The Passion Myth

I have an awesome QnA for you today, but first, I want to remind you to watch Ryan Deiss’ free video here today. No optin required. And yes, that’s an affiliate link.

In addition, you should be signing up for Ryan’s emails just to watch his product launch process. He is one of the best. If you’re at all serious about making money on the web, you simply can’t ignore how he runs his business.

You can learn a lot by watchin’, as old Yogi Berra said.

Now to one of the best questions I’ve been asked in a while. Let’s talk about the “Passion Myth”.

Question: Hey Craig,

I have a quick question in regards to “passion”. It seems there are two thoughts regarding passion in the business world.

The first is the do-what-you-love-and-work-won’t-seem-like-
work-theory. That is, if you do what you love or what you’re passionate about, you will never lack the motivation needed to reach business goals.

The other camp says that the market doesn’t care what you love or what your passion is, the market wants what it wants. And if you make a business out of your passion it will quickly become a tedious chore and you will start hating that passion.

Obviously you have a passion and love for fitness, but do you think it’s possible to succeed in running a business selling products or services in an area that one is not “passionate” about? Or is the passion you and Bedros discuss in the interview a different form of passion altogether?

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work!

Answer: This is a great question, and I’m really glad you asked.

What a lot of people overlook is that not only can you be passionate about a product, but you can also be passionate about a process.

Look at Rick Porter, for example. He makes good money being an affiliate of my fitness products. Now Rick’s interested in fitness, but not passionate about it. On the other hand, he is passionate about SEO. He has to be. How else could someone be as good at SEO if they weren’t passionate about it?

What Rick does (SEO, link building, keyword research, etc.) and what I do (writing about 10,000 words per day) is factory work to most other people.

I often describe my workspace as a sweatshop. Right now, for example, I’m out on the farm where the old house doesn’t have air conditioning, and I’m working with a little fan blowing on me. But it’s still uncomfortable.

And even when I’m working in my air-conditioned apartment in Toronto or a hotel on the road, there’s still little difference between the factory work I did in college (assembling bearings that go in cars) from what I do now.

It’s not all unicorns and pixie dust when you have a website business. There’s a lot of hard work. One way or the other, if you want to succeed, you have to do the work – mentally or physically.

But as far as work goes, there’s isn’t much else I’d rather be doing. Unless you could find me a job where I get paid to shoot guns and drink beer.

What Rick and I do, most people couldn’t stand. The only way we persevere is by being passionate about the process.

On the other hand, I can’t stand building decks, but I have friends who do that everyday. They enjoy working with their hands and take pride in the final outcome.

So could you hate what you do and make a lot of money at it?

I suppose. I’m sure there are quite a few lawyers out there who fit that description.

But of the world’s richest people, who fits that description?

What really rich person isn’t passionate about what they do?

I can understand how some of those Russian guys might not be passionate about oil or mining, but they’re probably passionate about acquiring power and money.

So I just can’t see how you can remove passion from success.

Now, will you have days when you wish that you didn’t make your passion your business?

Probably. I’ve had my fair share (mostly back in 2003 when I struggled).

But I wouldn’t have made it through the dips if I wasn’t passionate.

So if you made a list of all the most successful people in the world, or even the most successful people that you know, how many of them would you list as being in a position where they hate what they do? Or are even ambivalent about what they do?

Not too many.

You don’t work night and day to go from rags to riches if you don’t love the product or the process.

And the great thing about the internet is that there are many different processes to be passionate about.

Take all the folks in the room at Ryan Deiss’ mastermind last week.

There was Joel Marion – he’s passionate about product launches.

There was Mike Geary – passionate about tracking, testing, and creating offers with maximum conversion.

There was Vince DelMonte – passionate about sharing his “Live Large” lifestyle through video and seminars.

There was Adam Steer – passionate about networking and growing his business through joint ventures.

And then there was me – passionate about creating more written content than one million monkeys typing on one million keyboards.

Plus, there were others passionate about social media, youtube, SEO, and membership sites.

But not ONE of them indifferent about what they were doing.

Then again, there were no lawyers in the room.

Good question, thanks for asking.

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One more thing before I go…I’m off on a big trip next week, and I’ll be cutting back the Internet Independence email frequency to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And in all honesty, this is probably a permanent change.

Not a big deal though, of course, and the content will remain super amazing – as will the subject lines.

Get passionate about something,

Craig Ballantyne

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude” – Thomas Jefferson