Passion will make you work more

Adii Pienaar is co-Founder of WordPress theme shop and eCommerce platform WooThemes.

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I used to be a firm believer of this mantra:

“When you love your job, you’ll never work again.”

Today, I’m not convinced that I believe it as much any more.

See, in terms of that mantra I guess I’d be considered to be living the dream. I co-founded my own business, get to work with an awesome team on awesome products, we make good money, I get to travel often and I have loads of flexibility. It’s a privileged life.

And all of this has been fuelled by my passion for business, my passion to create, my passion for a challenge, my passion to start something.

When I created the very first WooThemes product 5 years ago, I did so because I was passionate about getting my hands dirty & creating. It was only ever intended to be a nice side-project that generated a bit of passive income. Instead it took off like a house on fire and evolved into the global business it is today.

Throughout the last 5 years, I’ve seen myself working more and sacrificing so many other aspects of my life (something which I’ve tried to change recently). I had to feed the beast that I had created.

I realized that the thing about success is that it demands more success. So whilst I’ve been passionate about building WooThemes every step of the day, it’s become much more of a job than a passion or hobby over the years. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but the beast has demanded his pound of flesh from me.

I’ve found that mixing my ambition & drive with my obvious passion for certain things, I will always work more. And I haven’t been able to control that well. Beyond the sacrifices that I’ve made and those that I’ve forced down on the people closest to me, it’s also been a struggling maintaining that passion at all times.

I’ve come to realize that passion is a beast that needs to be fed. Sometimes it’s gonna feel like you’re making a deal with the devil and other times it’s gonna feel like nurturing the most amazing Bonsai.

Regardless, you’ll like be working quite a bit more as a result.

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This article originally appeared on adii.me, part of the Svbtle network, and was published with permission.