Not every­one has a rev­e­la­tion at 4 years of age that their call­ing is to heal peo­ple and they have no recourse but to become a physi­cian. I have envy for those indi­vid­u­als that do. They have years of space in their minds to focus on some­thing con­struc­tive like actu­ally help­ing peo­ple, ver­sus what they want to be when they grow up. That’s some­thing some of us are never able to fig­ure out and are left to wan­der through life as career gypsies.

There was some dis­cus­sion recently over at CollegeRecruiter.com in a post by Dan Schaw­bel about whether you should intro­duce your­self at a net­work­ing event by what you “do” at your job. I posted a blog com­ment there and 4 days later I am still think­ing about who we “are”, how some peo­ple shape their pro­fes­sional iden­tity and how oth­ers are shaped by it. Today’s career savvy pro­fes­sion­als posi­tion them­selves as com­modi­ties via strate­gic per­sonal brand­ing. Dan and oth­ers spe­cial­ize in help­ing oth­ers brand who they are, if they need guidance. 

But, is your pro­fes­sional brand who you are?  Unless you grew up with a “call­ing” prob­a­bly not. For most peo­ple, what they do dur­ing the weekly 40+ is a means to a cer­tain income that pro­vides a cer­tain lifestyle. While they may be pas­sion­ate about what they do, their true pas­sions lie else­where, not where the bread and but­ter is.

If you do some­thing you love you will do every­thing you do bet­ter. It’s about balance.

John Surma, Chair­man and CEO of U.S. Steel Cor­po­ra­tion plays and coaches ice hockey. Peter Weiler, Penn State Vice Pres­i­dent in devel­op­ment and alumni rela­tions par­tic­i­pates in iron­man com­pe­ti­tions. I have an incred­i­bly gifted friend with an amaz­ing mar­ket­ing mind whose pho­tog­ra­phy is absolutely stunning, network with a Recruiter who is a life­guard at the beach on week­ends and a cus­tomer ser­vice guru who is a scrapbooker.

None of these suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sion­als are likely to turn their pas­sions into income streams. But, these pas­sions bring bal­ance, joy and a much needed dimen­sion to their lives. Addi­tion­ally, pas­sion­ate hob­bies fuel curios­ity, fresh and gen­er­ous think­ing, and the abil­ity to look at ques­tions from more than one per­spec­tive. In other words, their per­sonal pas­sions help them to be highly suc­cess­ful in their careers.

So, go ahead, be pas­sion­ate about some­thing, work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one’s watch­ing. You’ll be hap­pier and it will improve your game.

Note: Mrs. Cronauer was my very pas­sion­ate 5th grade Eng­lish teacher.