Passion, Purpose & the New Entrepreneur

By Sharon Hurley-Hall –

This month’s article in Women’s Health covers a topic that we believe is critical to business success. It’s about the importance of passion and purpose in entrepreneurship. Many successful entrepreneurs have talked about this topic. Deb DeArmond of My Purpose Now has owned her own leadership training and coaching practice for 10 years. She says passion and purpose “are the fuel that motivates movement. Without purpose you’re not sure where to go, and without passion you don’t have the desire or the energy or even the initiative to go.”

After an ID theft for almost $1m Becky Harmon launched Success Not Sabotage to help people build a bold identity and make money. She only sells what she deeply believes in and passion and purpose for her are 90% of successful entrepreneurship. “The reason I would leave out the 10% is because there are days when I’m just tired and my kids are bouncing off the walls or I want to throw my shoe at my husband and I’m distracted but at that point you just have to get up and go but because it’s my passion it’s not hard to get refueled.”

Passion, Purpose – What’s the Difference?

Passion and purpose are often linked together, but is there a difference between them? There certainly is, says Deb DeArmond: “Purpose is a clarity or an understanding about what it is that you’re supposed to do – whether that’s business, ministry or family. Without clarity of purpose, you’re going to get somewhere; it just might not be where you wanted to go or where God wanted you to go. Passion is the energy, the gumption, the ability to push back obstacles because you’re so clear about what that purpose is that passion just propels you towards accomplishing it.”

For Becky Harmon, having a purpose is a maturity issue. While teens may be passionate about lots of causes, purpose is about believing “at a deep level that you have been sent to serve people. That specific purpose is different from passion.” She adds that the trifecta is “When you align your passion with your purpose and you learn how to profit from it.”

Other Ingredients for Success

So are passion and purpose all it takes to become successful as entrepreneurs? Not at all. For Deb DeArmond, wisdom and knowledge are also important: “You can know a lot of things, but if you don’t know how to apply what you know then you’re not going to be successful, regardless of how much clarity of purpose and how passionate you are.” And having a supportive community is also essential. “Those are probably the five pillars on which I built my profits in the last 15 years and those five pillars have become the foundation for confidence in moving forward and success that has come more quickly than I might have expected or even hoped.”

Becky Harmon has even more practical advice: “If you don’t have a strategic plan for marketing you’d better get a second job because, the passion and the purpose won’t be enough.” She adds that passion and purpose also help determine the people she wants to work with: “I really love helping people who feel called to justice – whether defending sex trafficking victims or the homeless or animal shelters. I love helping those people make money because they are not selfish people, they are thinking about the world, transforming and serving the world with their passion.”

Deb DeArmond’s story also shows the importance of being tuned in to the signals that might reveal your purpose. “Without passion and purpose my story would never have taken place. It came out of left field. I never saw it coming. It came from a series of conversations that sparked an awareness of a need. Once the awareness was there and I began talking with people about it, there was such a passionate response and their passion was contagious. It led me to My Purpose Now and My Purpose Now has led me to authoring two books. ”

She concludes:”Passion and purpose will take you places you never dreamed of and fuel opportunities that you could never have imagined on your own.”

Sharon Hurley Hall has been writing professionally for almost 25 years, and she does it because she loves it. She is a word nerd, a Scrabble fiend, fanatical about grammar, and is fascinated by learning new things. Since 2005, Sharon has mentored other writers at “Get Paid To Write Online” to help them improve and build sustainable and successful writing careers. Sharon subscribes to the ‘fine wine’ theory of aging – getting older also means getting better! Find Sharon on her website, Twitter, and Facebook.