Donuts, Dudes, and Desire
On my recent trip to Lancaster
Drive Through Man (DTM):
"Morning, boss." (In the interest of full disclosure, I don't own
Dunkin Donuts, and the DTM doesn't work for me.)Me: I hand him the money, "Here you go, brother." (Nor do we share the same mother.)
A moment later he hands me the coffee.
DTM: "Careful. It's hot,
guy." (He nailed this, we were both obviously men.)
Me: "You got it, man."
(I affirm his assertation of our manliness.)DTM: "Later, chief." (This came out of left field, neither of us looked like native Americans.)
Me: "Take care, dude." (More an unwillingness to
allow him to "name-up" me, than a reference to any surfer heritage
the server might have.)
Guys are funny like that. I
guess the exchange could have gone even further. Neither of us had played the
"mate," "friend," or "buddy" card yet. A bunch of
words, all meaning the same thing.
Of course that stuff happens all
the time, sort of like "desire," "zeal," or
"fervor." A bunch of words, meaning the same thing. A bunch of words
meaning passion, our topic of the day. Once, when asked what it takes to be the best, Michael Jordan replied.
“You have to have a passion for
something to be great at it. So try everything until you find that thing you’re
passionate about. When you find it, you can be great at it.”
 |
| Pete Cashmore |
Pete Cashmore, the founder of
Mashable, perhaps the largest tech media website in the world, was asked by
Darren Hardy, the publisher of Success magazine, to give one, all-important
piece of advice to fledgling entrepreneurs. His answer? "Find something
you are passionate about, because without passion, you'll fail."
Both of those men reiterate my
belief, and bring us back to my claim at the end of yesterday's post. It
doesn't matter if it's playing basketball, establishing a media empire, or
starting a game company, the first step is passion.
I don't come at this from an
esoteric view point, or speak about passion as an "arteest," but
rather a nut and bolt, brass tacks view of running a company. You must have
passion. Without it you'll fail. Let me explain.
Running a game company sucks.
Pure and simple. I spent a career in the Navy, deployed overseas more times
than I can count, and commanded an anti-swimmer detachment in the heat of a
Bahraini summer. I had more easy days in the Navy in one month than I had
running Lock 'n Load Publishing in seven years. There is very little time off,
and even less vacation. Artists flake in the middle of a projects, projects
that you planned on paying for your next game, planned on paying your mortgage,
planned on putting this week's groceries on your table. Hundreds of counters
need to be proofed and proofed again. Printers need to be hounded, customers need
to be helped, egos need to be salved, flame wars need to be fanned
extinguished. And that's just Tuesday morning.
So I'm writing about this need
for passion in a very practical sense. If you don't have passion, if you aren't
driven. You'll just quit. If you don't wake up thinking about your next design
at three AM, or get excited about the Action Point rule in Tank on Tank, you'll
pack it in. Perhaps your wife will catch double pneumonia, and running the
kids, correcting misprinted counters, and answering forum questions will sink
you. Maybe you'll just get tired of
working every, single day of the year, and you'll ratchet back, get a real job,
and move on.
And there is nothing wrong with
that. But if you don't have that passion stop now. Stop because at some time
the going will be tough, and without passion you'll never make it.
There's a second part to this
passion post, a bit less dramatic, but I hope as interesting. I'll kick it off
by asking you to speak with me now, and you are going to say, "I love
playing games. Is that enough?"
You'll find out in my final post
on passion. See you tomorrow, when I think I'll take a break from passion and talk about stupid, flipping Johnny Football.
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Jim S.