Rekindle your Dormant Passion!

Posted at April 20, 2009

Success Series

Like dormant volcanoes, we all have passions that are just there; not active, not extinct.

Dormant passions take away a piece of us.  We sit  and think how things could have been. We sit and wish we had taken a different turn in life. Unfortunately, wishing alone will not ignite the fire within, or awaken the giant in you.  Today’s blog post is dedicated to inspiring you to find satisfaction in your soul by rekindling your dormant passion.

Passion gives you boundless energy, a winning attitude, strong emotions and a desire to succeed. It is very difficult to succeed in any field of endeavor without passionate. There is no way to be an exceptional school teacher if you loathe kids. Having passionate love for your partner will force you to do everything to make the relationship work. You will have fun while crossing mountains to be with them.

The road to success has many obstacles; there are mountains to cross and valleys to navigate. Passion will allow you to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.  “Follow your passion” is the timeless advice given to would be entrepreneurs, writers, singers, actors and in fact all of us.

What is your passion?

What makes you wake up at 4.00am in the morning? Well, maybe nothing for most us. Let me ask again. What do you love to do? What are your interests? Are you passionate about sport? Are you passionate about your husband? Are you passionate about your family? Are you passionate about your job? What is it that gets you going where others would give up?

For many people, it is hard to define what their real passion is. If you have trouble defining your passion, don’t sweat it. You can discover your passion by exploring your life in a few minutes. Be completely honest with yourself and ask yourself the following questions. You can ask a friend to help if you get stuck.

Examples from my life

I will share a couple of my passions and show you my struggles, dreams and hope.

I hope my sharing is not in vain. I hope to inspire you to think about your own situation and ignite ideas on how to rekindle your own passion. I hope to help you light the fire and to keep it burning until you achieve your goals.

My two passions are publishing and real estate. Your passions may be different, but I am sure you could draw some lessons from my story.

1. Publishing

When I was in high school, I discovered my passion for writing after winning an inter-school essay competition. My writing according to my English teacher was “basic but elegant”. She told me that I could communicate ideas, not in big words, but clearly. She advised me to find something I was passionate about and just write about it. That was all I needed to become passionate about writing.

I got busy and started writing a magazine called “The Crossroads”. I got carried away with my little project and found myself writing articles for my magazine even in physics and chemistry classes. One of my physics teachers found me writing and screamed words that still haunt me today. He said: “Young man, why are you writing that in my class? You have no manners, not even bad ones. Go! You are mannerless!” hahaha!

The time spent away from that physics class was like manna from heaven. I went to the school library and wrote for four hours without a break. I wrote my first business plan for my future publishing empire at the school library that afternoon.

The business plan revealed that creating a publishing empire was a much bigger project than simply writing. That evening,  I borrowed a few  books from the library and researched on the printing process, marketing of magazines, interviewing techniques, desktop publishing, subscriptions management, distribution networks, editorial policies, legal issues, profit and loss statements, circulations and ratings. As you can imagine I was overwhelmed. I humbly crawled back to my physics class the next day and graduated from high school with a dormant passion for publishing.

After high school, I left Kenya and came to Perth, Western Australia. I briefly rekindled my passion for running a publishing empire by spending a lot of time in the city library learning about publishing and media. I read all I could about Rupert Murdoch (News Corporation), Ted Turner (CNN), Richard Branson (Virgin), Kerry Parker (PBL) and many others who had made it in the media and publishing worlds.

Have you ever given up on your passions because the going got tough? You are not alone. Many people give up when they lack a clear path of attainment. My passion for success in publishing waned because I thought it was too complicated.

Later, I  learned that you do not need to see the whole staircase to be able to take the first step. You could travel for 100 miles in your car even though your headlights only shine for less than a quater mile. You just need to see enough to make the first few steps.

Success is like eating an elephant. You do it piece by piece.

My magazine in high school “The Crossroads” was about inspiring people to be the best they could be. It has been my passion to inspire people to be the best they can be through my writing, interviews and sharing personal stories of victory and overcoming adversity. This year I decided to take a step of faith and launch this blog; to inspire you to be the best you can be. At the moment the site only gets a handful of people everyday but I very excited that I finally can live my dream of sharing my heart and mind with people through my writing.

The going might be tough for you at times. You may not see the full path to your goals. But I encourage you to take a step of faith to follow your passion. Spend a few minutes and discover what makes you happy. You may not start out as the best in what you do, but with practice and focus, with the power of compounding applied to it, you will succeed. No doubt about that.

I did not start my publishing in high school or earlier in life because of lack of knowledge, experience or maybe it just was not the right time in life. You most likely have some goals or desires that you have not accomplished because the time was not right. I encourage you to weigh in and see if the right time has come for you to take the first steps towards your passion.

My second passion is long term and I will illustrate to you how to fight internal demons and keep the fire burning after you rekindle your passion.

2. Real Estate

Growing up in Kenya gave me first hand experience of the daily struggle of millions in the jaws of poverty.

I remember when I was 12 years old I went to Kibera, one of the biggest slums in Africa and my tears flowed freely when I saw the squalor conditions people there were living in. I teamed up with one of my friends and we did a rich vs. poor tour of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. The gap between the rich and the poor was so wide and unacceptable to my innocent eyes. I felt the unmistakable urge of wanting to do something about it.

Then I discovered a side of me that I thought of as evil at the time, but have since reconciled with. My tears turned into saliva as I salivated at the idea of building low cost, quality affordable housing for the poor and profiting from it. A part of me believed in social justice but another part of me was a hard nosed capitalist. I felt guilty for having those two ideas, but I have since learned to live with myself so it is not a biggie any more.

Sometimes you may find internal conflict is what is keeping you from achieving your goals. Fight those demons by aligning your passion with your mission in life. I rationalized it by reminding myself that I am not the government, and by providing housing to people at a profit, I am more likely to reach more people than by doing it purely for charity.

I have not yet realized my dream of providing thousands of affordable housing.

But I am keeping the fire burning by learning all I can about investments, real estate and affordable housing strategies. It may take me another 10 years before I get to my goal, but I am working on it step by step.

You may not be able to get to your goal tomorrow, but keep the fire burning by doing something about it, whether it is learning or doing a small part of your passion. Your passion may be to start your own business but you probably still work for the big man.

You can keep the passion going by working on your business part time, a few hours a week when you are not at work. You can spare a few hours in the evening instead of watching TV for hours on end.

Closing Remarks

Finding your passion in life is very important for your success. If you do something that you love, you will be happier and more likely to succeed. I have shared my personal story in the hope that you may learn from my mistakes and desire to succeed. I encourage you to take the first steps in discovering or rekindling your passion. Then have a plan and then take action.

P/s- I wanted to delete this blog post straight after writing it, I felt that I had shared too much personal thoughts and information but after seriously thinking about it, I thought it was worth it. It will be a small price to pay if even just one person (You), uses this blog post as a trigger to rekindle a dormant passion. I want to inspire you to be the best you can be, sometimes I will have internal conflicts about what I can and cannot write about. I hope my choices will always lean towards inspiring you to be the best you can be.

Sharing: If you have a friend who could benefit by rekindling their passion, please share this blog post with them.


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