When you see some of the houses that the wealthiest individuals in the world live in it's hard not to be impressed. Your jaw drops at the sight of those beautiful Italian marble floors and your heart starts pounding at the sound of the Ferrari's engine revving - things that you have never thought about in your daily life.
It's easy to get swept up in the moment and say to yourself "I want to build a life like that " or "I'm going to do whatever it takes". This may satisfy your ego there and then but it will be all but forgotten about in the coming days, weeks and months as you focus on your daily grind.
Whilst we all want the big house and downtown apartment, the beautiful sports cars and the expensive holidays around the world - do we ever ask ourselves whether that was one of the principal drivers and motivations behind individuals like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos' success?
The point to make here is clear - material wealth is not the primary motivation for success for any of the richest people in the world - it is usually a by-product of an individual's ability to focus over a long period of time.
But if we all get distracted by shiny and expensive things what is it that gives a person the ability to remain focussed on a specific goal for such a long period and to stick with it even when times get really hard.
Quite simply ... Loving what you do.
It is a cliche to say but time and time again when you look at the most successful people in the world, more often than not the common thread that links them all together is that they love what they do.
As former Apple Boss Steve Jobs says "the ones that didn't love it - quit because they are sane - who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it".
If you are able to do something everyday that you enjoy - your productivity will skyrocket as you will be able to focus intensely on any given task. Not only that but you will spend more time on your venture as your mindset won't be bound by the 9 to 5 living for the weekend lifestyle and you will be able to dedicate a huge amount of time to doing something you love.
When we look at Bill Gates in the early days of Microsoft he would only ever schedule work meetings on the weekends as he focussed on his own tasks during the week and it was not uncommon for him to leave work at 11 - 12pm.
To anyone not into building software (there's a lot of us) these look like the actions of a workaholic or someone who is missing out on life. But when you do what you love you don't want to stop and success becomes inevitable side effect from a life long pursuit of what you enjoy.
