Living With Passion is Well Worth the Effort
As Roslyn and I have been busy speaking, holding events, and attending conferences, we haven’t had a real chance to take a vacation. While we try to make time for fun wherever we go, the fun is usually preceded by business. So this month, we thought we’d go against routine and make more time for fun.
After our recent mastermind meeting with Dan Kennedy, we met up with our friend and songwriter Kenny Nolan, who’s known for writing a multitude of popular songs, like Frankie
Valli’s “My Eyes Adored You” and Patti Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade.” (As a side note: Kenny is also one of the friends who joins us for our pajama New Year’s parties.) If you know me, you know my first response to fun is “No, we have to go back to the office and keep working.” Luckily, I have a wife who says otherwise. So when Kenny invited us to see Frankie Valli perform, I had to say yes.
We’re proud of our friend for his success in writing so many songs, so we were excited to join Kenny and his wife, Debi, and our group of friends and hear Frankie Valli sing live. And Valli put on an amazing show! Not only is he touring at 81 years old, but he performed for two hours straight — the same songs and with the same energy he had years ago. Talk about passion!
And he’s not the only one. Spending time with Kenny, I could see he has the same passion for songwriting. It’s a characteristic that makes Roslyn and I proud to be his friends, and his passion inspired us.
So on our next work trip, Roslyn and I were committed to making more time for fun and our own passions. Following a week-long High Performance CoachingTM certification program in Santa Clara, California, we took a long weekend to visit our daughter and her boyfriend and tour Napa Valley wineries. In three days, we toured at least four wineries and did a lot of wine tasting. I drank grape juice. Plus, choosing not to rush home after our conference was nice.
If you take away one thing from this, it’s that making an effort to relax and recharge is well worth it. Knowing so many CPAs, EAs, and tax attorneys, I can only hope they all found a way to have fun and exercise their outside-of-work passions after a long tax season. The passion an artist has for his craft is the same passion we have in our work. As practitioners, we want to be the best at what we do
This month, whether you choose to stay in the office or not, make the effort to add more fun to your life. Think back to the last time you took a vacation or did something that made you forget about the work left at the office. Remember how great that felt, and I think you’ll find that adding fun will, in turn, make you a more passionate, more successful practitioner.
Until next time,
