Tip # 10 of 25 - The Secret to Consulting Success
Don’t worry—I’m not hawking an amateurish e-book on how to create an Internet money-making machine in your spare time. Here’s a question: What separates the top performing consultant, or firm, from the rest of the pack?
Before jumping in with an answer, let’s start with an assumption or two. Assume that your firm already has paying clients, the talent to serve those clients, and an effective method of business development and service delivery.
Given those assumptions, I believe the great firms separate themselves from everyone else based on the passion of their people. You may think of it as “fire in the belly,” excitement, enthusiasm, or zeal for your life’s work. Whatever you call it, passion is the emotion that makes you jump out of bed in the morning, itching to get at it.
Passion drives the discipline you need to accomplish the big goals you set for your life, career, and relationships. Passion is an impatient state of mind. Nothing moves as fast as you’d like when you have a burning desire to convert your vision into reality.
But if you can harness and apply your passion with rigor and discipline, it will lead you to discovery, then mastery and, finally, to success. Without passion, you can muddle through, but greatness will allude you. If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, sooner or later that will become apparent to your colleagues and your clients.
In the 1991 movie, Thelma and Louise, Louise (Geena Davis) captures the essence of passion when she reminds her fellow fugitive, “You get what you settle for.”
Never settle. If you can’t keep your internal fire burning, you are in the wrong business.
Good post. Too many people hate their jobs and hate getting out of bed in the morning. Imagine what your life would be like if you anticipated each morning with excitement to get going and get to work?
Posted by: Sandra Valente | July 23, 2005 at 05:32 PM