I meet many entrepreneurs with a real passion for their new idea, but unfortunately they don’t all realize that passion is necessary but not sufficient fuel to turn their idea into a successful business. The result is that far too few really great innovations ever get implemented -- or last more than a moment in the marketplace.First of all, passion needs to be surrounded by a host of other personal attributes necessary to survive the rigors of the long, hard journey to success. These include confidence, commitment and a determination to succeed. In addition, there is a key set of execution principles that consistently separate the wannabe entrepreneurs from the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world.
According to a recent analysis, entrepreneurs around the world have visions for over 300 million companies per year, but only a third ever get started. Other U.S. Labor Statistics data suggests that half of the ones actually started are gone in five years. Just imagine the potential impact of millions of unrealized innovations -- if only these execution principles were diligently followed.Of course, an even more important driver of passion than success is happiness and satisfaction with the lifestyle. Despite the failure of many entrepreneur initiatives, other data continues to indicate that entrepreneurs as a whole are the happiest and most satisfied business people on the planet -- well ahead of corporate professionals who make more money and have bigger titles.Thus, passion is a good thing, and it can be your competitive advantage, but only if you don’t let it lead to a self-reinforcing spiral of choices and actions that result in critical business miscalculations and missteps. Don’t wait until it’s too late to recover -- or realize after the fact that you didn’t even see it coming.