Passion vs. Profit

Why do you come to work every day?

Do you enjoy the work you do?

Does what you do help others, or contribute to society in a meaningful way?

For physicians and other healthcare professionals there is a very direct link between the services they provide to their patients, and the benefits their patients receive. Watching a patient recover from an illness or injury because of something you did as part of your work must feel amazing.

For those of us in the business world, the feedback, or confirmation, that what we are doing is meaningful and in some way helps others, like our customers, can be a little less obvious. But I believe that understanding those work-benefit linkages is crucial to fostering a positive work ethic and passion.

We need to create excitement; we are all learning as we go and it is certainly not always easy and fun, but that makes it real. Passion and excitement are contagious and, combined with the proper skill sets and effort, passion and excitement can lead to profits.

If you were not satisfied with your answers to my three questions above, I challenge you to ask yourself more questions to figure out and define the value you have to offer. We all have our own unique set of skills and abilities, and we need to embrace those, and be excited about how we are using them to make the world just a little bit better.

Being part of a team that is on a mission to establish meaningful social and economic improvements for hundreds (and eventually thousands) of people is an incredible privilege. If you are not already familiar with our PLATO initiative, I encourage you to check us out at www.platotesting.com or even better – give me a call.

“It wasn’t a question of profit versus non-profit. It was how do we live?” – Elon Musk, Tesla

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill