“There he goes again” my family would say after I would make one of my life changing announcements.

I was always tilting at windmills and off on my next big adventure.

I was really full of passion until the work began.

First it was the Chef’s Training Institute, then it was Berklee College of Music, then it was computer programming, then I thought I would be a personal trainer.

Which felt to me, like I was going after a medical degree.

And these guys seemed like such dopes at the gym. How did they do it?

All these lofty goals seemed wonderful when I announced them, but when the work started, well, not so much.

I had more stress studying music than my whole year in Vietnam. I was getting shooting pains in my head.

You would think cooking, music and exercise would be…fun. Wrong!

To this day, I don’t know how I hung in at any of those professions.

But I did.

If the G.I.Bill wasn’t paying for Berklee, I would have been gone in a week. That was crazy.

It was like learning another language backwards.

You had to sing, play, write and conduct music in front of fucking virtuosos. Yikes!

When I got the training package for my fitness certification, I tried to get my money back immediately.

This wasn’t exercise, it was science. I don’t want to be a doctor, I want to be a gym rat.

What I’m trying to say is, passion on it’s own isn’t going to get you anywhere unless you put the work in.

Passion and a dollar won’t get you a cup of coffee.

Usually, once I got over the shock of what I had gotten myself into, I had to buckle down and get serious.

That ain’t fun. I would sometimes grumble my way through.

And I was very passionate about all those things…in the beginning.

So I say, passion, smassion, dig in and get to work.

Passion only comes after you get really good at something.

Trust me.