I believe passion is built, not found. Yes, there is often a moment when a person realizes the connection with a thing. In the video below, Arnold mentions seeing the body building magazine. But I believe that if he hadn’t run across that magazine, he would have found something else to become his passion.
It isn’t the topic of the passion itself that is the key, it is finding something we are passionate about.
The 2% succeed (I disagree with that number, but that isn’t the point here) not because they found **their** passion, but because they found **a** passion. What happens when we find something that might become a passion is the what determines the success.
Grabbing on to a thing and being determined to be good at it, to work hard at it, to find job in it (most of the time) is, I believe, why some people do better than others.
Writing became my post-retirement passion. I enjoy writing, even if I don’t sell many books. I enjoy packaging the story up and figuring out how to market and all those things. I enjoy being part of my little corner of the writing community.
But it could have been a number of other things. It didn’t have to be writing. I don’t know what else it might have been–and I am terrible at “should-have-could-have-would-have” analysis–but I am sure I would have found something.
We build our passions. We find something that is interesting and decide to go all in on it. When we find it, we usually don’t know enough about it to truly understand if we would be happy doing it. Arnold had no idea of the work that he would have to put in. He just had the drive to learn and do. I didn’t know what being a writer would mean, but it was something that I wanted to put the hard work in for. The parts I am passionate about didn’t spring into my head fully formed. I had the big idea and then learned what I needed to do. I had to build the passion.
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