How to Rock

Scenario: "Dude, just exploit some opportunity whether you love it or not. You'll make billions. Yay!" It's Fabulous Friday, and most of you fabulous readers are heading into your long Christmas weekend. So we thought we'd send you out with a short and sweet thing to ask yourself during the break: "Is my badass seriously doing what I absolutely love?" You know, we could get caught up in the whole..."You have one life to live...," or "Follow your hearts...," and all the other mumbo-jumbo motivational phrases that are associated with doing what you love. And yes, we admit: most are true. But -- as the smartest, wittiest, and sexiest business readers on the face of this mutha $^@%^^ planet, you're not influenced by just motivational-speak. You want more. You want hard facts. You want empirical evidence. Otherwise, you're not receptive to it. We hear ya. With that said:

Why Doing What You Love Rocks

You take two people:

  • a) Fabio who absolutely loves French food, and starts a French food restaurant.
  • b) Mikey who's exploiting the hot "social networking opportunity" by building a MySpace clone with wiki functionality.

Who's going to have more money in ten years? If you answered (a) Fabio: Ding, ding, mutha ding, ding! You're one correct badass.

Fabio vs. Mikey

Fabio will likely start with a modest French restaurant, building on top of that success by growing it into a mini-chain to spread his love of French cuisine. Then before you know it: he'll have a French food empire that spans the globe. Meanwhile, Mikey will be jumping from opportunity-to-opportunity thinking: "Ohhhhh! There's THE market where I'll make my billions!" And when another hot opportunity arises, Mikey will jump ship again, and again, and again -- never fully establishing his business to build on top of his past successes.

Why Hot Opportunities Suck

"Hot" opportunities comes in waves; when those "hot" opportunities dry out in five years, you'll be left with blah. It's happened to personal computers, biotechnology, compact disks, ERPs, terminals, and any other "hot" opportunity that magazines heralded more than a couple years ago. Doing what you love instead keeps you doing that sucka no matter what market conditions present themselves. That sustains you, and drives you to build one success brick on top of another -- until you construct one monstrous business force that rocks the world like it ain't no thang but a chicken wing on a string.

It's in the Mutha ^%$^@ study

According to a study by Wharton and Stanford professors, "doing what you love" drove the super-successful:

Whether you are Jack Welch or the Dalai Lama, it is dangerous not to do what you love. If you don't have a level of passion that drives your thinking about what you're doing day in and day out, there will be others out there who are passionate who will overtake and outrun you. People who care will take the initiative away from those who are half-hearted. So loving what you do is a competitive imperative, not simply a nice thing to have.

What it Takes

You can't build Rome in a day by jumping from city-to-city exploiting "what's hot." Likewise, you can't build something that rocks for ages by jumping ship the next time some whacked-out business magazine declares: "Oooooh! Hot opportunities for 2007! Buy now!" Building a kick-ass business instead takes persistence, discipline, and heartfelt dedication in staying real to what makes you tick. Your badass deserves it.

Love. Work.


Have a Happy Holiday, y'all!

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Posted on December 22

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