illvillja consulting

If it is one tip that you will hear entrepreneurs and business leaders repeat over and over again it is that you will have to be passionate about what you do in order to succeed. This is something that sounds so fundamental and easy, yet it is so often done wrong. I will give just another example on why you must be passionate about what you are doing, or you will fail.

Ever since I started playing poker I have wanted to go to Las Vegas. However, it has always been things coming in the way that I have prioritized higher. It might have been starting a new company, buying houses, getting kids, or just not having enough money. This year, it was time to change this! A friend of mine challenged me to play 100,000 hands of online poker before the 1st of June in an attempt to encourage me to get in enough volume to be able to get there. If I succeeded I would go there with him.

This is where every poker player wants to go

It was some years ago since I last played that amount of hands and in the beginning I struggled to put in the volume I needed. I had quite an easy deadline and only needed to put in about 20,000 hands a month. Still, even this was too much for me. I always managed to find other things to do that was more appealing than playing online poker (bare in mind, I do love poker, but I have almost only played live the last 3 years, something I think is much more fun). First they released the game of Skyrim, and that was a lot more fun than grinding poker. Then I celebrated Christmas in Sweden before getting a daughter the 1st of January. Then I was alone with my son, and when my wife and family finally came down to Gibraltar I wanted to spend time with them.

As you can see there are always an excuse not to play poker. You will find this in anything you do, and it all comes down to passion. If you are not passionate about what you are doing you will struggle to get it done as there will always be something else that you care more for, that you are more passionate about (like the amazing creature that a newborn child is). However, if you really do love what you are doing, if you are really passionate about it, this will be the thing you are putting other things aside for. If you really do believe in your business idea, or if you really do love to play online poker, or do love your work, you will put this in front of other things.

However, the contrary might also happen. If you are not passionate you will fail! You will fail in doing a good job that will take your career to the next step. You will fail in making that business idea a reality. You will fail in 1/3 of your life if you do something you do not like. You will fail, as if you do not play enough hands of online poker, you will not get to Las Vegas. For poker you will also fail because you will not spend enough time to improve your game, which will lead to you losing money.

With 3 weeks to go to the deadline of my challenge I realized what was going on and that I did not enjoy playing. I started to think of why and also discussed this with friends that helped me find my motivation again. This did not only help me to finish the last half of the challenge with one day to go (basically squeezing in 85 hours of play in just 3 weeks), it also managed to get me back on the winning trend which gave me a nice extra boost. The trip to Las Vegas is booked in 2 weeks!