Passion Into Your Career - Insights From a Motivational Speaker

How do you turn what you love into what you do? How do you take something that excites you and make it your work, your job, your income? These are big questions, and they were explored in a recent episode of Happen To Your Career with Scott Anthony Barlow and guest Christie Mims.

But before we dive into their insights, let’s pause for a moment.

The Power of Revelation

Change often starts with a revelation—those moments where an idea hits you at just the right time. And sometimes, you have to build habits that invite those revelations into your life.

For me, that habit is simple: walk, listen, write. Every morning, I take a long walk while listening to a podcast, then spend two hours writing about what I heard.

This morning, while listening to this episode, I was flipping through The Big Issue over breakfast when I stumbled across a quote from Iggy Pop:

“Don’t lose yourself. If you take enough dope, you lose your body, your mind or your life. Conversely, if you do everything everybody else tells you to do, you’ll be miserable and lose your self-identity. At some point, you gotta figure out the balance.”

The magazine editor summed it up perfectly: To thine own heart be true. 

That phrase immediately became part of my personal language of change. And that’s one of the secrets of transformation—becoming fluent in the language of change.

Passion Is Who You Are, Your Job Is How You Express It

Back to the episode.

Christie Mims shared a perspective that reframes how we think about passion:

“Passion is who you are. Your job is how you express it.”

She explains that passion is a combination of interest and engagement. If you’re deeply interested in something and consistently engaged with it, that’s where passion emerges. But passion isn’t static—it’s shaped by your life experiences and evolves over time.

Scott Anthony Barlow offered an example: He’s obsessed with golf. Does that mean his passion is golf? Not necessarily. Christie explained:

“What you are seeing is a manifestation of your passion rather than the passion itself.”

In other words, there’s something about golf that fuels Scott. Maybe it’s the challenge, the strategy, or the pursuit of mastery. His job isn’t to chase golf—it’s to uncover the deeper passion underneath it.

Passion Changes, But Your Core Drive Remains

One of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming that a new job alone will make them happy. Christie Mims warns:

“People think, ‘If I can just get another job, any job, I’ll be happy.’ But it’s like throwing spaghetti at the wall with no clue why. That’s why people keep ending up in jobs they hate—they haven’t figured out what’s driving them.”

Your interests and how you express your passion will change over time. That’s inevitable. But if you don’t take the time to understand what drives you, you’ll keep making the same mistakes.

So how do you figure that out? You ask the hard questions:

•  What do I do even when it’s difficult?
•  What challenges excite me?
•  What problems do I naturally try to solve?

Because as Christie puts it:

“A passion-fueled job is something you do even when it gets hard. A hobby is something you do because it’s easy.”

The Hard Work of Passion

That last insight hit me hard.

Years ago, I was a professional magician. I loved learning new tricks—it was fun, it was easy. But running a business? That was hard. And yet, that was the real passion—building a business that allowed me to do what I loved.

Today, I see the same pattern in my work. I should be focusing on marketing funnels, but sometimes I take refuge in Photoshop because it’s comfortable.

Passion isn’t just about what excites you—it’s about what you’re willing to work for.

Final Thoughts

This episode of Happen To Your Career wasn’t a top ten for me, but it gave me something invaluable: new language to describe the process of change. And that’s the real takeaway—if you want to turn your passion into your career, you have to start speaking the language of change.

I’ll leave you with this thought from Abraham Lincoln:

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”

So before you jump into a new job or career, take the time to sharpen your understanding of yourself. Because the better you know what drives you, the faster you’ll get to where you truly want to be.