One mistake new entrepreneurs make… getting involved in a business idea that doesn’t match their passion.

They come up with an idea to make or sell some item that they know will make money, but that’s only part of the success equation. If you aren’t passionate about the product or service you’re offering you will lose your enthusiasm and your drive and the business venture will stall.

Before you run off and start a business strictly because you think it’s a money-maker, ask yourself: What am I passionate about?

There are books and podcasts and webinars available that talk about finding your passion. Those are great, but I don’t think you need to FIND your passion; I believe you have to FEEL your passion.

To me, passion is that indomitable enthusiasm that drives you, that gets you up early every day and keeps you going late into the night. Passion is the fervor or obsession that keeps steering your thoughts back to the same object or cause or goal.

It’s something you bring; not something you find

Passion is not a thing outside of you; passion is the effect that thing has on the inside of you.

Some people say music is their passion and they see life and experience life through music. Every important moment or event in their life corresponds to some song or score; it’s how they interpret and express their feelings. Music is their comfort, their safe place. Music makes sense and speaks the language that they understand; their native language, their mother tongue.

Some people are passionate about helping others. At every opportunity, they lend a hand or give of themselves. They go out of their way to help, even in small ways, someone who appears to be struggling or questioning or lost. It’s their mission; their purpose; their gift.

What is your passion?

What belief drives your passion? What intense feeling overrides all others and makes you turn away from whatever you’re doing so that you answer that internal call-to-action? What topic of discussion ignites something inside of you, gets your heart beating faster, and consumes your thoughts? If you could do anything, simply for the joy of doing it, what would that be? What would you do even if no one noticed, even if you got no payment or recognition for it? What is something that you love and something that you’re good at that you engage in whenever you have the time (and often when you really should be doing something else)?

My passion is helping others. I feel alive and more confident and more at ease when I’m helping others. I love being of service to others and knowing that in some small way I’ve made their day a little easier, their burden a little lighter, their pain a little less intense.

That’s why I became a coach. Coaching allows me to take my passion for helping others – my emotional purpose – and blend it with my background, experience, and the personal and professional lessons learned so that I can help others.

What about you? What is your passion? Find that feeling inside of you and then match it with your background and experience. See where there are obvious matches, obvious points of synergy that you can definitely say “at that time or in that activity, I was living my passion.” For the entrepreneur, that is the fulcrum on which you build your business. Find out how to use that fulcrum and you will move the world and achieve every level of success you can imagine.