READING TIME: 3 MINUTES
"You can fail at what you don't love, so you might as well do what you love!"
— Jim Carey
When Phil Knight started his journey in 1962 with a crazy idea of selling Japanese shoes in the US, he did not imagine or had the vision to create a multi-billion company known as NIKE today (its market value is 123 billion as I am writing this). It wasn’t an easy journey for him, with many obstacles along the way including several lawsuits, manufacturing problems, cash flow problems, operational problems, etc, but his love with the process of selling shoes helped him to move on despite all the challenges and stay focused and motivated.
LeBron James, an American professional basketball player and often regarded as the greatest player of all time, recently said in an interview:
“I have just been very consistent with the process. I have been very consistent with training my body — having my body be very clean throughout this journey because I always wanted to have a long career or as long as I could be in this space.”
“I just fell in love with the process throughout my whole life and throughout my basketball career to a point where I don’t like to look at the ending because I like to live in the moment.”
Every successful person I read about, falling in love with the process lies at the heart of everything they do. Warren Buffett, 88 years old and known as one of the richest people in the world, doesn’t need to work but he loves what he does and therefore does it consistently. He once said:
“We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds.”
“I get to do what I like to do every single day of the year.”
Striving for a meaningful life is far better than striving for success; meaningful life is a process, success or result is an event. The idea here is to move away from fantasizing your future with buzzwords like vision, goals, success, results, etc. and focus on going to bed satisfied every single day. Doing what you like to do every day consistently over several years is what will matter most in the long run.
Until you find that one thing that makes you fall in love with the process of doing it every day, don’t settle.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
— Annie Dillard
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