Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

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If you want something you have to MAKE IT HAPPEN. No excuses. Take responsibility for your life. You have to push, push, push, and NEVER quit.

If you`re going to play the game, you have to know the rules.

In my experience, there are two fundamental styles of living---two completely basic approaches to life. The one is to "do what you have to do," the other is to "do what you want to do."

People searching for a passion are following the second style. Those who stumble onto a business and make it work, usually are following the first style.

The WWII generation was raised to do their duty, meet their obligations, and to mostly ignore whether or not they liked what they were doing. They raised the Baby Boom children with the luxury (in their mind) of being able to choose what they wanted to do, and not have to worry so much about obligation.

A key component of pursuing your passion while still keeping an eye open for opportunity - is in the conditioning of your RAS (reticular activation system).  The RAS is the scientific term for the filter to your brain.  Anything you see, hear, feel, taste, or smell passes through your RAS.  It stands guard at the doorway of your mind, sorting through millions of pieces of information and searching for specific bits that match what your brain is in tune to.  For instance, if you were in the market to buy a flat screen TV and the deciding factors were specific differences in 2 models - then if you were at a cocktail party engaged in conversation, and from across the room your brain picks up a signal that activates your hearing to a group of people across the room discussing the all important differences in flat screen TV`s.  You have programmed your RAS to pick up on this.  The same goes for business opportunities - program your RAS to scan for business opportunities, give yourself a list of criteria of what your passions, interests and knowledge may provide - then put it out to the universe.

Spencer,
You`ve brought up a point I`ve been seeing here and there, that seems to be related to the idea that feelings are all biochemical. It`s a proposition that we can scientifically determine feelings, including such things as passion. I`ll take issue with that.

Here are three questions, each targeted at a different part of the self:

1. What`s the name of your favorite pet?
2. How does that pet`s skin or fur feel when you run your fingers across its back?
3. How would you feel if your favorite pet were intentionally poisoned?

We use the word "feeling" to mean both emotion and sensation, but they`re entirely different. What`s interesting is that we can visually perceive a dead animal, but without analytic processing, we have no way to know that it was poisoned. More interesting; after we make the determination, what exactly causes the biochemistry to initiate a process?

Someone once proposed recording Einstein`s brain activity to have a record of his thoughts. If we were to do so, we`d have long segments where he may have stared at a wall. And yet all sorts of thoughtful processing was taking place.

The mind and the brain are very different things, and we have no clue what exactly is a mind. We can use a PET scan to determine that when someone is being passionate (based only on their say-so), a particular area of the brain is more active than other times. But that doesn`t mean we can "somehow" activate that area of the brain on command.

Biofeedback attempts something along these lines, to access a particular brainwave pattern, but I would argue that biofeedback or chemistry likely wouldn`t be able to activate a passion. Even though it might create a feeling of concentrated excitement, there would be no target for the excitement.

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If you want something you have to MAKE IT HAPPEN. No excuses. Take responsibility for your life. You have to push, push, push, and NEVER quit.

If you`re going to play the game, you have to know the rules.

We`ve had many discussions about passion and its definition. There is (was) a community member, "PursueThePassion" who built a whole Web site about the idea. Don`t know what ever happened to it, but it sparked some interestind conversations. :-)