Hard Work is Useless Without These Two Things.

After four years of working in a local media company finally I decided to quit. The reason is simply because I want to try to build something by my own, or together with my wife building our own business. From this post to several next ones I'll share some lessons and experiences I've learned along while working in the company.

First of all, the most important thing to have to build a business are burning passion and purpose. Passion is the "fuel" to wake us up every morning and move forward every day, finishing every tasks occurred no matter how difficult it is. It is also the "fuel" to make our life meaningful. While purpose is the "compass" to keep you sailing in the right path, to keep you maintain the direction, maintain the true vision why you have to build that business. It is also needed to constantly remind your team about what their work means for the business. So many people say that all you need is hard work. Yes hard work is really important. But passion and purpose are the foundation of all, even before hard work. Passion and purpose should be found and confirmed before everybody and everything starts to move, unless all of the hard work will be useless.

So how to find your passion and set your purpose? There are so many books talking about these things. Passion is somehow already inside of ourselves. It just need to be discovered, by not to think too much but to honestly feel it instead. It is an activity that we enjoy so much that we always want to do it and we still willing to do it although we're not paid. Still don't know? It's ok. We just have to keep being honest and open to ourselves, feel it, be brave enough to admit it, until we really sure that "this is it". How about purpose? Purpose will usually come along after we discover our passion. It is our answer on the question of "why we should exist?". People will set their purpose to make their life and existence in this world matter, not only for personal reasons but also to make the world a little bit better.

Let's take some examples. Just like Steve Jobs. He had a passion on how technology can make human life easier, by "thinking differently". His purpose is to "make a dent in the universe". He won't stop until his products make a significant impact to people's daily lives, from iPod to iPhone. Another example, is a young rich man called Mark Zuckerberg. He builds Facebook on a passion that he has, which is using technology to connect people. His purpose is to bring human relationships offline to online. Everything he does always align with his purpose including buying out Instagram and Whatsapp.

That's why these two peoples are able to make their company one of the most successful company in the world right now. They'll do whatever it takes for the company in order to still align with their passion and purpose. Their employees can feel it too and they feel proud of their job because they know everything they do is meaningful. So have you found your passion and purpose?