First and foremost, they were passionate about the game of golf. I doubt any one of them had a written financial goal, “I want to become a millionaire playing golf before my 35th birthday.”
…
When you’re doing what you love to do, the money comes naturally. Maybe not at first, but eventually… if you stick with it. Do you think Bob Hope started out with a goal, “I want to become a millionaire by making people laugh, then I’ll retire to do what I want?” I doubt it. He just did what he did best. And the money came. Slowly at first, but then in truckloads. After he became extraordinarily wealthy, why didn’t he retire? When you’re living your dream why would you want to retire?
Are you hearing what Robert is saying? Concerns about effectiveness and productivity are well and good, but you have to get the bigger questions about passion and purpose answered first. And you need the courage (the “guts”) to create a life out of doing what you love.
I heard someone else once put it this way: discipline is the ability to consistently say “no” to the wrong things. But it takes one big fat compelling “YES!” to make it clear what you must say “no” to, and to give you the discipline to say it consistently.
Allen continues:
I read a study where the employees and executives of a major company were asked what they would do if they won a million dollars in a lottery. 80% of the rank and file employees responded that they’d immediately quit their jobs. Then they asked the executives the same question. Only 20% of them would quit. Why would 80% stay even though they were now financially independent? Because they find a lot of happiness and fulfillment in their day to day activities. They love what they’re doing. They’re not leaders because they make so much money. They make so much money because they love to lead.
If Bill Cosby won the state lottery, would he retire from show business? Would Barbra Streisand quit singing? Would Shaq O’Neil quit playing basketball? Not even if he won the biggest lottery in the world. And almost nothing could have kept George Forman out of the boxing ring.
If you won the lottery next week would you quit your job? If you would, what is that saying?
Finding Your Passion and Purpose
Robert Allen has this very insightful way of unpacking what your purpose is all about:
Purpose is knowing what you want and doing it because it expresses who you really are. Billy Graham, Julio Iglesias, Lee Iacocca, Mother Theresa (when she was alive). They’re “on purpose.” They’re living the life they were born to live. It’s hard to imagine them doing anything else. They don’t need goals to motivate themselves. They’d do it anyway. And if they do set goals, it’s just to keep score.
I’ve spent a lot of time studying highly effective people, including graduates of my various seminars, and I find four threads that run through all of their conversations:
Passion: They love what they do. If they weren’t making so much money, they’d be tempted to do it for free.
Values: Their daily activities are extremely important to them.
Talent: They’re good at what they do. Call it talent or ability, they’ve got what it takes to be one of the best.
Destiny: They have a sense that they are doing what they were born to do. They are making their own unique contribution. It’s almost a spiritual thing. They’re following their intuition and feel they are fulfilling their destiny.
- a.rae
There is no doubt that we have seen the power crowdsourcing spread its branches across numerous industries. Today however I came across a first…a restaurant fueled entirely by an online community of voices. 
