I was just listening to a really insightful talk by personal branding expert Mark Lack. I’ve met him in person. He’s a great guy and has lots of great teachings.

I found it interesting how he spoke about identifying your passions and what your business is. He said how a teaching he got from an unknown apparent billionaire was that your business doesn’t need total overlap with your passion. He said there can be a false presumption that somehow your business should be your passion somehow or somehow you are failing or as if as soon as you do a business you’re just living your passion.

He said to identify what your passions are and what your values are. These are both interesting exercises I’d encourage you to try. There’s also exercises you can do of feeling into what your main qualities are you bring to the world. I guess this is tied into an assumption that you want to make a great impact.

The teaching was that we earn our right to do our passion (e.g. time with family, movies, video games) which may or may not be linked to your actual business.

I realised in my main values I have care, relationships, personal growth and interestingly enough ‘excitement’. I see my skills I bring to the world are a care for people and a genuine desire to help and be impactful.

I saw that on the passion level I am particularly passionate about movies and at points video games which provide no monetary value, at least not now. Nonetheless these were linked with my value of excitement, they bring fun and variety into my life which is important as a value link in who I am.

So last night there was a greater excusable playing some video games as something I’d earned after a hard days work (plus movie after) which was aligned with my values and a passion but not something monetary.

Linking these together and following Marks’ teaching I can see how wins are created on the monetary level from the vision of wanting to have an impact and the learning of skills aligned to this which then gives more freedom to explore passions (earning the right to them). Being honest about what your values are at the core can help this all become integrated together. I think it’s true also that when we can see how these tie together that learning something we may not be immediately passionate about e.g. marketing, then getting wins and doing our passion stuff more will lead us to be more passionate about the thing we are learning.

I saw a lot of dots joining for me as I did this exercise. Maybe have a go. What comes up for you ?