• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, August 2, 2006

Over the last few months, I took some personal time to evaluate what I wanted to do in the next phase of my career. Everywhere I looked, I saw people exploring new opportunities purely for one single reason: passion. The "Web 2.0" has emerged and is driving growth in our industry again not because of the money that was made five years ago, but because the people who stuck around have passion.

I spoke to a friend of mine the other day, one who handles recruiting for a big Internet company, and she mentioned that she is seeing lots of recruits leave their existing jobs because their current environment no longer embraces their passion. People move from job to job sometimes for money, and sometimes for other reasons, but I find that almost every person will leave where they are when they lose the passion for it. Think of the last time you spoke to someone who had just left an old job and was heading to a new place--they never start out with the details of their package, but almost always speak first about the excitement they felt or the people they were going to be working with. That thirst for knowledge is what drives our business and it's what drives us as individuals. That thirst taps into our passion.

I recently came to the realization that I like the agency world and wanted to get back into it. I realized that I've been in the agency world for a number of years now and I've been somewhat successful at it because it's what I am passionate about. Being in an agency, for all its warts, is great because you get paid to think up great ideas on a regular basis. You get to meet with all sorts of smart people with cool new ideas and you get to digest these ideas, merge them with other ideas and develop strategies to drive results. I consider the agency world to be the nexus of innovation when it's applied correctly--and who doesn't want to be in that center! When those ideas inspire you they tap into your passions.

The one message that I wanted to get across in today's column is not about some great new idea or some interesting new trend. It's not about marketing or advertising per se at all. It's not about any of the typical ideas that we write about--but about inspiration and passion. When you get into work and you meet with your clients or your vendors or your co-workers, be sure that what you're asking them to do is in line with their passion. When you are evaluating what you should be doing, evaluate whether this is your passion or not.

Over a number of years I've seen people come and go from jobs and careers--and 100 percent of the time, when someone makes a dramatic shift in their careers it's because they finally realized they had a different passion that didn't match what they were doing day in and day out.

If you think about it, you are very lucky because you chose to be reading this article about a certain area of expertise--a field you chose, I assume, because it tapped into one of your passions. You could just have easily been a mortician or had another kind of job that didn't necessarily speak to your passions. When you decide what to do each day, be sure you are feeding your passions--because if you are, you can never go wrong, no matter what anyone else tells you.

And when it comes time to think up a new idea or brainstorm some new methodology where there is a chance to innovate, be sure you think from a perspective that gets you excited and taps into your passions--because the output from that situation will be far better than anything else you could have done.

Have a great day!