PREAMBLE: The only way to take control of your life, raise your standard of living and move beyond merely surviving is to create your own unique product or service that you offer to increasing numbers of people in exchange for the things of value that you desire. This simple formula applies to countries as well as people. A self-sufficient economy has its own products or services of value to export to the world. Similarly, a self-sufficient individual has something of value to exchange in the global marketplace. That thing of value is based on your natural talent, skill, or interest-in other words, your passion

YES, it is impossible to raise your standard of living working a job!"

That may be a bit of a downer, so let me put it this way: It's impossible to make the sort of money you are ultimately capable of making at a job because, even if he or she wanted to, no employer can, or will ever pay you what you're worth.

Now don't get me wrong, it IS possible to make more money at a job. You can beg for a raise every year, work more hours, or go on a constant quest for the next higher paying position in an effort to improve your life, but conditions will invariably only improve slightly. The only way to really raise your standard of living is to leverage your talents, your gifts, your interests and your hobbies to create a product or service that you can sell to increasing numbers of people and free yourself from the cycle of trading time for money.

But I know what you're thinking: "I don't have anything unique about me that I can use to start a business." To dispel that notion, I'll ask you to think about this: Everything in nature has been endowed with what it needs to survive. There is no living thing that isn't inherently equipped with the skills and abilities it needs to secure its continued existence. Whether through instinct, size, camouflage or speed, no gazelle, lion or giraffe has to go to trade school to learn how to survive.

That's the beauty of the divine plan. We, as humans, are part of this plan and therefore, each one of us is given something that sets us apart from everyone else; something that we can use to ensure our own survival. Before industrialization sent hoards of us to the cities to work on assembly lines in factories, we all used something we did or owned to exchange for the things we couldn't do or didn't own. Experts say that before the Industrial Revolution, 80% of us where entrepreneurs. E! veryone has unique, extraordinary potential.

Unfortunately, because we now live in a capitalistic society, we rarely have a chance to be rewarded for the extraordinary potential we bring to the universe. Instead, as employees, we are rewarded for the lowest common denominator--something we share with just about everybody else; our time and our presence. Think about it. In your job, you're paid simply for showing up to a position for a certain number of hours to do a job which somebody else could just as easily do; It's this replaceability that ensures that big business--which competes on price--can stay in business. If people were compensated based on the real value of their skills and talents, big business couldn't survive.

So how do you move beyond the limitations of a job? Well you need to become what I call a "Passionpreneur" and turn your passion into profit! "Passionpreneur" is a word I created to describe someone who has used his or her passion as the basis of a passion-centered business.

WHAT IS A PASSION? First, I'll say what a passion is NOT. A passion is also NOT someone else's idea of what you should be doing. Even though you can and will use other people's observations about your talents and strengths in figuring out your passion, the final choice should be something that you decide is important to you. "My dad thinks I'd make a great doctor" is not a valid reason to pursue that profession. A passion cannot be an obligation or someone else's vision for you. It must be yours and yours alone. I've created an acronym L.I.F.E. P.A.S.S.I.O.N to give a quick overview of some of the qualities of a passion.

L-love Your passion is something you love to do.

I-interest Your passion is something that interests you.

F-fulfilling Your passion gives you a sense of fulfillment.

E-empowering Your passion usually empowers and energizes you.

P-personal Your passion has personal significance to you and you alone.

A-abilities Your passion capitalizes on your assets, attributes and abilities.

S-service Your passion will usually provide a service or fulfill a need.

S-spiritual Your passion and its pursuit represents an area of spiritual growth.

I-inspiring Your passion is inspiring to you and therefore will inspire others too.

O-obvious Your passion, once found, is usually something obvious to you.

N-natural Your passion is often unstudied and comes naturally to you.

WHAT'S A PASSION-CENTERED BUSINESS? Your passion-centered business is not just any entrepreneurial business idea that makes you money. There's a big difference between turning your passion into profit, and simply turning a profit. Any business can make you money. And there's certainly nothing wrong with finding a lucrative business and using it to create the reality you dream of. In fact, if more people would simply do that, the level of happiness in the world would increase tenfold. However, a passion-centered business answers to a higher calling. Even profitable business vehicles will often fail to sustain your interest, and eventually fail simply because they are not meeting your spiritual needs. You may have some success, but may still end up looking for something else later. It's that something else that we seek in this article.

A JOB BY ANY OTHER NAME One of the most common tendencies people have when they start thinking about doing something they love is to start looking to standard professions. They hold out the hope that changing professions will offer them a means of escape from the monotony and lack of fulfillment of their present form of incarceration, er, I mean employment. Unaccustomed to thinking about making money in ways other than those with names like lawyer, social worker and accountant, they make choices within those boxes.

It's time, however, to think outside the box. As you search for your passion, don't make the mistake of simply trading one form of employment for another. While it's true that some jobs may be more satisfying than others, and that you can get degrees of fulfillment from various forms of employment, what we're doing here is something completely different. We're not looking for an existing box within which to fit ourselves. We're starting with our dreams, and making our own box from scratch.

WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE A PASSION?

The answer: EVERYONE has a passion. The fact that you exist is your guarantee that you do. Your passion is who you are. Everything about you is an expression of your passion. Your love is the expression of your passion. Your enthusiasm is the expression of your passion. Your fear is an expression of your passion. Your desires are the expressions of your passion. Every thought you've ever had of new ways to express yourself is your passion speaking to you. Every feeling that has ever passed through you that beckons you to be, do and have more is an expression of your passion.

Your passion is the reason and rhyme for why you are here. It reveals the underlying theme of your life and the role you have chosen to play in this drama called life. Your passion is what guides your decisions in all of your choices. Your passion communicates its existence through that still small voice within you when you choose to listen.

The opposite of a life lived with passion, is a life of desperation, misery, frustration and unhappiness. It is a life that appears confusing, chaotic and out of control. It is a life perfectly described by Henry David Thoreau, who said "the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation." So, if you're experiencing any of those feelings, it's a sure sign that you do in fact have a passion that is seeking attention and expression.

So, the question is not whether you have a passion, but how do you discover it. You can discover your passion if you know which questions to ask, and then answer them honestly. That is what the Discovery Exercises are designed to accomplish. Any one of the exercises may hold the key to helping you find your passion.

Many people report experiencing breakthroughs simply by asking themselves the question in the first exercise: "What do I want?? For many people, that question is one they have never really answered. Allowing their own desires to be brought to the forefront of their minds, opens up limitless possibilities that, quite literally, changes lives!

This is just the introduction in a series of articles designed to help you discover, develop and profit from the pursuit of your passion.

So I'll summarize by recapping the main point: The only way to take control of your life, raise your standard of living and move beyond merely surviving is to create your own unique product or service that you offer to increasing numbers of people in exchange for the things of value that you desire. That thing of value is based on your natural talent, skill, or interest-in other words, your passion!