Let’s talk about passion. Finding your passion.

Alright, I’m a business coach as you know, and my Facebook feed, and my LinkedIn feed are full of shit like this. They’re full of other coaches and advisers saying that if only you find your passion, success, and joy, and riches will follow just surely as night follows day.

Well I’m not really buying it. It doesn’t really ring true. To me, it sounds great! If only you find your passion and everything will be fine.

Now I’m Jon (obviously), from Small Fish Business Coaching. I run the ‘Tradies Toolbox’ Coaching Program. And I help trades business owners grow and scale their trades business. It’s my passion. You don’t f#%k/ng believe, me do you? Of course you don’t.

I used to think about this passion stuff and think, “Oh I don’t get it.” Anyway, I want to think about it and take the goodness out of that statement. And apply it to a trades business. And a business coaching business. I want to take some of the silly wankery out of it. And get rid of it so we don’t just look at it and ridicule it.

So all this was started partly by a chap called Simon Sinek who’s one of the better-known writers and speakers on the internet about leadership and about finding your passion. He’s quite well known, he’s very successful, and he found his passion after losing it and got successful again. So it’s lovely tale of love, joy and you know, success. And I kind of… I really like him actually.

Recommended Reading: Teamwork and Leadership: are you doing it?

So I’m struggling a bit with the kind of wankery of what he said. Sounds great. You find your passion. You have a job but this is how he defines it by the way:

A job that you would do even if you didn’t get paid you’d still get out of bed in the morning and do this.

Who has that job apart from Keith Richards? Who has that?

Nobody has that.

Would you really be on the tools on a building site if nobody was paying you?

I don’t think I would be coaching. I think it’s inauthentic to pretend that this is our passion.

I looked up a few job descriptions. I looked, put passion and passionate into LinkedIn as a search term. And these are a few that I got:

• I’m a passionate, not-for-profit advisor.
• I do protection with passion because you’re worth it. (He sells insurance, that guy.)

And there was a whole shitload more people who have passion in internet marketing or are passionate about helping small business owners use social media to make more money, profit, and sales (like f#%k off.)

Are you really passionate about your trade, about plumbing, about building, about plastering, about electrical services?

Like I said I don’t think I’m passionate about business coaching. I like it. It’s a good job. It’s pretty interesting. I like helping people. I like meeting people that I can like and working with people I like. I like building a cool business. And I’m pretty proud of the work I do, and the success I have, and how hard I try and… and how I help people. And that’s a bit more relatable and authentic, isn’t it?

And I want to think about how we use that principle and that type of language to help you in your trade business. Help you attract your customers, and attract your employees, and motivate yourself instead of using stupid language like “I’m passionate” which frankly makes me think about booze, and sex, and food, and stuff like that, the things I’m really passionate about. And I don’t really want to think about that in terms of work or tradesmen, frankly.

So look, here’s a little exercise for you:

• Think about what you’re proud of at work.( ‘PROUD OF’: write it down.)
• Think about what you enjoy about your work, about your business.
• Think about what motivates you about your business.
• Think about what you’re chasing or what you’re trying to build.
• Think about what you’re proud of in your business that looks after other people, doing good work:
  • Looking after people, doing the right thing, having integrity
  • Looking after your staff.

All those things, how does that feel?

All that is passion. It might be. But:

1. Write it down.
2. Write it on your website.
3. Write it in your values statement.
4. Write it in your strategy.

If I’m your business coach, you’ll do all those things.

1. Communicate it to everybody.
2. Communicate it to your staff.
3. Building a thing I’m quite proud of.

Do that, use that kind of language. Don’t say you’re passionate because that’s crap in my view.