If you are a sports enthusiast fall is your dream time of year, especially here in the Northwest.   As the end of August approaches college football kicks off, and clearly there are passionate fans and big games.   Being a life long Dodger fan since 1963, the baseball playoffs this year were a mix of passion and pain for me, and across the country we see packed stadiums, placards, posters, parties, and waving towels.   Blazers fans have been thirsting since June for their team to get back on the court to continue the drive  to bring that championship back to Portland, and they have been out in force during the preseason and opening week games.

The talk all week has been the Ducks and the Trojans.  Two top ten teams, a Halloween, Saturday  night game.  ESPN broadcasting it’s game day show from Eugene  at 8:00 a.m,  while  hundreds of fans are  providing the background visual and  sound effects to the broadcast show how much pure energy is released.   The passion for the team, the effort and plans to attend the games and put on the spreads of food  take consistent thought and action to bring into reality.

With these scenario’s  as a backdrop, recognizing that it is clearly possible to harness great human emotions and passions that I  also reflected back on the past year in the economy, and began   making  my  business plan for 2010 and   asked myself this question ;  Do I give that level of passion to my career and my business every week as I go through the year?

Are we all giving that level of passion to our career, our business, our employer ?  Could we  sustain at that level for an entire week,  or month the emotions  achieved for 5 or 6 hours on game day?   Probably not, but are we even giving 5 or 6 hours a week performing at that level?   Encouraging those around us to perform at their peak ?  Picking up those who missed  a sale, whiffed on a presentation , missed a c clutch phone call  ?    Are those who have been unemployed for  an extended period  staying prepared and aggressive in case the coach looks down the bench  and motions them  to warm-up?   Are we practicing with passion every day to  improve our skills while  trying to create new opportunities?

Don’t get me wrong I see lot’s of people working harder than ever, and carrying more work load than a year ago.  As we turn the corner from recession to recovery it will not be stimulus dollars and projects that finally make the difference and fuels the return to  more solid economic growth.  It will be the hard work and passion of millions of American workers, managers and entrepeneurs that put companies back on profitable  paths.  We’ve all been bowing  our necks and often absorbing blows like  direct hits from a middle line backer.

What if we took  a portion of that passion we reserve for these  weekend endeavors, say 20%,  and we funneled that into moving our company or business, or personal career  forward instead of leaving it on the field or in the stands?  What kind of ripple effect could we create, and how much more fun it would be to high five each other for the wins we could achieve this next year in that arena.