No Excuses Series: Passion

I was always an average student, I had areas that I excelled in of course but on a whole I was a very average student. I enjoyed what I enjoyed; history, English, sports, student government but I couldn’t stand math and science. I did my best but you can never fit a square peg in a round hole. So instead of swimming upstream I went with the flow. I majored in PR/ Journalism at SC with a business minor because I knew I was going to need at least elementary business skills and man was I right.

I have been fortunate enough to have run several companies and sold a few along the way but do you know what one skill has served me the best throughout my entire career? Not my ability to understand a profit and loss sheet or my ability to craft a speech…it is my sense of passion….my enthusiasm. Life is a competition and I have come up against people much smarter than I, more experienced than I, sometimes more qualified but never more passionate.

If I am interviewing someone for a position the first thing I notice are their eyes are they there because they just need a job or are they there because they want this job. In sports we have a saying, are you playing to win or not to lose. I want people that are playing to win. I want commitment; I don’t want clock watchers or people afraid to work on the weekend. I want people who want to get the job done, who want to succeed and it’s hard to succeed without passion. When I interview I want to know that this job is exactly what you want that it means everything. If I don’t see that, whether it’s true or not you can bet there will be someone right behind you that will feel this way.
Whatever it is you do in life, no matter what it is you do in life have passion. Have enthusiasm for your job, your friendships, your hobbies, your kids, your relationships, passion is the secret of life and without passion you will never get the most out of life.

Bill Barnett
CEO