In this issue:

• Simon Webb - Tour Guide

This is our regular e-message to people who are interested in leading their lives with passion. We will send you a short note with information, stories, examples, and practical things you can do to lead your life, work, and organizations with passion. Leading With Passion We like the term 'leading with passion,’ because it has two very significant, but related meanings. The first suggests leading off with passion. That is, making the very first priority in your life to live, work, and play passionately, and to fully embrace every possible moment. Second, it means that we can lead our organizations, teams, and projects with passion - creating passionate work environments by transferring our own enthusiasm for the organization to all others who come into contact with it.

Simon Webb

One of the reasons, people tell us, that they sink into the living dead is because their dreams get squashed, and they feel they are stuck in jobs that they hate. Simon Webb found a way to combine his interest in theater with making a living.

Born and raised in North Wales, with a degree in Film & Drama, he found himself in a job he didn't want or enjoy. "I spent years working in an office and I used to be a systems analyst and I didn't like that," he says. So then he went to drama school. He soon found out that acting "was no real way to earn a living, and the thing about guiding was it seemed to offer a lot of things that you get in acting without any of the financial drawbacks."

Being One of the Best
It's hard to be passionate about doing something mediocre, no matter the occupation. Simon is a tour guide in London, England and is one of a select number who has earned the qualification of Blue Badge, the UK's professional, registered tourist guides. The first Blue Badges were awarded to tourist guides who were trained for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Blue Badge guides work in over 40 languages and the qualification process takes 2 years. They are the only guides (other than in-house people) authorized to guide in places like the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace, Spencer House, Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, Shakespeare's Birthplace and Edinburgh Castle. It's an expensive process, in time and in money, to become one, but they are the best in their field.

Are you willing to pay the price to become one of the best?

Combining What You Love With What You Need
We would be the last to advise anyone to quit a job or to plan a career without taking into account the financial and security considerations surrounding that choice. That would be just irresponsible. But many times people don't even consider their options.

Work doesn't necessarily have to be an either/or. It doesn't have to be 'Either I'm fabulously happy and poor, or I'm making a great living but I dread going to work each morning.'

Instead of going back to work he hated, for the financial security; or continuing as a professional actor, living hand-to-mouth, Simon found a way to combine his interests. Sure, he doesn't make as much money as he might otherwise, and he isn't starring in London plays, but he is doing what he enjoys and is making a living doing it. "I currently have," he says, "what is fashionably known as a 'portfolio' career, interspersing free-lance Blue-Badge work with part-time guiding at Shakespeare's Globe and the BBC Television Centre."

Not everyone can play in the NBA, but nearly anyone who really wants to make a career in basketball can be a coach at some level, an assistant coach, be a sports administrator, or announce games over the radio. Not everyone can be the CEO of a major company, but nearly everyone can own his or her own company. Not everyone can be a professional actor, but nearly everyone who really wants to perform can be a tour guide, like Simon, a trainer, a singing waitress, or a drama teacher. Some people find ways to creatively do what they enjoy in their jobs. The teacher who portrays characters in class, the accountant who focuses on training his peers, and the staff assistant who organizes (and is in) the annual talent show are all finding ways, for example, to 'perform' within unlikely jobs.

Are there ways you can combine your dream career with your reality?

Doing Meaningful, Fun Work
Simon's work is fun and meaningful. People on his tours may have saved for years to travel to London. "You are the only person who gets the opportunity to make that short visit to London count. So there is a tremendous responsibility to make things come to life." As an actor he enjoys being in front of people. "You crack a joke, people laugh, and it makes you feel good," he says. He sometimes comes out feeling an absolute high after a tour of places like Parliament or Oxford. "You had a good audience and they laughed at all of your jokes and they really enjoyed themselves."

Finding work that you love to do requires you to be intentional about it, to take some risks, and perhaps even to exercise some creativity. It's worth the effort.

Leading with Passion is a regular communication from Michael Kroth and Patricia Boverie. Michael and Patricia have been researching passionate work since 1999, and their book, Transforming Work: The Five Keys to Achieving Trust, Commitment, and Passion in the Workplace, is about the indispensable necessity of passion for personal and organizational success in the workplace.

© Copyright 2005, All Rights Reserved Patricia Boverie and Michael Kroth