You’ve might have heard it said
“If you work from your passion you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Nice quote. Seems to resonate with our experience with work. But notice how it frames work as something to be avoided. If you work from your passion, you will be able to stop working.
What if the point is to find work worth doing, then do as much of it as you can? Working from passion is still work, the difference is the motivation.
This quote is built on an industrial age idea of what work is. During the industrial revolution people moved off the farm and into factories. In that system the means of production, or how value was created, was connected to owning the machinery, raw materials, and capital to make products in factories. The human in this system was just a part of the machine.
Today we exist in a new system. In our emerging economy the way value is created is increasingly through the delivery of self to the market for the benefit of others. Your individual ideas and experiences are now the means of production; work has changed and is now a source of great meaning and purpose.
We believe working from your passion is no longer an option. It is necessary to accomplish the creation of value. Your customers not only deserve it, they require it.
At Ikon we believe developing a meaningful life is a central human desire. Doing work that matters for people who value it is one of the most important ways that we create that meaning in our lives.