Prakash PK Menon writes
What makes a business, an art or an endeavor great? Hint: It is not money, resources or opportunities. The answer is passion and production.
If you have the passion and zeal to do something, you can accomplish it with fewer resources and in a low budget.
Passion is one of those intangible elements that drives people, gets them through tough times, and ultimately dictates success. You are likely to see the most astounding results when you work towards your passion. Your passion gets noticed in a world full of sleepwalkers. Everyone from prospective employees to prospective investors to prospective customers can be impressed and most are willing to bet on you. The passion can make the difference between making a living and making a killing. Who doesnt know Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft? But, do you know he was passionate about computers, even when he was in school? He would miss classes to design video games.
Not only Bill Gates, every successful entrepreneur that you hear about today has achieved thier feat because they were passionate about it. Yes, thats passion when the entire world doesnt matter, but the object of your focus does.
No wonder, most wise people would advise you to follow your passion!
However, this advice of follow your passion often turns out to be a dud. Yes, really! Because passions alone arent worth a dime. How many passionate writers you know who havent written their first book yet? Passionate painters who have never painted their much touted masterpiece, and passionate individuals who want to change the world with their revolutionary idea, but even years later that idea is still an idea in their head?
The world is full of such people, and there is a reason the artist starving in the attic is a stereotype. Right from business to art, these guys make the majority. It isnt that they lack passion. No, no they are full of passion and raring to go. But, somehow they never start. Their passion fizzles out just when they are required to act on it.
So, passion alone doesnt take you places. To succeed one needs another ingredient, the often missing production.
Create a prototype is something that angel investors have gone hoarse crying about to the visionary artistic founders who seek million dollar funding just for a PowerPoint presentation that they created of a fancy business idea they believe would fetch them billions.
Laughable, right? But most people dont even have a PowerPoint presentation, let alone a prototype. They have the alleged passion, but no concrete production. And thus, we never hear their success stories. No wonder, 90% of startups fail. Its not because their founders didnt have any passion. No, sir, they had it, probably too much. However, they could not fuel that passion with the necessary performance.
The cure is a little action. Thats where people like Richard Branson stand out. An impulsive, intuitive and calculating business person who can be argued as one of the most successful of his generation. The burning passion must be matched with concrete action to blast through the ranks of mediocre wannabes who would do it someday (and that someday, sadly, never arrives).
Branson has been quoted as saying: There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions in a way that serves the world and you. But on the other hand the charismatic Brit has also been quoted as saying Screw it. Lets just do it !
And that can be the most practical advice for these lost souls. Dont just follow your passions, follow your effort too.
Art is not art till the time it is produced and displayed before those who are able to appreciate it. There was once a man, almost a mad artist, who was finicky about using tiny and beautiful screws in his little fancy electronic machines, something that his customers would never see. But, that didnt bother him. He had the passion, you see, to make things as perfect as humanly possible. He said something that should be the motto of all the visionary artistic entrepreneurs who want to move from passion to production: Great artists ship. And, yes the mad artist was none other than Steve Jobs himself.