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bull-riding champion and an art loving college student fall in love… sounds like the beginning of a joke or a sappy love story. It’s the later, though I’ve watched it four times already so that either makes me a sap or I have to find a better adjective.
It’s a love story… a romance, and I wondered, how could it possibly work?
Sometimes, I wonder the same thing when I speak to people who love their career path. Instead of “When did you meet?” I ask, “When did you know this was what you wanted to do?” Suddenly, the person in front of me grows dreamy, in love with the idea of what their art, skill, talent, business, can do for their life and the lives of others. This person is in love, passionately, with what he or she does. BUT they don’t like doing what needs to be done to get work, clients, and money. So, how can it possibly work?
Are you in love with what you do?
I hope so. But, like any good love story, there is conflict. In my line of work this shows up as: networking, making phone calls, following up, selling, marketing… you get it, the business side of your dream.
If you love one part of your career (the part you love to do) but don’t like the other, can these opposite feelings sabotage your “love?” YOU BET!
In the longest mile, neither Luke nor Sophia wanted to give up their dreams. While Luke retired from bull-riding, he did not give up on his love of small town and working the land. Sophia, had to adjust her vision of what a career in the art world looked like, but she did ultimately, work with the art she loved. AND, they stayed together.
How do you keep your relationship with your passion alive while faced with the parts of the business that you really wish someone else would do?
It always boils down to this question:
“How badly do you want it?” Many people have “broken up” with their love and passion to pursue something stable. But if you don’t want to, I can share with you this:
I’ve coached thousands of people just like you. The one thing they all had in common was they didn’t like to have to do the “business side,” after all, that’s why they came to me.
Of those thousands of people I watched love affair after love affair bloom, because day-by-day, business tool by business tool, it became less about doing what they didn’t like and more about doing what they love.
Want your happy ending?
AND ACTION!
- Learn new ways of pursuing the business part of your passion.
- Make a plan based on what I teach you, to take small actions everyday, until you no longer notice the business, you only see what you love.
The Longest Ride, was not typical. In most cases, opposites of that extreme can’t make it work. But their situation was no more extreme than a filmmaker who doesn’t like networking, or a business owner who hates following up. There are clear steps that make a business succeed. You can’t skip any. How badly do you want to have a career you love?