Soup: A Recipe to Nourish Your Team and Culture

Chapter 46. Passion

Nancy needed people who were hot with passion. Passion was the ingredient that would take them to the top. Passion was what she had noticed on the football field. The players and coaches had it, and her company needed it. When she arrived home that night, she wrote a memo that she would share the next day with the entire company:

If we as a company are going to feed greatness and build a world-class company, then we need to infuse passion into our soup and into each other. This means that we must be a company that is filled with passionate people. In the past, you could be lukewarm and mediocre and still be successful. Not anymore.

Now, in today's competitive environment, your passion and your purpose must be greater than your challenges. To be successful you have to be willing to work harder, learn more, practice longer, lead better, smile more, and love deeper, and this requires passion.

Passion wakes you up 30 minutes earlier. It dials your phone one more time to make one more sale. It rallies your team together when times are tough. It moves you to see one more customer after a long day. It inspires you to help a struggling colleague. It provides legendary customer service. Passion transforms workplaces, powers champions, and fuels winning teams.

"What about someone who has a low-paying job or who is in a job that, quite frankly, is hard to be passionate about?" you might ask. I've been thinking a lot about this, and it's not the job or the money you are being ...