How much does passion matter?

If you are starting a new business, I think the key ingredient to success, more than funding, more than ideas, more than planning and strategy, is passion. If you don’t have that you’ll never get past the grind. And, even more importantly in the early days, your passion is pretty much what you have to rely on to engage and inspire the people around you.

So what is passion? It’s like the old saying goes – I have no idea but I’ll know when I see it.

There is plenty of great rhetoric out there. People can talk up a storm and it all seems quite passionate, but then you scratch the surface and underneath it just doesn’t hold up.

“We are passionate about our customers.” But systematically put up barriers to having to speak to them.

“We are passionate about the environment.” But don’t want to change how we do things in any way.

“We are passionate about [insert your favourite here].” But despite our words nothing we do supports it.

You have a better chance of people believing your passion if it is visible. Too many businesses start up and don’t embed whatever their passion is into the fabric of their operations. And then a few years down the track they wonder why people don’t “believe” them, why they can’t get “traction”.

It’s hard work to make your passion visible and weave it into your business. It takes time and effort and thought. But isn’t that how it should be, after all, among the Latin origin of the word passion means to submit.

That’s the thing about passion, even though it’s a feeling, we willingly follow it when we see it.

There are many great “passionatas” throughout history, who led companies, countries, ideas, whole movements. They wore their passion on their sleeves and yes, they suffered for it and often died for it. We can learn much from them about the true meaning of passion.

Thankfully the stakes are not usually that high for the new business down the block, but the truth remains whether you are Socrates, Newton, Einstein, Gandi, Al Gore, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson or “Sam Brown” – passion is the engine of human motivation.

So what’s your passion? Can everyone see it?

See you next week.

Michel Hogan is a Brand Advocate. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia and in the United States, she helps organisations recognise who they are and align that with what they do and say, to build more authentic and sustainable brands. She also publishes the Brand thought leadership blog – Brand Alignment.