Passionate about your column or about your topic?

Are you passionate about what you do?

hexanine, an agency in Chicago, blogged, “Musing: Weave Passion into Business“:

Our short musings on design, branding, business and the human condition.

Sure, we all have to eat and pay the mortgage. But it’s easy to become a creative mercenary if you’re merely chasing lucrative markets or the next profitable, exploitable space. The wise and happy path:

Either figure out how to get deeply excited about the work you’re doing, or find a way to integrate your already-existing passions into your business. The world doesn’t need more creative hired guns; it needs more people who truly believe in what they do.

My response:

Amen! (I work at a company that syndicates content.) Passion is something I was thinking about yesterday. It tends to be that the columnists who are most passionate about their topic are the ones who are most successful. And I’m not talking about being passionate about your column. But passionate about the topic.

You can pour all your sweat and tears into the column, but in these days you need your passion to exist outside your column as well–through other means of connecting with people. The column can be the a good part of what you do, but those who really _connect_ with people through other means are the ones who succeed.

You can tell when someone is truly passionate about their column and when someone is just writing the column so they can make a living.

(sidenote: Everyone we syndicate at TMS is wonderful. I only speak of our competitor’s columns. +cough+ +cough+)