I think in my generation many of us made the decision to be practical, rather than passionate. Being passionate about something might not "pay the bills". So, we put our "passion" on the shelf and worked on being practical. We worked on gaining the skills we needed to increase our value in the marketplace so that we could simply make more money. I remember going to college and researching what occupations paid the most. The thinking was that I didn't want to waste my time on an education that did not pay the bills. I wanted to maximize the money I would make for the time I invested. I don't think I was alone. Where did my passion go? Did I ever have any passion?
I also remember going through the mental process, when I was younger, of imagining who got paid the most in the world. The conclusion I came up with at that time, right or wrong, was that salesmen get paid the most. It seemed to make sense that if you were a master salesman you could basically write your own ticket. The more sales you made, the more money you made. But selling what? And why? I wrongfully thought about making the most money I could, again. And again, where was the passion?
My first selling experience was trying to sell "Rocky Mountain Munches". I was very young. I saw an add in some newspaper and somehow got the money to get a box of munches (probably funded by my mom). The plan was to go to different businesses door to door and see if they would put my box of munches in their business and sell them for me. I think I made my sales pitch once (maybe twice) and I was done with the munches. I was very shy. I was terrified. I had no training. I had no idea what to say. It was just raw determination that got me going (and there wasn't much of that).
All I knew was that I wanted to make money, and a lot of it. But, I had no real goal of what I was going to do with the money when I got it. I'll go into more details about the other businesses I tried in more blogs.
The bottom line conclusion, that I have come to, after all these years, is that passion is an essential ingredient to success. I'll talk more about passion in future blogs.
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