Going from passion to market

Years ago I read about two different birds landed at a local wing of an airport. One was a natural bird and the other was an artificial bird. The natural bird landed without any form of noise and rarely do people know of her arrival. The artificial bird in its attempt to land commanded the attention of different departments of the airport authority. There were various efforts to help its landing processes and unfortunately in the struggle eventually crash-landed. The natural bird is a sparrow while the artificial is an aircraft carrying passengers.

Dear friend, just as the natural bird landed easily, when you operate in your natural ability, you get a great result for your effort. Sometimes it looks like those who work with their talents are not working hard and yet they succeed in business. The fact is that it will not be difficult to invest your time and finance in a business that resonates with your most powerful emotion. Your passion builds on your powerful emotion.

Proof of your passion for any line of business is consistent thought of it, commitment of time, resource and your energy, and it starts with your desire to exercise your talent for the passion. You must respect your talent as a gift because you can create value from it, which is marketable. Talent is more valuable in the market when you are willing to polish it with good education and training. Your talent keeps you in service to humanity and creates wealth. Channel your talent into your passion; it is easier that way to set up business.

Those who set up business around the area of their most influential emotion, passion, rarely depend on external motivation to keep giving value to people. In times of business challenges, they keep their head up because of conviction of the prospect in both near and long term.

Bill Gates is a talented software programmer whose powerful emotion is to see computers on every desk in every house in the world. Another reference is Sam Adeyemi, the president of Daystar Leadership Academy in Lagos as a model in non-profit organisation sector. I comprehend that it was easier for him to be consistent in leadership development services because of passion. Sam’s talent is teaching and his powerful emotion is to develop leaders for institutions in nations of Africa and beyond.

Those who build businesses around their talent and passion rarely try to be like any other person and not easily distracted. Usually they stay focused and innovate from time to time. To many of them, the principle of many small wins brought them to stardom and wealth creation.

Will you find out your natural ability too? Will you find your dominant emotion? These are keystone decisions to your business, leadership success and sustainability

Your strongest point is important too

It is not enough to recognise your dominant emotion; you need to discover your area of strength or core competence. For example, your passion or powerful emotion could be to see people have access to quality food. Your strength, which is your strongest point, could be to start a restaurant especially if you are a talented cook. You may not necessarily start an NGO for quality food advocacy if you do not have talent for organising social events and meetings.

Usain Bolt, 100-meter world record holder’s passion is for athletics. His strongest point, strength, is the 100 and 200-meter race. Gabriel Sellase is also passionate about athletics but will never do 100 meter like Usain Bolt, although he is a talented runner but only have strength in long distance race. His strongest point is long distance run where he thrives with world record.

Both Usain Bolt and Gabriel Sellase are talented runners but compete differently and keep winning because they do so in their strongest points. This also applies to businesses and ministry that differentiate themselves in the markets and winning because they put in view their strongest points for value creation.

These Questions are important

Are you passionate about the line of business you have invested so much money? Do you have a powerful emotion for the problem you are trying to solve? Does it break your heart that people could not live a better life because of absence of this service? Do you have the talent and talented team to drive the business? Have you discovered your area of strongest point for the business? Answers to these questions will help you develop a new strategy for the business.

If you have found your passion then taking it to market and building a successful business around it will require that you develop and exercise your talent while you focus on area of greatest strength.

Victor Mamora