Entrepreneurship: Desperation Vs. Passion

I was recently engaged in a conversation with a relatively old gentleman who had given up work after having spent 30 years in various corporation. He had a fair number of accomplishments, but most importantly, he was at a point in his life where he was financially stable and could go the rest of his life without working a day. Normally, such a position should lend itself very well as a launchpad to begin from. To the contrary, this man was finding that the business that he wanted to pursue was not really taking off. He had a few customers, his operations were profitable but things were not taking the kind of direction that he had hoped!

On further digging I found that he was not really burning with the need to grow this business. He wanted it to grow, but he was not desperate for it to grow.

It was then that the thought occurred to me; was he not desperate enough or was it that he was not passionate about his business?

In my experience, Desperation; though a great driver, causes poor judgement. Desperation causes people to make poor decisions. In most cases the root cause of desperation tends to be financial and when that is true, one tends to make poor decisions seeking only financial goals.

This brings us to passion.

Passion is a very powerful driver. In the entrepreneurial journey, the biggest asset that any entrepreneur can provide a venture is their time. If there is passion, providing this time comes as second nature. There is no special effort that need be extended and this passion will take the venture the whole nine yards. A passionate person wants the best for their business and does not settle for second best and therefore the possibility of making poor decision is greatly reduced.

Being passionate about a business is not everybody’s cup of tea. But passion will trump desperation on any given day.

So the gentleman that this post began with, is probably just not passionate enough about what he is doing and needs to pursue something that arouses his passion further or probably, he is not cut out to be an entrepreneur.