Month: October 2019

Recently, a family member was hospitalized. I was reminded (re-learned?) the power of passion.

He was a very “good” patient. He was not demanding, very cooperative and had a sense of humor about all that was going on.

He also didn’t want to embarrass himself. This required some care and attention. Several of the nurses and assistants helped with this. Most of them truly had passion for what they were doing. They cared. Simple and straight-forward. They cared. They brought passion to their job.

Then there was one who lacked that passion. She wasn’t incompetent. Not at all. She completed her tasks. But she was obviously lacking passion. I’m sure that she completed the task as per the checklist that was developed for her training. However, since sometimes “just enough” isn’t enough to truly prevent some issues. So, the work that she completed didn’t last very long. One could tell that she was being frustrated. Additional procedures were being considered.

Then, someone with passion would pick up the process and all would be right again. I truly don’t think that she meant ill will. I would guess that she would go home and be frustrated as well. I’ll guess that she may have even expressed that frustration to her friends/loved ones. On one hand, she would be correct. She did follow procedures. She was just lacking one thing – passion.

I’m still amazed at the passion and caring that we saw and experienced at the hospital. That passion made a difference. It made a difference for the patient. It made a difference for the family. I’m not sure that you can teach that passion, but I believe that each of us can find it for ourselves.

I also believe that we can hire it in. I’ve tried to always hire people who are truly passionate about what they are about to do. I’ve missed a few times. I’ve hit more times than I’ve missed.

No matter what, we can find/reclaim/develop/foster passion in our work. It can be easy to lose in the demands and responsibilities. It can be tough to hold onto without support. It can be destroyed by negativity.

Keep fighting for your passion.