There are different versions from different sources, but the standard line from self-help types is “find your bliss” or “find your passion” if you want to be happy in this life.

Business theory types have narrowed this down to “find your bliss and you will find success” or “your passion can make you rich”.

This is true to the extent that if you enjoy something, you will spend time on it, and if you spend time on something, you will probably become good at it – and if you are good at something, you have a competitive advantage when it comes to selling it.

However, the problem is that most passions are of little or no commercial value.

Someone may be passionate about a particular girl, or about a hobby like train spotting, but there is limited scope for building a business out of such a passion.

For the entrepreneur, especially the serial entrepreneur, the secret is perhaps not to be passionate about a particular business but to be passionate about the processes of doing business in general.

There is certainly a visceral pleasure to be had in putting deals together simply for the sake of putting deals together.

Yet that pleasure is the prerogative of entrepreneurs. It cannot be conveyed to employees. If they shared that passion, they would be entrepreneurs themselves, not employees.

It can be positively embarrassing when entrepreneurs try to pretend that their employees share their passion:

Meg Ryan was wrong in When Harry Met Sally ...

... fake passion is always easy to spot, and it puts people off. Calm, rational honesty is the better policy.