With Passion and Provision, You Can Have It All — Profits, Fulfillment, and More

The following is adapted from Fulfilled by Kathryn and Michael K. Redman.

We know what it’s like to pour blood, sweat, and tears into a business and not know if it’s going to work. The more business leaders we meet, the more we realize that many of us are living out the same common tale.

We all started a business because we wanted more freedom. We wanted to have more control, to author our own lives, and to be able to invest full-time in the places we really wanted to.

Then, as we began running our businesses, they started to tear at us — sucking up our money and time. Many of us discovered our personal gaps, encountered areas of business we didn’t fully understand and had to confront deficits in our leadership and management abilities. We tried to learn on the job as quickly as possible but weren’t sure where to turn for advice. Running a business was harder than we’d ever expected it to be.

Let’s get brutally honest for a second. True or false?

• You’re feeling burned out.
• You sense you’ve gone as far as you can personally go, and don’t know how to get any further.
• You’re running a business you believe in, but aren’t able to pay yourself, or earn enough to grow the company.
• If that sounds like your story, we get it. That was our story too. The good news is that there’s a better way.

A Better Way

It’s possible to have a business that allows you to become financially successful and still be emotionally fulfilled. It’s possible to get to a place where you don’t have to sacrifice your marriage or your relationship with your kids for the sake of your business. You actually can have it all, with passion and provision.

Here are some defining characteristics of a business owner with a passion and provision company:

• You’re working in a business that allows you to use the natural gifts and talents you were born with, along with the skills you have worked hard to acquire and develop along the way.
• You have sufficient finances and resources to sustain your business, grow your business, and provide for yourself and your employees.
• You experience both creative and financial freedom.
• You have the freedom to contribute to your community, establish a legacy, and make an impact.
• The key is that you need both passion and provision.

The Power of Passion

True passion is a sustaining force that compels you to endure and even sacrifice because you believe in the purpose of what you’re doing. It’s rooted in conviction, commitment, and values. True passion is also sustained by hope: the belief that what you’re doing will lead to a better life — for yourself, for others, for the world. It leads to harmony and a positive legacy.

In order to experience this kind of passion, it’s important to feel like your work is meaningful, and that it uses your gifts, talents, and skills. Working within your passion leads to the positive fruits of satisfaction, fulfillment, a sense of contribution, and a host of other positive emotions.

Sounds pretty wonderful, doesn’t it? But there’s a catch. Passion can’t sustain itself without sufficient provision along the way.

The Importance of Provision

Whereas passion makes a huge difference in your quality of life, provision makes a huge difference in sustaining the life of your business. When we look at the business failure rate, the most obvious commonality in failing businesses is a lack of provision. Most often, that occurs financially, but insufficient provision can also be intellectual, like when business leaders lack the training and knowledge required to keep their business going. It can also relate to insufficient emotional strength if you’re not able to endure challenges or burnout.

If you’re in a business that’s barely making it and feels like it could go under any given week, that is unsustainable. Passion for the business may carry you for a while, but in the end, provision is a required piece of the puzzle for you to achieve your goals and dreams. The provision piece is just as necessary to a fulfilling life as passion, because it’s provision that enables you to bring to reality the life you envisioned when you started this great adventure!

Passion and Provision Must Go Together

We have experienced passion without provision, and we’ve experienced provision without passion. Either scenario is terrible. Passion without provision is unsustainable; provision without passion is meaningless.

The two were meant to go together. When you and your employees feel more passion in your work, the natural consequence is that the business starts to perform better. Similarly, when your business is providing enough profit and cash to alleviate stress, you’re able to grow and develop in ways that lead to greater fulfillment and passion.

Here’s our conclusion: passion and provision must go together.

For more advice on Passion and Provision in business, you can find Fulfilled on Amazon.

Kathryn and Michael K. Redman are sweethearts, best friends, and the husband-and-wife team behind Half a Bubble Out (HaBO), a marketing and business consulting firm. They’re also founders of HaBO Village, a membership website that helps leaders build Passion & Provision companies, full of profit, purpose, and legacy. For more than 17 years, they have helped business leaders across the world grow their companies through marketing, business coaching, and leadership development. Kathryn and Michael have both taught at the university level and are frequent guest speakers. They currently reside in their hometown of Chico, California, where they love going to work every day.