Be Passionate!
Written by on Monday, March 5, 2007 – 7:51 am -I attended a presentation last week at work discussing Web 2.0, guerrilla marketing, and overall how to get smarter about the web world in which we live in. Kevin Lawver (who is fantastic by the way) emceed the event, and it was a well put together presentation that was very informative. Kevin spoke briefly about life at work, and the notion of being passionate about what you do. He said to pick one thing about your job that you really like and become passionate about it. This passion not only helps you, but it also helps your peers and your company. Passion is contagious, and if you are around others that are passionate about what they do, you will be inspired to do the same. Otherwise, if you do not have something about your job that you are truly passionate about, then you are just going through the motions, passing time.
Perhaps it was good timing or an alignment of the stars, but around the same time I saw Kevin’s presentation, I watched another presentation given by Noah Kagan at UC Berkeley where he discussed life, love, working at Intel and Facebook as well as other musings. In his presentation, he referenced a Steve Jobs quote that really caught my attention. “If you were to die today, how would you feel about your life?” Pretty powerful statement, if you stop and think about it. This is definitely a deep, thought provoking statement that you could ponder days on end with, but for the sake of this post, let’s just focus on the job aspect of that statement.
So, if I were to have died last week (assuming I had not heard Kevin’s presentation yet), how would I have felt about the job aspect of my life? I would like to think that I would have been satisfied, but there is always more, the passion that Kevin speaks of was missing.
Knowing what I know now, after hearing those 2 presentations, I realized that I needed that one passionate thing about my job to make it complete. Kevin found his passion in the form on web standards. I have now found my passion in the form of complete dedication to product management and what it truly means to be a great product manager. I know it will take time, like all good things, but at least it is a start.
So I ask you, what are you going to get passionate about?
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Will Kern's take on business, startups, life and everything in between. This blog is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.
September 6th, 2007 at 5:10 am
[…] So with network in mind, you as an individual should do the same. You are your own product, and in order for you to expand professionally and make it in your chosen profession, you need to grow your own network. Often times we find ourselves in the situation where things are comfortable and easy, we take things for granted, we forget that we need to continuously grow and expand in order to get ahead. Many months ago, my co-worker Kevin gave a talk about Gorilla Marketing and part of the talk was about being passionate about what you do. That made me realize that I had become comfortable and had slacked on growing my network, so I put a plan in place to get back in the saddle and start growing. […]