I’ve been a professional communicator for 20+ years. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to explore nearly every aspect of corporate communications over the course of my career: Advertising, marketing, public relations, community relations, media relations, fund-raising, and internal communications. Having worked my way through all of those audiences, I was most interested in internal communications. In fact, for some time, you could say it was my passion — at least in terms of work.
You see, I’ve long believed that if you take good care of your employees, they will take great care of your business. So, they have always been my primary audience, and certainly first priority in any communication effort. However, over time, I lost interest in being the tactical communicator, and refocused my efforts on teaching my colleagues to become more competent, confident communicators themselves. I’ve been moving in the direction of developing others for a long time, and was moving down that path before I realized where it was leading me.
I’ve since been fortunate enough to have the epiphany about my true passion in life! Yes, I do still believe in taking care of one’s employees and that they will take care of your business; that hasn’t changed. But my beliefs about that have expanded enormously. It goes far beyond just communicating with them; it’s about developing them, helping them recognize and reach their potential.
Today, I can tell you my passion is for development — mine and other’s. I am passionate about personal growth, leadership, effective communication, and building healthy, smart teams. This passion is so strong, it is nearly all consuming. I see opportunities for growth in nearly everyone and every situation I encounter. I am driven to work on these opportunities — pouring into others everything I am able to share, with a focus on adding value to others — nearly all the time.
In fact, it’s not work any more…pursuing this passion is my opportunity to create my life’s masterpiece; to be able to blur the line between work and leisure.
Have you wrestled with finding your true passion in life?
Take some time today to describe your journey of discovering your passion up to this point.
Follow your passion, and success will follow you. ~Arthur Buddhold
