A passionate road to success.

“Living the dream is simply a form of living out your passion, of making that passion gradually, through persistence and effort, a central part of your life” Urijal Faber

October 14 2014, the day I can truly say I saw, felt and fully experienced passion.  This was the very day I saw Getachew Mekuria, a renowned musician with a powerfully distinctive style of playing the saxophone. His albums “Negus of Ethiopian Sax” and “Moa Anbessa” has taken an international audience on a musical adventure.

As a tribute to over 60 years producing music, Alliance Ethio Fraciase hosted a concert at the National Theatre featuring Getachew Mekuria himself and the Dutch avant-garde/punk band called The Ex. Sitting amongst hundreds of fans, I saw a passionate man who played his instrument with much love, admiration and zeal.  Successful in this field, he has collaborated with numerous legendary artists, including British Tamil singer Susheela Raman and has toured all the major world cities.

It was at this point, I asked myself what is the relation between passion and success.

According to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

Our success does not emanate from what we do (our job), but rather by how well we do it (passion).  So regardless of our job description or title, we can be successful when we have passion for our work. This street sweeper was successful at his job because he was passionate about being the best at what he does..

The street sweeper may not like his job, and we may not like our current job either, but the attitude we take towards it plays a critical role in our career. Regardless of what we do, our passion is what will lay the foundation for success.

Passion is an emotion that comes from within you. It is your enthusiasm, your zeal, your drive and your motivation. You don’t want to just feel passionate about your job, you want to put passion into it. You want to apply all of your skills and all of your energy into your work.

Passion does not go unnoticed. People will see how well you do your job and your attitude towards it. They will see even if a task is hard you don’t give in, you apply yourself even more to overcome it. They will notice your drive and your motivation and consider how you would do in another position.

When you are truly passionate about the work you do, you are more inclined to come up with creative ideas and you feel unstoppable. Nothing can obstruct you from achieving greatness.