A compelling value creates the backbone of your passion.

I saw a real passion in the backyard of a 55-year old woman’s house.

Friends took me outside my city to start the day with the tastiest breakfast I’ve ever had. This woman raises chickens in her backyard. But she doesn’t just feed them and keep them safe. She sings to them. She tells them stories at night to help them sleep. She keeps a close tab on the health and mood of every one of her chickens.

Such kind of magic care and love is transmitted into the egg. The result is an explosion of flavor, a rich creaminess, a shiver of pleasure down the spine as soon as the delicious yolk hits your palate.

This woman is not famous. She is not a billionaire. She is not working on a cure for cancer. Nor is she busy trying to become the world’s number 1 on the tastiest egg dish ever. In fact, only a handful of people know about her.

But she does what she does with such love, devotion, and dedication that she provides wonderful dishes, one egg dish at a time.

When we paid for her mouth-watering food, her smile was more powerful than the blazing of the sun.

Passion is meaningless if you’re not willing to suffer for it.

We confuse what passion really means.

Passion is not what gives you bliss or thrills you 24/7, but what you’re willing to suffer for (what you genuinely believe to be worth the sacrifice).

Unwillingness to walk away when the road becomes rough comes from the value, the unique value we get behind our work.

“Have you ever thought of selling your chickens to a farmer and do something else?” I asked the woman who told me she slept on the hard, freezing floor for one week when her chickens suffered from some sort of sickness.

“Oh no, never! They are mine. I’m willing to suffer with them.”

She clearly loves her job. But her story does not end there. She does what she does with all her heart because her heart sings when a customer eats her delicious breakfast with a dreamy sigh.

She is willing to suffer with her chickens and for them because her delicious egg breakfast differs in its uniqueness.

I guarantee this woman sings to her chickens not because customers pay for her dishes. She sings to them because of the unique value she gets out of her work.

A value she gets from a teenager who devours her dish. A value she gets from a family enjoying her yummy food. A value she gets from a customer who comes back to eat again and again.

My darling, you need to know the unique value behind your work. Because the backbone that brightens your road is your unique value. And when I say value, I mean something other than monetary value.

Something deep in your heart that energizes you. A precious tug that turns you into a fearless one even when a storm lurks on your front door.

You need to dig and find out the unique value you get behind your work. Because without this value pulling you to move forward, you will race out of your work so fast that you will trip over your own feet.

You need to know because when life pulls a gun on your head threatening you to abandon your work. You need to know so that you will stay right there defending your work like a soldier protecting his country against an enemy.

What obsesses and compels us to do our best is the value we get behind our work.

What Steve Jobs was passionate about was not computers per se. It was simplicity.

He made simplicity his obsession and his art.

Simplicity drove the Apple identity. Simplicity drove the strategy, the products, the marketing, the branding, and the presentations behind Apple.

Are you a creator? A writer? A painter? A teacher? A trainer? A lawyer? A business owner? A travel blogger?

Whatever you do, your passion counts if it holds a unique value that tugs your heart.

I write. I love the process of creativity. But something more tugs my heart every morning.

What I write may help, inspire or teach someone in the world.

When a reader sends me an email thanking me for my article, my heart cracks in a good way. That is the compelling value that pushes me to do my best work. I like moving into that sweet spot where something I write overlaps with another consciousness, including a kind of group consciousness.

This gives me a mind-blowing feeling.

As simplicity drove apple products, what I give the world through my creativity drives me to write an article better than what I wrote the day before.

So, it isn’t necessarily the activities themselves that wake you early in the morning but something more.

Something more compelling you to give the world your best creation. Your best article. Your best painting. Your best teaching methods. Your best knowledge. Your best product. Your best service.

Or, your best egg breakfast.

The world doesn’t need to know what your unique value is. But you need to know. Without it beating your heart, you will not wake up every morning to create something wonderful that the blazing of the sun will be envious of.

Most of us confuse activities we do with the value behind the activity. What compels us to transfer something we love into paid-income is the hidden value behind our work.

The unique value you get lives and breathes behind the essence of what you are great at and what drives you. Your unique value urges you to pick yourself up after a failure. It pushes you to try again and again to do your best work.

That is the reason my new, 55-year old friend gets up every morning to prepare her mouth-watering egg breakfast better than her previous dishes.

To your inspirations,

Banchi