Find and Follow Your Passion

Episode 920: Find and Follow Your Passion, with Joe Battista

Find and follow your passion while setting attainable goals. Listen to Joe Battista’s advice on how to find and follow your passion.

Joe Battista, our guest for today’s episode, will teach you how to find and follow your passion then set a career path for you. He is a professional speaker, instructor, author, and Owner of Pragmatic Passion LLC Consulting. His first book “The Power of Pragmatic Passion” was released in September of 2018. He serves as Vice President and an Executive Coach for the National Athletic and Professional Success Academy. In 19 seasons as the head coach of the Penn State Icers his teams won 512 games and six American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) national championships.

Joe helped secure the largest gift in Penn State history from Terry and Kim Pegula ($88 Million) in 2010 to establish NCAA hockey teams and construct the Pegula Ice Arena. He was named Associate Athletic Director to oversee the project. The American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) named Joe the 2014 winner of the “Lou Lamoriello Award” for his career contributions to college hockey. Joe was a Vice President of the Buffalo Sabres and a Director of Amateur Hockey for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

He is a member of the American Collegiate Hockey Association Hall of Fame and the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. Joe is a 1983 graduate of Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and he resides in State College, PA with his wife Heidi and they have 3 children, Brianna (26), Jon (24), and Ryan (18).

What you will learn from this episode about how to find and follow your passion:

• How wise mentorship and coaching from others helped guide Joe to follow his passion into a career in the business and coaching sides of hockey
• How to find and follow your passion while also setting attainable goals
• How Joe’s time at Penn State was capped by helping raise the largest single financial gift in the university’s history to establish Penn State’s hockey program
• How Joe’s book “The Power of Pragmatic Passion” has been a powerful networking and business development tool for his business
• How Joe defines a “pragmatic passion”, and why he believes passion alone isn’t enough to succeed
• How turning his “pragmatic passion” into a career has given Joe a deeper feeling of fulfillment and purpose
• What Joe’s “seven common sense principles” are, and how business leaders can integrate these principles into their leadership
• Why you should give yourself a quarterly or semi-annual “you review” evaluation of where you are in life and in your career
• Why purpose and passion can be incredible tools to help you get through the “grind” parts of your career
• Why convenience store brand Sheetz employs someone specifically to figure out how to put the company out of business five years from now
• Why you need to find and follow your passion as early as possible

Resources:

• Website: www.pragmaticpassion.com
• Email: [email protected]
• The Power of Pragmatic Passion by Joe Battista: https://amzn.to/2QCTmRN
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/coachjoebattista/
• Twitter: @coachjoeba
• Find and follow your passion with the help of these book resources

Additional Resources:

• Sell With Authority by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner: https://amzn.to/39y7x13
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library: https://predictiveroi.com/resources/
• Stephen Woessner’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stephenwoessner/
• Listen to another podcast on how to find and follow your passion from our guests, Drs. Brandon and Heather Credeur

 

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation, where I interview today’s top business owners so we can learn their recipe for success, how they built in, and how they scaled their business. In fact, my team at Predictive ROI, and I know that I’ve been talking about this for months now because we’re continuing almost on a weekly basis, adding new resources, free resources into our resources library Onward Nation that you can download.

 

These are practical and tactical guides for everything from search engine optimization to the Trojan horse, to sales, to building out your client avatar with the new handbook, to living out your values, your core values, mapping those out, and then how to take the next steps on that, and then how to build a rock solid, awesome culture. There’s so much there that we’ve invested in all for you, all for free.

 

Just go to PredictiveROI.com/Resources and whatever you request, we will send it right to your inbox. 

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Joe Battista’s Introduction

 

Before we welcome today’s very special guest, Joe Battista, let me first share some additional context around why, when Marty Wolfe, our mutual friend here, Marty Wolfe. Why, you know, Marty has been a guest on our show a couple of times.

 

Why? When he reached out and said, hey, let me introduce you to Joe. And Joe and I started going back and forth. Why? It was like a static. Yes, absolutely. I need to have Joe as a guest on our show. And why I was so delighted when he said yes to my invitation. And, because we’re going to talk about it.

 

Yeah. As business owners, do we need to dream big? Of course we do. But sometimes we go off the rails and go askew because we don’t keep it real. We lose ourselves in the creativity of the vision and then what happens is we never get the hard work done that maps to that original goal, that original vision.

 

So when Joe said, yes, I knew I was like over the moon excited because I knew this was going to be an opportunity for us to have a conversation around how to dream big, but then how to keep it real, and then how to make sure that we got the hard work done. So we’re going to have a conversation about what it means to have pragmatic passion.

 

What does it mean to follow the seven common sense principles that Joe so masterfully maps out in his book? Well, how then, do we take the next steps on all of that to make sure that we’re actually executing against the dreams, the vision and all of that? So Joe’s a professional speaker. He’s an instructor. He’s an author. You’ll hear that he, too, is a business owner of a business called Pragmatic Passion.

 

So this is going to be a great conversation in Onward Nation, but it is going to be one of those in the trenches conversations. So I am so very excited to say welcome to you Onward Nation, Joe. 

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Joe’s Path and Journey

 

Good morning Onward Nation. And Stephen, thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be here. Oh my gosh, I’m really excited for two things.

 

When Marty Wolff, you know, made the introduction and that’s kind of him to put us together. That’s awesome. So Marty, if you’re listening today thank you, my friend. But just because somebody makes an introduction doesn’t mean that you’re going to say yes. And so thank you for saying yes to my invitation to come on to the show and taking your time to to spend here with Onward Nation business owners.

 

And before we dive into the conversation, though, take us behind the curtain here, Joe. Tell us more about you. Tell us more about your path, your journey, and then we’ll dive into your book and the other questions that I’m looking forward to asking you. Well, thank you, Steve. And I am excited. My journey is not too different from a lot of others.

 

And that you start off, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and began playing hockey. I reached a point where in my mind, I, you know, really wanted to get to a point where I was playing hockey, and, that’s when I thought of my passion was I was obsessed with it. And I was going to go on to be a professional hockey player and, you know, realized, I was pretty naive, because the odds were against me.

 

And, because of my circumstances, I didn’t get a lot of good advice from my high school counselor. And, you know, I went on to engineering where I was miserable. Didn’t really have any passion for wanting to be an engineer, whatsoever. And, partway through my college at Penn State, I met a gentleman, Jim Kelly, who finally took interest in me.

 

And gave me assessment tools that help me figure out a better path, which took me to the College of Business. And I switched into marketing, and I was able to go on to have a very successful college career. I played college hockey at Penn State, but also realized that I was not going to be a professional hockey player, but I was still obsessed with the sport.

 

And it was Jim Kelly who said to me, you know, you can have a very successful career in sports and not be a player. You can go into the business management side. And that’s exactly what I did. And had it not been for his mentorship and his coaching, who knows where I would have ended up. Stephen and I can’t thank him enough for what he did for me.

 

And, you know, a lesson to your listeners is that you can’t do this by yourself. You have to check your ego at the door. But I, then, worked in the National Hockey League for the Pittsburgh Penguins, in sales and marketing. But I got bit by the coaching bug, which was something I had no idea I was going to be doing.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Making a Transition into The Fundraising World

 

I landed, and, you know, it was just one of those, kind of the theory of serendipity in the right place at the right time. And I loved coaching. My father was a coach. And, so that’s what I decided to pursue. And after a couple of years as an assistant coach, I became the head coach and state, where our team went on to win six national championships in the American Hockey Association.

 

I was 45 years old, and I said that there are more and decided to transition into the fundraising world. So I took my the same skill set that I had as a hockey coach where, you know, you’re using my marketing, my sales background, my public speaking background, and just transition into the role of the Nittany Lions club director at Penn State, where I was in charge of annual fundraising for a 29 sport, varsity sport, department and raised the money for the scholarships for 860 Division one athletes.

 

And we tripled the amount of money that we raised in the three years that I was the executive director. And a lot of that was, you know, because of the same principles that I talk about in my book. And after that, I became a major fundraiser and helped lead a team that got the largest gift in the history of Penn State.

 

It was an $88 million gift from Terry and Kim Pegula, the owners of the Buffalo Sabers and the Buffalo Bills. Largest single gift ever given to Penn State. From that moment on, I became the associate athletic director in charge of the ice arena, which is a $91 million facility that we built on campus to house our hockey program.

 

And in the process, managed to help raise another $12 million, I’m sorry, $14 million. So I got to enjoy that, Steven, for a very short time. And then Mr. Pagel asked me to come work for him at the Buffalo Saber. So after being an athlete for some years, I went and became vice president of the Buffalo Sabers while I was in charge of hockey and tuition.

 

But I moved up to Buffalo, away from my family, and after being on a three year contract there, I decided it was time to move back home. And that’s when I decided to become an entrepreneur and start my own business. And I did the book Power of Pragmatic Passion. 

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: The Power of Pragmatic Passion Book

 

Okay. Great story. And what I really love here is how you took your passion for helping people, your passion of being a servant leader, your passion for being a coach.

 

And you applied it to obviously, directly coaching, but then you applied it on campus and working with the Bengals and you turned that into fundraising and that benefited students. And then you actually worked in the NHL and had an impact there. And it’s all around being able to help and empower people. And now you’re turning that into and building a business around that, that is awesome.

 

And by the way, Onward Nation. So Joe is the author of I didn’t mention this in the intro, and I should have, the title of his book is The Power of Pragmatic Passion. And what I found, you know, just a great litmus test and stamp of approval is on the back. Is that Kim Pegula, you know, one of the the owner and president of the Buffalo Bills and the sabers, the Buffalo Sabers that you mentioned, she gave you a great, you know, testimonial for the book, on the back cover.

 

And that’s just awesome. Really awesome. Joe, that doesn’t happen by accident, my friend, as you well know. Well, I appreciate that. And, I’m, again, I have been blessed to have been mentored and coached by so many great people, and I’ve been surrounded by so many great colleagues over the years and have been the beneficiary of many of life’s lessons, you know, good and some bad, and tried to do my best.

 

To learn from them and grow from them. And, you know, my hope is that the book will help people to avoid some of the pitfalls by following the prescription for success. And the, you know, subtitle of the book is, you know, seven Common Sense Principles for Achieving Personal and Professional Success. And, I can tell you that, it’s been a blast.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Your Book as A Business Card

 

It was a labor of love writing it. It has been very successful, especially since I self-published. And it has been the best business card that you can imagine. Well, so let’s go down that path for just a second before we dive into some of the big nuggets, the big takeaways for business owners out of your book.

 

Let’s think about it. You know, pragmatically using your word, let’s think about it pragmatically as a business development strategy. I think, you know, most business owners would say, yup, you know, being seen as the authority in my marketplace. I know that that’s important. Yep. I love to be able to have a book. It makes sense.

 

I just haven’t gone down that path of labor and love and the blood, sweat and tears that it takes to get it done. So you obviously have done it. So what has been some of the impact of having your book as a business card out in front of your business? How has that benefited your business? Well, the networking, and the lead generation, results have been outstanding.

 

Again, for somebody trying to be an entrepreneur for the first time, really, you know, you’ve got to get out there and dig. I really liken this to my role as a recruiter when I was a coach. You know, you gotta get out there and you got to be present. And, you know, the best way for me to introduce myself to other people, aside from social media,  is to get that book in people’s hands.

 

And I got to tell you, I sent out, Stephen, a lot of complimentary issues of the book, with personal notes. And I got them in front of and I hand delivered them to, a great many people, because I wanted to say thank you because they were in a lot of cases, people had made a big difference in my life at some stage, because I am in the book, I talk a lot about the attitude of gratitude.

 

Matter of fact, I call it the attitude of gratitude. And we talk. We do. I walk people through an exercise where I say, it’s time to tag people that have made a positive difference in your life. Never take it for granted. You didn’t get where you are by yourself, and you got to take time to remember to say thank you to people.

 

And I’m a big believer that that comes back to you, tenfold. And so, you know, that was a big part of it. But, you know, writing the book as you mentioned or, you know, it’s not easy. And I was not, you know, I’m a writer. I’m a columnist here locally for State College.com, which did help me to develop my writing skills, no doubt.

 

But I was not a writer. I did not, you know, always believe I was going to write a book. I saw a book. And the gentleman that helped me publish the book, Western Lion, wrote a book about how a book is the best business card you can have. And I believe that. And, you know, again, getting it out to the schools, getting it into business, people’s hands, getting into the athletic directors hands, principals hands, all of that has made a big difference for me.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: What Is a Pragmatic Passion?

 

So your book revolves around pragmatic passion. So define that for us. In your opinion, what is a pragmatic passion? It is not just having an intense desire or enthusiasm for something, which is what passion is, you know, because we talk a lot about just following your passions and dreams, you know, find your passion. I think there’s more to it, because I really believe in my heart.

 

Just as much as anybody knows me, I know I am a very passionate person. Passion alone is not enough. There’s more to it. And that’s where I married it. With a pragmatic approach, which is really the realistic, common sense, practical, not theoretical approach. So if you are pragmatic with passion, I believe it says dream big while keeping it real and then going and getting it done.

 

And I think, Stephen, what happens is a lot of people dream big. You know, sometimes that dream is a fantasy. And what I want to do is help people to say, okay, what determines something is doable. What are your skills and knowledge that you possess? What level of ambition do you have? Because those things are going to matter whether or not you’re going to really be able to see because you’ve heard these kinds of sayings, you can be anything you want to be.

 

Just follow your passions and dreams. Do what you love, and the money will follow. Well, I think those all need caveats. For instance, if you say you can be anything you want to be, if you have the talent, the aptitude and the work ethic to acquire the skills and knowledge, the competencies to be successful in that field.

 

If you say, just follow your passions and dreams. So that’s to inspire you to learn the skills and gain the knowledge in the right industry to be successful. And my personal favorite is what if you do what you love, become an expert at your craft, then the money will follow. And that’s the keep it real part that we’re talking about.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Helping Other People

 

So let me give this back to you as as a litmus test here because, you know, as I’m getting to know you through this conversation and in our pre-interview and everything, you know, leading up to today, you know, my sense is in reading your book, my sense is that you truly like servant leadership is not lip service for you.

 

Like, you truly want to serve and be helpful. Right? So when I think about, you know, early on in your story, as you’re talking about, you want to be an NHL player, I mean, it was like your world revolved around hockey. And then as you were just saying, what you’re taking us into is pragmatic. I had this kind of thought.

 

I wonder if Joe would agree with this. I wonder because he didn’t become an NHL player, but he became a head coach at Penn State. They won five titles. He helped a lot of young men on that hockey team become better versions of themselves. Then he obviously served in the NHL, not out of the NHL, with the sabers and helped those men become better versions of themselves.

 

And now he’s serving business owners. I wonder, do you think I could argue that you’ve created more even though you weren’t an NHL player? You created, you found a way to create even more impact by serving in the way that you did. Even though not a player, you found greater impact in serving as a coach. Would you agree with that or disagree?

 

100% agree with it, because what I found was a purpose. And you know, as you’re looking in your life, I had to figure it out and I did this partly through assessment tools. You know, I took lots of different assessments and the assessments, as you know, and any of the ones that are out there, whether it’s Myers-Briggs or Disc, or predictive index, you know, culture index, there’s a tool out there, you know, and I am a firm believer in them, but I am also a firm believer that they have to be interpreted with a coach.

 

Then you have to sit down with somebody that’s going to help you to figure that out. Because a lot of times, you know, kids, kids in particular will just go online and do these freebie versions and ends up leading them astray too often, Stephen and I, that’s why I think, you know, you need to have a better sense of who you are and what makes you tick and purpose.

 

What I discovered was my purpose really is helping other people. And I do that through teaching, through coaching, through my public speaking. And that’s what makes me happy. I feel fulfilled, I feel like I’m living a joyful and meaningful life because I’ve found a way to do what I love to do and to get paid for it. Which, you know, that’s a separate child, right?

 

Because otherwise, you know, a passion if you just, you know, you love music, but, you know, here’s the difference. You can be a good engineer or a good accountant, you know, a good architect and make a good living. You can’t just be a good musician and make a living at it. You have to be exceptional. You know, in the book, I actually use the example that’s, you know, the even exaggerated more that’s, you know, you might be a great chess player.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Use Your Skills for Sales

 

So what, you can’t make money playing chess by being a great chess master. You have to be world class in order to do that. And so that gets back to this whole pragmatic piece of it. And that’s not to say if somebody loves music that they shouldn’t pursue that is, you know, something that they want to do because they’re developing skills and knowledge as you pursue a music, education that can be transferred into many other things, as long as you’re able to understand that if you don’t reach that particular level where you are going to be a professional musician, it’s okay.

 

Take all those skills that you learned, look at it through a different lens, and now pivot and use those for sales, use it for analysis, use it for coding. You know, people don’t know this. But back when IBM first got into the personal computer business, they hired musicians in order to be their coders. There weren’t coders walking around.

 

They looked at people that were skilled at pattern recognition and had the discipline to sit down and do the coding, very much like writing music. So I look at people and say, look, pursue that. That’s okay. But understand that sometimes you gotta be ready to pivot. And by the way, that’s the same thing with business owners who have ideas.

 

Sometimes you have to reach that point where you realize something’s futile. And there’s a difference between persistence because you’re not, you know, persistence taken to the 10th degree in futility. Sometimes good things come back and that’s different. I talk about that in the book. The difference between persistence and perseverance over the long haul. And sometimes it means having to take a couple steps back in order to go forward.

 

Whereas persistence and and off the wall, you know, I’m going to make this work. I’m going to fit this square peg into the round hole somehow, someway, instead of being able to maybe take a step back, finding some coaches, finding some members, being together on a mastermind group that where you can discover some new some maybe you one on one, you know, as a solopreneur, as I’ve heard you say, you’re not going to get how can I get the job right?

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Having Great Coaches and Mentors

 

Well, and I think what is what is interesting sometimes, you know, business owners, we’re not able to make the and it’s not a leap but we’re not able to make sort of that mental transference where we look at great athletes like, you know, Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn and, you know, Michael Phelps or Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

 

And, you know, the Rock works out with a professional trainer and strength and conditioning coach every single day. And we’ll look at that and say, well, of course, you know, he’s trying to get his edge. He’s trying to be the best. He’s trying to do this, that other thing. There’s no surprise then that he’s, you know, the highest paid actor in Hollywood last year and probably will be again this year.

 

And because he’s putting those things into practice and and yes, you know, that’s what largely that’s what he gets paid for those roles because of how he looks. I certainly understand that. And so you could say they’re reinvesting in his business in order to do that, but then in order or somebody like a Phil Jackson, you know, Onward Nation, the great Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan was there, before Phil Jackson, they won zero NBA titles until Phil Jackson got there.

 

Then they three peat or twice or the LA Lakers one zero. Even though Kobe Bryant was there one zero NBA titles until Phil Jackson got there. And then they won three back to back. And so why is it so hard then for a business owner to say, okay. If the greatest in sports and also the greatest in business by the way, have great coaches and mentors, then I should too.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: The Seven Common Sense Principles

 

And so Joe, this would be a great conversation to talk about. Or a great maybe segway into the conversation around the seven common sense principles. So be our coach here. Put your business coach hat on for onward business owners and walk us through the seven common sense principles, because I think that will be eye opening for some great lessons for our listeners.

 

What you’ve just been talking about is in chapter five, under the Inspiration Principle that I call inspiration, it’s finding mentors and that everyone needs a coach. And as you mentioned, you know, it’s not just these athletes, you know, the Rock. I would go as far as to say, I’ll bet you not only have strength, coach, he’s probably got a dietician working with him.

 

He’s probably got an acting coach working with him. Right. So we all need coaches and you’ve got to be willing to check your ego at the door. I mean, these are people, Stephen, who have executive coaches, Bill Gates from Microsoft, Oprah Winfrey, Eric Schmidt from Google, Serena Williams, the tennis star, Leonardo DiCaprio, the actor Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay.

 

If these people feel it’s beneficial to them to have an executive coach, what’s the matter with the rest of us getting on board? Exactly and understanding. And you really have to surround yourself with people who are going to challenge you to be better. And, you know, one of the other ways to do that, of course, is to have your own kind of kitchen cabinet, as I would call it.

 

Where you put your inner circle of, of advisors. And in my world, I’ve got doctor Ray Lomb, an associate dean, and economics professor, Doctor Paul Cohen, who was a professor of industrial engineering, and Jeff Martha, who was one of my former players. He’s ten years younger than me, but I consider him to be on my inner circle team.

 

He is the executive vice president of Medtronic and Minneapolis. But these are people that I call up and can talk to about just about anything, whether it’s personal or professional development. And that’s really why I wrote the book. This is meant to be a way to help people not only in their professional lives, but in their personal lives.

 

And the seven common sense principles, I hope, are going to be easy to remember because the acronym is passion. So let’s go through the seven, common sense principles. It starts with let’s give it a is attitude. First sacrifice signifies servant leadership. It is inspiration, the O is options, which is really decision making. And the end is to nurture your learning.

 

So when you go through each of these, it’s still just like Simon Sinek says, it starts with Y, it starts with your purpose. You have to figure out what is it that you want, what matters to you, what are you passionate about? What are your values? And I am surprised as I go around the country talking. And how many people have never done this, have never sat down and really done that inward.

 

You review, as I call it, it’s a review that should be done every 3 to 6 months. It’s looking in the mirror and sitting down and giving yourself that, that annual, you know, quarterly semi annual evaluation. Am I where I want to be, am I doing what I need to do is the business where I want it to be right now and you start that off by doing it in a very quiet place.

 

Get rid of the digital distraction devices. I call it in the book A digital detox and please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying the kind of, you know, technology that would be the equivalent of telling Henry Ford to get off his model T and get back on the horse. No, I’m not suggesting that in what. But when you need to concentrate, when you need to be focused, you gotta go to a quiet spot.

 

Maybe put some instrumental music on in the back, and be able to avoid any of those interruptions that inevitably come when your cell phone is there. You’ve got to be willing to do that. Give yourself an hour. Give yourself a ten minute technology break. You control your technology so it’s not controlling you that’s a big part of, you know, knowing thyself is being able to have the discipline to to do that.

 

So after you go through the process of figuring out what that purpose is and, you know, putting it together with your passion, then it comes to attitude. And I will tell you that from my standpoint, people talk about finding your passion. You’ve heard that, haven’t you? Of course. So I look at it this way. We all have passion.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Bringing Your Passion to Everything That You Do

 

Let’s apply the passion. We already have two things that we might like to do because it’s an exploration, you know, very few people know from the time they’re ten years old what they want to do with their lives, what business they might want to start and run. What we need to do is look at it from a standpoint of bringing your energy, bringing a positive attitude, bringing this passion with you to everything you do.

 

Because the reality is, I don’t care if you have the perfect job for you, you’re going to have days where, as Tiger Woods would say, you’re going to be grinding. You’re just grinding it out. And as a matter of fact, even if you find the perfect job more days than not during the course of your career are going to be days.

 

You’ve got to grind it out. But if you know what your purpose is, you bring your passion with you to it. It’s going to get you over those inevitable bumps in the road. So having that positive attitude is certainly important. And, next is sacrifice. Look, at the end of the day, what are you willing to do?

 

Work ethic is part of sacrifice. What are you willing to say no to? What are you willing to stop doing and what are you willing to do to invite innovation into your life? And that comes because of the sacrifice. When I coached, we had a saying that, when you cross the line, nothing else matters. And that was all about focus.

 

You stepped on the ice. You were thinking about hockey. You weren’t thinking about a test that was coming off, or some big party that was coming up, or, you know, your dog sick, that sort of thing. You had to stay focused. You step into that boardroom, you step into a staff meeting, you’re doing your review, then nothing else matters.

 

You must stay focused. And so that’s part of sacrifice. Servant leadership is all about, you know, putting other people first, putting service before leadership and checking your ego at the door and understanding that if you are other centered, if you’re focusing on the customer and you have that total customer focus, then you’re going to come up with better services, better product, better delivery than if you’re looking at, well, what is it that I like?

 

And only looking at it from a kind of a self-centered perspective? Inspiration we already talked about options to me is one of the most important. And I talk in the book about developing realistic options and then making informed choices. And let me say that again, developing realistic options and making informed choices. And that goes to your business owners out there and your leaders that are realistic, keeping it real, you know, don’t set outrageous goals that you know, are unattainable.

 

You’re just going to set yourself up for success. You have to do the homework. That’s where data analytics comes into play. That’s where that fine line between intuition and data, merge. And you have to say, okay, we’ve got to keep it real. And then you make informed choices by doing your research and having the right people write able wait times.

 

I’m a big, big believer in that. And, you know, I also think that leadership to me, Stephen, you look at how much money has been spent on leadership, books that have been written, papers, podcasts, you name it. To me, leadership boils down to one word perfect. It comes back to courage. And because if you’re willing to do the tough things that need to be done when they need to be done, then you’re always going to be further along than the people who wallow in, you know, wishy-washy and won’t make a decision.

 

And then last but not least, is nurturing, which is really, you know, that’s when you’re caring for and encouraging the growth and development for someone or something. And, and the idea of never stopping learning, because they think you know it all. Do us all a favor and get out because you’re, you’re, you know, you’re not going to be fun to be around, and you’re going to have, you know, I just look at, toys R us, Sears, you know, Xerox, what they went through back in the day.

 

You know that was yesterday’s thinking. They obviously had people that didn’t see around the corner, weren’t willing to check their egos at work, and saw opportunities existed. And how do you grow your business by doing that? We have a company here in Pennsylvania called Sheetz. They have a person whose job it is to try to put the base Sheetz, their convenience store business, out of business five years from now.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Staying Ahead of Your Competition

 

It’s genius, because what they’re doing is they’re really just looking at trends kicking around the corner and saying, how are we going to stay ahead of the competition? They look at themselves as a restaurant that happens to sell gas, not a gas station, and happens to have food. Yeah, I’m from northeast Ohio. That’s where I grew up.

 

And so I’ve frequented many Sheetz locations. And it’s really remarkable how they approach their business and how clean the operations are. And I mean, it’s just great, great business. Phenomenal. Absolutely. And that’s a big part of it. You go there. What differentiates them? Clean bathrooms, clean entryways. Then instead of having macadam, they have concrete out in the parking lot.

 

Why does it reflect the lighting better? And yeah, it was more expensive, but it makes patrons feel safe. And so these were all great stories of how to have vision. You know, how to put total customer focus. That’s one TCF. There’s a big Sheetz, you know, principle, and I see them as a leader. And there’s no, no doubt that’s why they’ve become as successful as they’ve come.

 

They put together a high performing team of individuals that are willing to check their egos at the door. They aren’t afraid to try some new things, but they do it all based on a reasonable analysis of data that they collect. And then, they talk to their customers. They’re so involved with their customers, and that’s why they’re successful.

 

Great conversation. Joe, I know that we’re quickly running out of time, but thank you for walking us through the seven common sense principles. That’s awesome. Thank you for taking us through the definition and some lessons around pragmatic passion. So I know that we covered a lot, but before we go, before we close out and say goodbye, anything you think we might have missed? Any final advice? And then please tell us the best way for Onward Nation business owners to connect with you, Joe. 

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: Final Advice from Joe

 

Yeah, well, I talked about being a pragmatic passion. And to me, that is someone who brings their passion with them every day to everything they do, even the things they don’t want to do. You know, they’ve got to have that positive attitude toward that and remembering that not every day is Super Bowl Sunday, I want to emphasize that, you know, it’s okay to grind it out.

 

And, I just think that the most important thing that I hope that the business owners will get out of this is please look for help. Don’t be afraid to find mentors, hire coaches, hire an executive coach, get people that are going to keep you on the straight and narrow. Somebody you can bounce ideas off of and be willing to be vulnerable.

 

Ask for help when you need it. Because, nothing great was ever done by yourself. And I’m a big proponent, obviously being a coach of a team sport of everybody going in the same direction and rowing the boat at the same time. And those are the kinds of things that are going to get you to where you want to be.

 

And really believe that, this idea of passion, just pursuing your passions, it’s not enough. You still have to have a plan. You have to keep it real, and then ultimately, you have to act on it and get it done. 

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion

 

Find and Follow Your Passion: How to Connect with Joe

 

What’s the best way for Onward Nation business owners to reach out and connect with you? Joe, my website is PragmaticPassion.com.

 

You can email me at [email protected]. You can follow me on Facebook at Coach Joe Battista. And I’m on Twitter at @coachjoeba. And my cell phone is (716) 261-8059. I would love to hear from anybody out there that feels they could benefit from the principles we’ve talked about here today. I love helping other people to become successful.

 

And I mentioned before to you, Steve, and off the air that, you know, I on my, you know, the two dates in the dash on my tombstone. What I want that dash to be is he cared. That would be good enough for me. I really am all about trying to help other people grow and help them to define what’s important to them, what their purpose is.

 

And then how to go out and get it done. Well, Joe, thanks very much for caring about Onward Nation business owners today. During this conversation and onward, no matter how many notes you took from Joe or how often you go back and re-listen to his words of wisdom, which I sure hope that you do. The key is to take what you learned from him today to take that, apply it to get the work done, even if it feels like a grind to get it done.

 

Because by doing so, you’re going to accelerate your results and Joe, we all had the same 86,400 seconds in a day. And again, I’m glad that Marty thought to make the introduction. Thank you for accepting my invitation and saying yes to come on to the show, to be our mentor and our coach so we can move our businesses onward to that next level.

 

Thank you so much, my friend. Thank you Steve, and it was a pleasure to be with you. This episode is complete, so head over to OnwardNation.com for show notes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Check out these book resources to help you find and follow your passion