Should you follow your passion or skill in setting up a business?

Emmanuel Mintah Asomaning - Friday, January 20, 2017

The “you can do anything” mindset has made a great impact on us these days. We usually tell the saying to virtually every person for motivation including our children, clients seeking motivation from counselors, etc. just to let them focus on their path of life.

They also say winners don’t quit and so as quitters don’t win. But what if we are not right about the saying in most times? What if we can’t actually do everything but be great at some. And that my dear reader is the skills of an individual!

This links to the topic at hand. Should you follow the skills or passion? Now, these are two different things actually.

Passion is a short–term analysis. Meaning it is something that can happen over a short period of time. It is also very easy to have the passion for the profession. This may happen on the way we tune our mind – set on them. An instance, if a kid sees how the police operate in real life and in movies actually can make the child have the passion for the kind of profession. When this happens, they are very eager to have the job as their profession. Looking at this makes it clear that it’s a passion, not a skill or talent. Also, passions are all the time powered or influenced by others.

Skills, on the other hand, are not powered or influenced by others. Skills mean expertness; dexterity, a talent, craft or accomplishment, naturally acquired or developed through training. Skills can also mean what you can do, in other words, your God given talent and what you’ve been trained for!

Why should you follow your skills in the first place?

Looking at the meaning of skills; being something you’ve acquired and have reached a high degree of certainty. We run businesses because we have experiences in that course of business. Running a business requires full utilization of the faculty, diligence with the faculty and also steadfastness. Unlike the passion where you literally have no idea about the business since no course was taken for it to become a skill.

For instance; Kofi and Miles both had a dream of becoming an accountant when they were young. But growing up times were very hard that Miles had to go to a training college to become a Nurse since he couldn’t afford the fees of being an accountant and as for Kofi, he was not able to enter into any educational institution due to lack of funds. He later got a minor job at a network company where he was a sales personnel. He worked for some years and accumulated some funds. He later thought of furthering his education to pursue the job of dreams. Along the line, he found another course of which he vividly knew it would help him but delay him of his dreams. That course was marketing. Since he worked for a network company as a sales personnel, where he sold sim cards at vintage places and also helped customers with any problem they have with their sim cards.

Marketing is about selling products or rendering services to customers, including assessment of its sales potential and responsibility for its promotion, distribution, and development. Who would be bold enough to tell me Kofi can make it in this field? Kofi became a Marketing manager at the network company he once worked at. More so, this time around he was taking tons of money from the company for his skill. His friend on other hand was content with his position as a professional nurse, neglecting his dreams completely.

Let’s analyze this; Kofi had years’ experience at a reputable company where he was trained very well by them before he was trusted with the work. Now Kofi has a skill and that is he knows the secrets in selling, how to keep customers etc. Now let imagine Kofi’s training himself into marketing, improving his acquired skills at a higher institution and becoming a professional. How is his state after his new training affect any firm? I bet it would be immense.

This shows clearly that none of the boys actually worked towards their dreams when they got some skills of which was certainly not what they dreamed. But they pursue down that path and now they are all good at what they do.

To avoid waste of time (Time Management):

Now looking at the scenario above Kofi didn’t waste time to go on and pursue a dream he had no idea about but instead, he pursued the one he has a skill at due to the internship. Following something you don’t know anything about that thing can be a bit uncalled for. I say this because, for instance, If Kofi had not been wise enough and then followed the dream instead, he would have wasted his time since he had no skill in accountancy.

Helps develop a person in time:

Skills acquired helps develop a person in time. Now the person is not a beginner but good at what he/she does. Now course will be set for expertness with no time.

Leadership:

Following your skills ensures effective and good leadership. Your skill acquired makes it easy in leading set of people employed by you. Since the owner has skills and therefore knows how he or she likes to raise his field.

Now how do you enhance your skills?

- Realise your skills:

You should be able to know your skills, or better still study one.

- Acknowledge where you want to be:

This is whereby you determine where you want to be by exploiting your talents or skills. Finding a suitable place to situate yourself, that is due to the skill acquired.

- Discover Your Strengths:

Every individual has his own special qualities even in his or her own skill. Even though it is a skill that we all know that you are good at, hypothetically speaking, has some spot weakness in it. So in your skill, you got to identify your strengths in your chosen skill. That will enhance your effective utilization of your talents or skills.

- Focusing on your strengths:

Now achieving your goal of ascertaining your key strengths in your field. Then you focus soberly on how to make more output with it. In effect will help yourself and your country. These will also help in your personal advancement; “that is it develops talents and potential, build human capital and facilitate employability, enhance the quality of life and contribute to the realization of dreams and aspirations.”

- Researching:

The next thing is to do a lot of research. Make sure that you are current with the global world, running on the same pace as the world. Meaning in any field you find yourself exploring your skills, you should try to train yourself by training your skills to perfection.

- Consider all your options for improvement:

Now all these steps have been soberly acquired then you should consider the last step. Which is considering the options chosen, so that improvement or change in your skills setup improves from your current stage to phenomenal.

Wrap up:

As humans, we may love or have a passion for something either a course or job. But if one has acquired skills in any field, I oblige you to have that skill as a priority and make many endeavors on the said skill to achieve higher height.

I tell you this that eventually, the skills becomes one’s passion in no time. And when that happens you now focus on attaining higher heights.