Stories from the field: Passion and Commitment
While being exposed to creative business ideas day in and day out is a fun part of my job, probably the best part is getting to meet the entrepreneurs behind those ideas. In talking to one recently, it really reminded me of a couple of the core entrepreneurial qualities: Passion and Commitment.
The Story
This woman (let’s call her Jill) has a good job, as does her husband, and a couple kids. They would do quite well for themselves in their current jobs and be able to provide anything their children might need.
The problem is, Jill came up with a good idea. Then she got passionate about it. Then she committed to it.
Like many first time entrepreneurs, Jill had the idea but didn’t know how to get started. She was smart enough to do some research and had started a business plan, but needed help honing in on what was most important during this phase and what really needed to be in her plan. A friend of hers I had met with before referred her to me.
In the course of our conversation, Jill told me that her and her husband had decided to “downsize” their life by selling their house and buying something smaller, in order to free up a sizable chunk of equity for the venture.
Normally, when we hear something like that, we send up the red flags immediately to the entrepreneur. With a “fail early, fail cheap” point of view, we get very nervous when we hear entrepreneurs talk about spending their life savings or taking a second mortgage on their house to finance their ideas, especially when they don’t even know if they have something anyone wants to buy.
But in this case, Jill’s decision didn’t send up any red flags. She wasn’t planning on going into debt, merely freeing up some capital to get started. She and her husband obviously had the business experience to do this correctly and more important, Jill had the passion and commitment to take advantage of this short-term personal sacrifice.
I was glad to be able to help Jill get focused on next steps to get her closer to her goal, but I suspect I got more out of the meeting than she did.
The Leadership Lesson
Commitment is making a sacrifice to achieve our vision. Passion is feeling like it’s not a sacrifice.
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