Jackie Summers looks at the intersection of passion, timing and luck, from his view on the front lines of entrepreneurship.

Most people hate their jobs, usually for one of two reasons. Either

• They don’t like the work, or
• They can’t stand the people.

Or both. If you love what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with, work isn’t really work.
It’s play that you get paid for.

This is an essential key to entrepreneurship.

So why doesn’t everyone do something they love for a living? The excuses reasons are infinite, and not insignificant. It doesn’t matter if you thought you were going to be a writer, a musician, a Swiss banker; life has a funny way of distracting people from their dreams. Adults have responsibilities; you have to earn a living, rent isn’t going to pay itself.

It is in this manner that most people become comfortable dreaming their dreams, instead of pursuing them. Dreams become things to be enjoyed whilst sleeping, as a respite from the drudgery that is everyday life. Passion becomes a thing of novels and movies, a fictional quality possessed only by heroes.

Let me assure you, great entrepreneurs are not heroes, or at least, they don’t start out trying to be. True entrepreneurs simply see the pursuit of their vision as their greatest responsibility. They are more concerned with making a life than earning a living. They fully espouse the teaching of German philosopher Georg Wihlelm Friedrich Hegel:

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”

You might have no idea how to monetize whatever this thing is that you love to do, but passion will drive you to figure it out. When you’re exhausted, broke, and utterly frustrated, passion will make you jump out of bed on a Monday morning and work late into the evening, long after your friends with jobs they hate are sleeping comfortably, dreaming their dreams, because you intrinsically understand two things:

• No dream can become a reality until it’s become an obsession, and
• Passion + Time = LUCK.

Passion and luck are old paramours. If you have passion, you will find luck conspires in your favor. You might lack knowledge, experience, financial solvency. If passion fuels your motivation and luck chooses you as her lover, there are few challenges that are insurmountable.

Luck counts.

© JFB 2012

chart by @miikkaleinonen / twitter

* This essay originally appeared on The Good Men Project.