Passion vs. Purpose: Which One Does Your Company Need?
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Passion vs. Purpose: Which One Does Your Company Need?

Uncategorized Dec 17, 2019

Passion vs. Purpose: Which One Does Your Company Need?

The following is adapted from The Problem Isn’t Their Paycheck.

 

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

This oft-repeated advice means that you should be passionate about your business, right? Not exactly.

When we hear the word love, we often think about passion, but it is possible to love something and not be passionate about it. My business, Stewardship, is a mortgage, insurance, and investment management company. I love my company, but trust me—I am not passionate about mortgages, insurance, or financial planning. I love my company not because I’m passionate about it, but because it fulfills my purpose: loving people through finances.

As I’ll explain in this article, purpose, not passion, is far more important to building a company. Passions may come and go, but purpose provides a lasting vision for your company that your team can rally around.

Passion: Individualistic and Inconstant

A passion is something you are deeply enthusiastic about. It is something you do because you enjoy it. Passions are specific to a particular individual, and passions change.

I used to be passionate about my lawn, going to great lengths to make it green and beautiful. I mowed it on the weekends. I would drive to specialty stores to find the perfect grass seed and the right nitrogen pellets. I would even purchase cow manure and spread the fertilizer around with my hands! I wanted it to look like the outfield at Wrigley, and I just loved having really great, green grass.

But a couple of weeks ago, as I was mowing my lawn, I thought, “I’m done. This takes so much time away from my family, and I don’t want to do this anymore.” My passion changed.

If you build your company around a passion and then that passion changes, where does that leave you? With a company you no longer care about.

And again, passions are specific to an individual. Companies are composed of teams. While you may be passionate about something, you can’t force your team to be passionate about it as well. Even if I were still passionate about my grass, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to unify a team around that.

Purpose: Unifying and Long-Lasting

Purpose is how we contribute to something larger than ourselves. Having a purpose is what gives us meaning in life.

Through countless studies as a neurologist and psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl proved that purpose is more powerful than passion. He also personally demonstrated it in one of the most trying experiences anyone could ever go through. You see, Frankl survived Theresienstadt, Kaufering, Türkheim, and Auschwitz concentration camps during the Holocaust—and he was instrumental in helping a large group of other people to survive as well.

In an unimaginable situation that required extreme motivation to continue living, Frankl had to help people find purpose. There was no passion in the concentration camps. Had those people been dependent on passion to see them through, they all would have died. But Frankl gave them the purpose of staying alive so they could tell the world the truth about the horrors the Nazis were perpetrating. That purpose—intended to help the rest of the world come together to prevent these atrocities from ever happening again—kept him and many other people alive.

Purpose is more long-lasting than passion. If you build your company around a purpose, it doesn’t matter if your passions change. You will continue to feel fulfilled by your company, because you are doing work that serves a purpose—work that matters. 

Purpose is also larger than any single individual. Having purpose in your company gives your team something to rally around—something to unite and motivate them. 

Passion or Purpose?

A study done by UC Berkeley found that employees who had a purpose, who found meaning in their work, outperformed the people who had passion.

Passions are exciting. They can bring us joy. But purpose brings us fulfillment. Ultimately, work that matters is more important and more motivating than work that is fun.

If you want a stable, lasting business with a unified team of high-performing employees, the choice is clear: choose purpose.

For more advice on creating a purpose for your company, you can find The Problem Isn’t Their Paycheck on Amazon.

 

Grant Botma is the founder of Stewardship and the leader of its nationally ranked team of top producers. Thanks to a thriving company culture, Grant’s team has won numerous awards, including national performance rankings like “Top 1%” and “Top 100.” Grant’s leadership has also grown Stewardship to be an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company In America. He lives in Arizona with his wife, Jodie and their three children, Cambria, Parker, and Ellenie. To learn more about Stewardship, visit moneywellrooted.com.

 

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