Below are the highlights from a presentation given in Madison, Wisconsin entitled: The Processed Life: Turning your passion into your profession:

“Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring it to reality; but the dream must be there first.” - Robert K. Greenleaf

In order to find your passion and turn it into your profession, begin to think about adopting a four-step process or a four-year process. A word of caution: These are NOT plans. These are processes that require constant examination and frequent review and reflection. If we talk exclusively about plans, we’ll only end up where we don’t want to be: at some unforeseen destination where we hate what we do.

We also have to look at it as a process because we soon learn that things don’t work according to plan.

The Four-Step Process

• That dream develops a passion.
  
• The passion develops a plan.
  
• The plan determines the action.
  
• The action helps us to dream better.

The Four-Year Process

Pretend like it’s college all over again. Seriously. It’s not hard to imagine. After all, we’ve grown up looking at our life in four-year cycles anyway. This is a real chance to make a four-year commitment to yourself. We elect leaders on this kind of cycle, play Olympic games and celebrate Leap Year. So, let’s embrace our social and cultural conditioning and plan out our next four years like it were our second time around. This may help a lot of us avoid the mistake of going to grad school.

No matter where you find yourself, here’s a basic framework for how you can maximize the next four years.

Year One: Dream while learning the ropes
The great thing about dreaming is that you can do it where you are. If you’re fresh out of college, you can dream about your memories and how they can become your passions. Or, if you’re part of a huge company, you can dream on the job.

If you are on the job, you’ll also have a chance to pick up some skills that will come in handy during step three: the planning phase. So, soak up all you can – you never know when learning how to read a financial statement, how to manage your time, and how to navigate a competitive market will benefit you in the long run.

When I was a small cog in a big machine for my first stint out of college, learning to read financials and finding the proper price point were two skills I didn’t learn with my history major, but badly needed when starting my own business.

Year Two: Get the skills needed to live out your passion
When you’ve got a dream and some basic skills, you can see if the two might meet as you begin to explore your passion. This is a key time for networking and meeting people that can help you once you get to the planning stage. You can learn about others’ jobs, passions and dreams to see if what they do fits with where you want to be.

It’s sort of like you’re picking a major, or at least deciding where you want to hone your focus next. Since I didn’t pick a major until my junior year (when we had to), I talked to as many professors in each department I was interested in. I learned the ins and outs of the degree and what it offered me once I graduated. I also took the plunge and took classes in the religion, political science, philosophy, business and physical education departments before deciding on history.

Year Three: Start to plan your passion and take risks
In order to get to a place where your passion becomes your profession, you’ve got to have a plan and put it to work. You may not know where you’ll ultimately end up, but you should at least be thinking about the next steps.

This is a great time to get the right people in place as friends, allies, and advisors (and maybe even funders). This is when you think about the tools and resources you might need for your original endeavor as you start to take the first steps on your own. Do some things that stretch yourself. Be held accountable for the work you produce if you’re still working for someone else. You’ll soon be accountable only to yourself, which is a blessing that is bloated with responsibility.

Accidents happen, and the unexpected occurs, so you really only need to know what the very next step is.

Year Four: Put the plan into action as you set out on your own
Here’s where the biggest and best lessons happen. Now that your plan is in full swing and you can actually see where you wanted to be this whole time you were dreaming, discovering your passions and planning your steps, you’ve got to learn from what’s happening. Measure and celebrate your successes. Evaluate and learn from your failures.

Plan step two. Lean on your passions to get you through the dark night that is often where our dreams seem most real. Your passions will motivate you to learn and plan better during this stage. They will also allow you to get back up when your failures knock you down. Dream bigger based on these experiences.

Passion is a compass, not a map.

Most people don’t make their passion their profession not because they don’t plan, but because they don’t dream well. After all, Greenleaf’s quote talked about great dreams.

Read Jeff Cornwall's wise words about passion and the entrepreneur.

Links and Resources:
Mentorography
The Entrepreneurial Mind
How To Set Up a Brain Trust
It's Like Milking a Fish
Be an Entrepreneur or Die

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