The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur

April 12Passion Without Perseverance

Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted. And the circumstances that provoke it, however trivial or mean, are no measure of its power.

Herman Melville—Billy Budd, Sailor (1924)

Have you ever mistaken perseverance for passion?

Perseverance helps you do the hard stuff, try a new approach, even get back up time and time again.

Passion, though, is something you feel; it's the thing that gives your entrepreneurial journey power, no matter how insignificant or misguided it seems to others.

But here's the problem: you must have both.

You need a burning passion to make some difference, to make every new day an adventure, but you also need the perseverance to dig in and figure out how to get it all done—even the stuff you're not so passionate about.

Many businesses fail not due to a lack of passion but due to an inability of the business owner to figure out how to run the business. Getting the boring, dispassionate, mundane stuff done that must be done, the stuff that mostly just requires perseverance, grit, and patience. You may be supercharged about helping other business owners, but if you can't help yourself help your business run, what have you accomplished?

Today, consider both the things you're most passionate about and the things that will potentially take you down if you ...