Passion Is Not Enough: How To Build a Strong Foundation In Your Business and Your Life

I started reading my friend Ajit Nawalkha’s book titled “Live Big.” He talks about Passion vs. Practicality and I’m over here like…

“Find your passion and do that for your career” is a bad piece of advice. Do I believe one should enjoy what they do? Absolutely. But it’s not the whole picture.

Passion is an EASY way to start something. Anyone can do it. “Holy crap I met this awesome guy – we have amazing chemistry, he’s cute, I can be quirky around him, and he makes me laugh like no one else can.”

Then enter a challenging moment in the relationship. You realize that while you have great chemistry, he’s cute, you can be quirky around him, and he makes you laugh… you never talked about your core values, and discover they don’t match. You believe in integrity while he thinks it’s ok to lie. You believe in putting each other first while he runs whenever he feels uncomfortable. The same problems show up repeatedly and never get fully resolved. You go back to passion + sweet moments for a while but ultimately it feels like running a marathon. Not sustainable.

There needs to be foundation – some sort of practicality. What’s going to keep things going when passion isn’t there to rely on?

Business or relationship – this topic pertains to both.

I am thankful my parents taught me business skills, otherwise I wouldn’t have known how to sustain my business for over ten years. I started photography because it was my passion – my mom gifted me a dSLR camera after college and I wouldn’t put it down. I loved it so much and decided to move to LA to pursue photography.

It happens all the time. There are a lot of photographers now. They love photography and have a great eye. Their Instagram looks incredible. They maybe even have tens of thousands of followers, but aren’t making enough money. BUT, they love the aesthetic and idea of it. Eventually they reach a point where they think, “Now what?,” and the truth is many of them stop pursuing it as a career.

Anything long term will naturally hit a plateau. I’ve felt this way many times. Growth is natural, so one must fall back on systems and discover new approaches when the plateaus hit. As much as I wished I jumped out of bed EVERY SINGLE MORNING ready to take on the world with my camera, it’s not always going to be like that. Besides the fun parts, there is also the networking, accounting, contractor personnel, creative blocks, depressed phases in life, etc. I feel lucky that I enjoy what I do 95% of the time.

When I first met my husband, besides looking googly-eyed at a handsome salt-and-pepper man, I observed his core values. I looked at whether what he said and what he did matched. I looked at how he showed up when I hit a low. I looked at his relationship with money. I looked at his relationship to health and his body. I looked at how he interacts with not only me, but his friends, family, and strangers. I’m sure he did the same with me.

If one of us felt unsure about something, we talked about it and made sure it was resolved so we were confident that this is going to work.

Together we built a foundation, and are continuing to build it.