Passion at Work : How to Find Work You Love and Live the Time of Your Life

by Kang, Lawler; Albion, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780131854284
• ISBN10: 0131854283
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

Create your destiny. Heed your call. Live your work life with passion. Starting now! bull; Why settle for a paycheck, when you can follow your passions? bull; With Kang's proven 5-step process, you'll discover the mission that brings you the deepest meaning - decipher your passions, proficiencies and priorities, and unleash them to create a niche only you can dominate! bull; Foreword by Mark Albion, author of the best-seller Making a Life, Making a Living

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
About the Authors	xv
Foreword	xvii
Introduction	xxv
Why Do You Work So Hard?	1	(6)
A Question of Control	1	(1)
Upending the Work/Life Balance	2	(3)
Where Are You?	5	(2)
We Aren't Cats	7	(18)
Your Core of Steel	7	(4)
We Aren't Cats!	11	(1)
Believe in Your Core	12	(1)
Accept X-Factors	13	(4)
What's Your Point?	17	(1)
Whatever You Do (in Life), Do It with Passion	18	(1)
What Do You Want Your Tombstone to Say?	19	(2)
One Final Thought	21	(4)
What Is the End Game?	25	(26)
What Is Money?	25	(5)
Short Clips	30	(2)
A Madness of Method?	32	(2)
Success Is in the Eye of the Beholder or the Beholden?	34	(4)
What Is the End Game?	38	(4)
KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)	42	(2)
The Rule of 85 Percent	44	(2)
The Roots of Happiness	46	(5)
The Magic Bullet	51	(18)
People Should Pay You to Work Your Passions	52	(1)
A Note from the Boss	53	(1)
Another Data Point	54	(1)
The Passion Principle	55	(2)
Business School Recruiting, Metaphorically Speaking	57	(4)
Some Preliminary Data	61	(1)
Bringing It Home	62	(1)
Passionate Monsters	63	(3)
Back to Jack	66	(3)
A Process Overview	69	(10)
The Purpose of the Five Ps	69	(2)
The Power of the Five Ps	71	(1)
Passion + Proficiencies = Work or ``Career'' Options	71	(1)
Proficiencies + Priorities = Work Life Prioritization	72	(1)
Passion + Proficiencies + Priorities = Journeys and Niche → Plan	72	(2)
A Primer on the Five Ps	74	(2)
The Tipping Point	76	(1)
Some Final Tipping Points	77	(2)
The First P: Passion	79	(20)
What Do You Want Your Tombstone to Say?	79	(4)
The Patterns of Your Experiences	83	(8)
The Kid Factor	91	(4)
Making a Stand	95	(1)
How Do I Know?	95	(4)
The Second P: Proficiencies	99	(26)
What Can the Whole and Impassioned You Be the Best At?	99	(1)
What I Am Innately Great at Doing?	100	(2)
What Do I Absolutely Love to Do?	102	(2)
Warning! Seller Beware!	104	(2)
What Are My Values?	106	(2)
What Life Experiences Do I Want to Leverage and Fulfill?	108	(1)
Financial Accounting 101	109	(3)
The Most Valuable Part of Any Balance Sheet	112	(1)
Data Collection	113	(1)
Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall...	114	(6)
How Proficient Are Your Proficiencies?	120	(5)
The Third P: Priorities	125	(30)
A Slightly Different Perspective	125	(4)
So Pass the Days of Our Lives	129	(3)
The Prioritization Matrix	132	(3)
A Metaphored Matrix	135	(1)
Working the Prioritization Matrix	135	(3)
Matrix This!	138	(1)
What Version Are You On?	139	(1)
A Blatant Secret	140	(1)
Let's Make a Deal!	141	(8)
Your Niche	149	(2)
Time to Define	151	(4)
The Fourth P: Plan	155	(24)
How Do You Bring Yourself to Market?	155	(2)
The Executive Summary	157	(3)
Your Version: The Life Summary	160	(12)
The Rule of the Six Ps	172	(7)
The Fifth P: Prove	179	(16)
How Do You Fund Your Plan?	179	(2)
Professional Fundraising 101	181	(2)
``All I Want Are the Facts, Ma'am''	183	(8)
Keeping It in the Family	191	(4)
How Do I Prepare Myself for This Change?	195	(28)
Any Journey	195	(3)
The Journey of Life	198	(2)
Why?	200	(1)
Your Competitive Advantage	201	(1)
Canyonlands	202	(16)
The 1 or 0 Wake-Up Call	218	(1)
Always Finish What You Start (Beware of Mr. Dreamy!)	218	(3)
Mr. Dreamy on Paper	221	(2)
Looking for Your Life's Work	223	(8)
The Kid Factor (3)	224	(1)
The Power of an Impassioned Plan	225	(1)
A Sisyphean Ball of Snow	226	(3)
Sayonara!	229	(1)
Shoga Nai	230	(1)
References	231	(2)
Index	233

Excerpts

Introduction Foreword "What I do best is share my enthusiasm." --Bill Gates The most important source of competitive advantage in the twenty-first century will come from individuals and organizations that unleash the power of passion. Many summers ago, I conducted a research project on retail profitability with a well-known investment-banking firm. Our task was to uncover five indicators that could predict which retailers would have the largest growth in stock valuation over the next five years. The second most important factor was something we "felt" in the home offices of the most financially successful firms. At the time, we described it as "a buzz, an air of excitement, of people working together to do something important." In a word, we were describing an enthusiasm that resulted from individual and team passion--a passion rooted in each person's personal connection with the company's missions and objectives and with each other. Nearly two decades later--March 15, 2005, to be exact--I had lunch outdoors in the warm sunshine of Cape Town, South Africa with Colin Hall. Colin was a one-time boy wonder of South Africa Breweries and chair of Wooltru Retailing Group, now in his later years serving as a special consultant for presidents of countries and companies. Colin had just finished months of exhausting, but ultimately successful work that had brought together dozens of tribal leaders from the Congo to end their warfare and agree on a new constitution. Noting my business school background, he was quick to point out that "the 'head,' the thinking, of the tribal leaders was secondary to their concerns of the heart, their feelings." "Nothing happens without first establishing trust," Colin continued. "... and that only comes from the heart. So we started by praying together, holding hands, and telling stories about our families. The men smoked cigars together; they drank Johnnie Walker Black scotch together. The women learned about each other's children and customs. The result? They became a single family of energized individuals who collectively found ways to transcend language and cultural barriers. And as those barriers fell, so did the political barriers to peace. That's how they ended years of tribal warfare; that's how they were able to establish a new constitution. They even stayed up night after night to get it done. No one ever complained." It's what I call being of many minds, butbecomingwith one heart. Involved over the years with Stephen Covey, Colin explained that Covey'sSeven Habitsexemplifies the West's emphasis on "effectiveness" in business. "As Descartes said, 'I think; therefore, I am.' That's the West. Best practices, taxonomies, rules for getting things done more effectively, more efficiently. But what you are missing is something like 'Ifeel; therefore, I am'--the heart, the energy that makes the system go--as I experienced with the Congo tribal leaders." "Ernst and Young recently reported that 66 percent of all strategic decisions don't get implemented. Similarly, we have found that 70 percent of all strategic initiatives are strong in terms of potential 'effectiveness' but have 'low energy' behind them. If you can't capture the 'energy' of an organization through effective teams of impassioned people, nothing happens. At the end of the day, you end up with lots of paper but very little action." "The source of continuing aliveness is to find your passion and pursue it with w