Passionate Discussion

Steve Pavlina had a post yesterday on his blog about passion vs discipline. His take was that self discipline was more important than passion in the pursuit of success. He argued that you could have success without passion. Passion to Steve is a fleeting, unreliable emotion, that is not necessary for disciplined progress.

I beg to differ!

I have found that almost all successful people share 4 traits. Passion, Vision, Discipline and Conscience. The spark that ignites the other three is Passion! Discipline alone is an assembly line.

1. Without passion you have Yugos. With passion you have Ferraris

2. Discipline is a sugar cube, square, exact and unremarkable. Passion is a Mrs. Fields cookie, oblong, colorful and oh so tasty!

3. With discipline only.. you have “good enough”, The trouble is “good enough never is!” Good enough eventually puts you out of business.

While discipline is a needed component of the success quadrant, it is the least interesting. It’s the Joe Friday of the bunch… just the facts ma’m.

Steve asked “If you were to undergo open heart surgery, would you want a disciplined, dispassionate surgeon or an undisciplined, passionate one?”

My Answer: I would much rather have a passionate, caring doctor with a shaky hand than a slice and dice, assembly line, uncaring HMO surgeon.

Question: Have you ever heard a speech from a disciplined speaker without passion?
Answer: They are monotone… boring… In every speech contest I have ever been a part of, the passionate speaker wins!

So much for my passionate, but undisciplined rant.

I’d love to hear your comments on this!

John