For those of you who know me, you know how much I believe in following your passion.  I rave about it, I remind entrepreneurs at the end of each session and that this journey is not about following money, rather it is about following your passion.

In my recent post “And the banker left her job to pursue her passion” I wrote about Georgina Morello, The author of the book “Whispers from The Universe”, who left her job in banking to follow her passion.  While writing the post I had not reached the point of the book of finding if following her passion paid off or was a total flop.  All I knew at that point, was that she had discovered that she was unhappy in her well-paid, secure, and highly respected job; to embrace an unknown future.

Her journey could have gone either way as any entrepreneur’s journey could go. However, today as I was reading more into the book I came across one statement: “To be honest, it never felt like work. I was living out my childhood fantasies, using my wild imagination – and getting for it!”.  These are her exact words.  At this point in time she had gone past her first adventure as an entrepreneur and company (which was also successful) but the fact is as she carried on following her passion, work never felt like work.  It was as she confirms living her childhood fantasies. And it is not only me who believes in this, last night Gordon Tregold, an expert in leadership and a highly sought after public speaker, posted this on his Facebook page: The Most Successful people follow passion not pay cheque”.

Time and time again, I read in books, biographies, and newspapers stories of people who followed their passion. They ignored every business advice, they went against the tide and all the odds only to succeed and prove everyone wrong.  Of course, it is not always the case. My personal entrepreneurial journey was bumpy, met with many obstacles that I had never envisaged in my worst nightmares. I never reached the financial success that other startups founders have but I take responsibility for those.  I have two options.  One is to say “The Type writer could not spell” and the other is to accept where I went wrong.  I lay some of those errors naked before you.

At some point, I changed my passion for Glory.  Yes. It is hard to admit, but I was so engrossed in becoming successful with this project that the glory took over at times. I concentrated on the money rather than the service or the product. I thought I was unique and above my comeptition and this led me to a huge fear of failure. Now that I had built this big persona, I had to tread very carefully.  It was only when I decided to look at myself in this naked image that I could see where it all went wrong, but not all is lost.  This project was my biggest learning lesson. A journey that has brought me to be more humble and a journey that has brought me back to something I love.  Helping others, sharing knowledge, teaching, mentoring.  I humbly gave in and accepted where I went wrong, learnt my lesson and let go.  Now, I do what I love and I get paid for it. My days are spent between reading to learn and expand my knowledge and sharing that back with my network. With the next generation of entrepreneurs and those ready to follow their passion.

Are you ready to follow your passion?  Are you ready to make the jump and change.  Need a nudge?  Whether you want to start your own journey or you want to help the your team, incubator, accelerator members to follow their passion, you can call me for a motivation speech on “Passion & Vision: The two most important ingredients for a successful startup.”