Hi Phillip,

"Only Passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things."
-Denis Diderot

Many attributes help you succeed in business. Being a hard worker is a good start. Perseverance is very important. Decisiveness is a must. And there's one thing that is pretty much universal among successful business owners: passion.

Sure, there are some business owners that inherited their businesses and are in it more for the money than for the love of what they're doing. Then there are big corporations that have their hands in a little bit of everything and are solely interested in the bottom line. However, when an entrepreneur starts a business from scratch or chooses an existing one to take over, passion is a key ingredient. If you don't believe in what you're doing, chances are you won't get very far.

When you start a business that you're passionate about, it makes it easier to do what it takes to get it off the ground. You're willing to put in extra hours. You find creative ways to raise the capital you need. You pour your heart and soul into it, because it's more than just a means of putting food on the table. It's something you look forward to when you wake up in the morning and think about during your last waking hours at night.

Once you've gotten your business going strong, that initial fervor may wane a bit. The newness wears off, and you get into a routine. It's kind of like a marriage. Once the honeymoon is over the bride and groom don't stop loving each other, but life together eventually becomes a little less thrilling. The same could be said for some entrepreneurs and their businesses.

If you can effortlessly maintain that sense of excitement about your business, you're one of the lucky ones. Most business owners find themselves experiencing a slump every now and then. Maybe revenues drop, or new regulations necessitate changes in the way they do business, or they just get bored.

Whatever the reason, you may find yourself wondering if you should continue. You may question whether you got into the right type of business, or if you are even cut out to be an entrepreneur in the first place. You probably still care about your businesses and likes what you do, but it just doesn't hold the allure it once did.

In order to keep moving forward, keeping your passion alive is crucial. Sometimes that's easier said than done. If you're not feeling it, you can't force yourself to feel it, right?