Last week I had the honor of speaking at the annual Alan Weiss Million Dollar Consulting Mentor Summit for the third year in a row and crafted a talk on leveraging passion to drive business results.

A smart, inquisitive audience from across the globe, here are some of the questions they asked:

What is passion, exactly?

How does one uncover it?

How do I put it to work for me in business?

How do I make my passion relevant to the needs of my clients?

What are the other, important elements of sustaining oneself?

How do I know when it’s time to let go of something that I’ve been passionate about?

Good questions, all.

Here are the 5 characteristics of passion that I shared with the audience as they relate to business:

Vitality: infuses us with a positive, contagious energy of the best kind

Sincerity: conveys meaning and purpose, about ourselves and our clients

Distinguishing and Defining: builds brand and elevates us above the market noise

Sustaining: carries us through the inevitable hurdles of business

Expanding: grows with us and becomes more than we can envision in the here and now

I also said what passion is not.

It is not the absence of fear.

And it is not a lack of seriousness.

If there is an antonym for passion in the world of business, it is disengagement.  The last Gallup poll I read placed that number at close to 70% in the US.  70%.  Take that in for a moment.  If you’re wondering how to leverage your own passion and that of your team to drive business outcomes, drop me a note at: sarah@sarah-levitt.com

And if you’re thinking about how to uncover your passion, about 20% of my work is with executives who are asking just that question and are in transition.  For more: sarah@sarah-levitt.com