Passion, Determination, and Accountability: The Success Formula for Business and Life

Passion, Determination, and Accountability: The Success Formula for Business and Life

Intro: Welcome to the business development podcast. On today's episode, we're chatting about passion, determination, and self accountability. Stick with us. This episode could change your life. Great. Mark Cuban once said business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences. And you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs. And business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business brought to you by capital business development, capital bd.

ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 163 of the business development podcast. It is an absolute pleasure to be on with you guys today. Before we get into today's show, I wanted to give a little show update. We're sitting at the moment at 211, 000.

downloads in just a little under 19 months, guys. It's a wow. Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how many of you are out there listening to this show. It absolutely blows my mind. It is truly an honor. It's truly amazing. And you know, we're going to get into that because one of the things we're talking about this show.

is passion your why and so much of that I could have never seen coming so many of you I could have never seen coming and it never ceases to amaze me when I get a message in my inbox letting me know the impact that we're having on the world because it blows my mind it just blows my mind you know we were actually number 58 this week in the United Kingdom which Blue my mind 58 in entrepreneurship in the United Kingdom is quite an accomplishment.

We were incredibly proud of that. I celebrated a little. I was pretty excited about it. And I just want to say to all my UK listeners, you guys are amazing. Like I never thought when I started this show talking to a wall in my basement that we would have so many people from around the world listening to it.

And so it truly is. It truly is an honor and a pleasure and I'm incredibly grateful. I'm incredibly grateful for each and every one of you out there. Thank you for sticking with us. I know 163 episodes. I could have never seen us coming this far and yet this point we're planned well into the 200 episodes.

So it's it's awesome. It's awesome. I'm grateful. I'm thankful. And I just want to say to each and every one of you out there, thank you for listening to the show. Thank you for following us. Thank you for being a part of this rockstar community because. I could not do it without you. I wanted to thank everybody who has submitted community questions in August.

Guys, it was amazing to be able to do another community questions episode. And so the call is out for September. If you want to submit questions to us, I want to hear them. You can either send them to podcast@capitalbd.ca. You can DM me, Kelly Kennedy directly on LinkedIn, and I'll make sure it gets in there, or if you are feeling really ambitious and nobody has really done this yet.

So if you want to go to our website, you can actually leave us a voicemail on the right hand side of the page, and it would be super, super cool. To be able to use your voicemail as the question in the show. And one more thing, guys, before we start today's call, if you love this show, if you are responsible for the business growth of your company and you want just a little bit of help, my one on one personalized business development coaching is the answer.

We can work one on one together. We'll establish an effective business development process. We'll help you with your social media strategy. Thank you. We'll give you pump ups and encouragement and we will get you set up for success here in 2025 and beyond. And you can book a free discovery call with me directly from my LinkedIn page or from CapitalBD.

ca. You can go over to coaching, follow the links, and you'll be able to book a free discovery call. And I would absolutely love to have them love to chat with you about how we can improve your business or you for your business development efforts. Alright, well, this is an interesting episode, guys. Every once in a while, I have an episode like this, where it's one that I actually have struggled with personally.

I it's one that contradicts a person that I once was, and so, I find it kind of fun because I know that I'm catching some of you guys who are incredibly accountable who have all your shit worked out, who've got it all sorted out and you kill it day in and day out. And I know that I'm getting some of you and staying motivated, staying self disciplined can be a real challenge.

And it's funny because I have actually lived on both sides of the fence and we're going to talk about that today because the one thing that I've learned is becoming self accountable is doable for anybody even if you've never been accountable before even if you've never been able to like stick with anything It is possible for you.

It really is. And I am like a shining example of this. So I'm really excited today to chat with you guys about self accountability. And there's no way to talk about self accountability without talking about Passion, Determination and then Accountability because they are really all interlinked. They are very close together.

And so today that's what we're talking about. We're talking about self accountability, sticking with it, staying passionate, staying determined and how we can do that and how if we can do that, it will change our futures forever. And so I'm excited about that because I have been none of these things and all of these things.

Okay, so let's just kick it off. Success in business, podcasting, and business development takes three things. It takes passion, determination, and accountability to succeed. If any of these three things starts to fall flat, you may lose your ability to move forward and understand, I just say move forward because the reality is you can be operating on two of these things, even one of these things and still be in it.

But moving forward, truly progressing in whatever direction you want to go. It's going to take all three of these to really get that locomotion for you. Okay. We have to find our why to find our success. And I know that that's a tough one because like so many of you finding your why can be a woo woo thing.

It can feel like, oh my gosh, like I've, I haven't found my why yet. I just go to work. I do my thing. I go home. I look after my family. It rinse and repeat. And I get it. I totally, totally get it. And your why might actually be looking after your family and we'll talk about that today. But ultimately, find your why because you need some type of motivator that is bigger than you.

You need something bigger than you to keep you going through the tough times. Okay. All right. We're going to start with passion. Passion is a fun one because once again, it's a find your why, right? Passion is something that can be. fleeting. It's something that can come and go and it's something that can change.

That's the cool thing about passion. I started Capital Business Development because I knew that I could change BD forever. I recognized early on in my career, my BD career, that there was nothing for us guys. There was just nothing out there. We had the sales self help books. We had just like psychology self help books, but there was nobody out there talking to us.

about the things we needed to learn in BD. It was a giant glaring gap that frankly is even still there today. I'm doing my best to fill it, but guys, it's a big gap. We know this. If we're in business development, we've ever tried to find something very specific to business development. There were few and far between on the options.

There was just nothing available for us. And so I'm very proud to have been able to launch this show and to be able to speak to business development topics, business development challenges, the things we're all facing in the field, because there was just nothing like that for me when I got into this.

It's really a passion for me. And one of the things that I kind of recognized with business development and watching other people do it and doing it myself for many, many years is that there's a right way to do business development. That's very effective. And there's a lot of wrong ways to do business development.

That looks like you're doing what you need to be doing, but ultimately doesn't lead you to the results that you want long term. And so I kind of recognized early on that. I could that I think I could change it that I think that I could do something here to really help people. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I was confident that I could, and I wanted to make a difference.

I wanted to make it better for the next generation of business development, people, marketing people, salespeople. I knew that I could make an impact here, and that really led me down my path of starting capital business development and eventually starting the business development podcast. Right. The goal of the business development podcast.

And the motto that I live by is we educate and inspire. That's what we do here. If I don't find a way to educate and inspire in every episode, whether it be an expert guest interview or one of these business development episodes, I failed, I failed because that's what I need to be doing to move forward.

That's one of my passions here to move forward to the next big thing. My big dream is to always educate and inspire. And that's not just you guys. It's me too. I also need to get inspired. I also need to learn something. It's for all of us. Our ability on the show to educate and inspire is just our very small contribution to an industry that I fell in love with that has given me so much.

And that is the business development industry guys. I really do find passion in In this I find passion in business development in building relationships in showing up and doing the show in helping each and every one of you that is where I have found my passion and it has really helped me to stay on board with some of the other things I had never found passion in my life before until until I found business development really like there had been nothing there there had been no job or anything like that that I really fell in love with.

It wasn't until I really got established in business development and started building great client relationships, started getting repeat business, that I really fell in love with it. That I really found a passion and a purpose in what I was doing. I could see the big picture as to all the work I was doing was having a great effect for the clients that I worked with, for the companies that I worked with, and for the clients that they served.

And that gave me passion and purpose to be able to go down this path. I could have never known. At that time, where this path would take me, that it would take me to here, to talking to you guys, to teaching business development. I could have never seen that as a path, and even if I had, I'm not sure that I would have believed it.

It's really amazing. It's truly, I'm at a place in my life where I love what I do, I love to be able to come up and do this show. I love to be able to educate and inspire people. I love to make a difference. And it's really cool that this is where I've been able to get with this show. And each and every one of you can do something similar or greater if you so desire.

It is available to each and every one of you, and you can't even see the path that's laid out in front of you right now. I couldn't have seen this path. I never could have seen this path, and I talk about it all the time on the show, guys. You cannot always see the amazing thing that's right around the corner.

It'll just jump out and surprise you. And that's really what happened with this show. It's really what happened with Capital Business Development. I didn't see it coming. I never set out to become a leader in business development. It just sort of happened. But that same thing could happen to you guys too.

That same thing is available to each and every one of you. All of you have the ability to make a difference. All of you have the ability to change the world and it will take three things. It'll take passion. Determination and accountability. But if you find those things, you will change the world. Now guys, passion.

Passion is finding what you are great at and find purpose in and love doing. It can really be anything. It can really be anything that you love to do. It doesn't have to be business development. It doesn't have to be your job. It can be Anything you're great at you find purpose in and you love doing so understand that passion doesn't have to be your career Passion can be absolutely anything and almost anything that you love doing can become a job can become income generating, right?

So understand that there is a way like you could start a podcast talking about the thing that you love and that podcast that youtube channel Whatever it is can become income generating and you can literally make money doing what you love. Understand that anything that you are passionate about, it does not have to be what you are currently doing in your life.

It doesn't have to be your current career choice. It can be anything you love. It can be anything that gives you purpose. It can be anything that you find joy in. We live in this miraculous time where just about anything that you love doing, you can turn into a paying career. Right? So, the excuses are up, guys.

Like, you know, find the thing. Find the thing that you're passionate about and start doing as much of that as you humanly can. And you will find a way to generate income from it. You will find a way to get that thing to sustain you. And not only that, you'll probably be better at generating income with that thing that you're passionate about than the thing you're doing today that you're not passionate about.

So think about that. Yeah, there's always an adjustment period. But we've never lived in a time where finding ways to generate income, doing things that you actually love to do, that you are actually passionate about, has been easier. So understand that. First off, before we go down this road, getting successful or finding passion at something you're not currently passionate Understand you can make money today from things you are passionate about and you can choose to do more and more of that until you find a way to make to make a full income from that.

So before we go down that path, understand your passion is available to you, even if it isn't necessarily tied to your work today. Now, passion Can be a mindset. And that's one of the things I wanted to chat about today. Understand that if you are in a career right now that maybe you like it, but you're not really sure if it's something you're going to be passionate about forever.

Like, understand, I'm the first to say, business development I wasn't immediately in love with it, guys, guys, I was running from sales when I found business development. I don't know when I when I went to college, I went to college for just business admin because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew that I didn't want to do sales anymore because at that point I'd worked sales at a car dealership.

I'd sold heavy duty truck parts. I worked at a company that built heavy duty engines and I was a parts man there for a while. Like I was done with sales. I was done with it. I went to school for business because I didn't want to sell anymore. Obviously, naively, I didn't realize that you sell in everything you do at the young age of 2021.

But, but, Understand, I was running as fast as I could away from sales, and yet I developed a massive passion for business development down the line. So understand what I'm getting at here, guys, is that you can be running away. You can find passion. You can develop passion for something, even if you're not currently passionate about it.

Right? So understand that passion. Can be a mindset. It can really find you. You can develop something that you're great at. Like for me, what it was is I really recognize that even though I didn't really like sales, what I really like doing was generating relationships, building trust, and just having a good time with people, which inevitably led to.

To great business development and sales, I could have never at the time understood that just building great relationships with people would make them want to buy from you, but that truly is what ends up happening. And so I ended up getting really great at sales per se, when I stopped caring so much about selling and I started caring so much more about building great relationships about.

Being a great person about being someone that you would want to talk to. And then when I realized that that could be a job, that that was not only a job, it was a great career. Oh my gosh, the passion exploded, guys. The passion exploded when I just got connected with what I love to do is develop great relationships.

And so, Understand you can develop passion for just about anything. There are going to be things that you are naturally passionate about, which is why I started there. But understand that you can develop passion for just about anything. It really is a mindset. It really is a switch in the brain that ultimately is like, you know what?

Yeah, there is more to this. There's something here that I love and I'm going to develop that. I'm going to focus some time on that. And so understand that. Passion can be a mindset and you can become more passionate for something over time, which definitely happened to me. Okay. Passion will carry you through the inevitable hard times guys.

And understand this, whether you start a podcast, whether you run a business, whether you're an employee, you're going to have hard times. There's going to be shit to do. thrown at you through life that is just hard, right? We know this. Life can be really friggin hard sometimes. And understand that the thing that can stop you from quitting, the thing that'll just say, you know what, like this sucks right now, but it's temporary, is passion.

If you really believe in what you're doing, if you believe that what you do has an impact in the world, that is changing the world, that you're making a difference, then It will help you through the other side. And so understand that passion can be the difference between sticking in something long term and giving up early.

It's passion guys. If you're passionate about something, it gives you the staying power to get through the inevitable hard times. Guys, I've had times with capital where I'm like, what the hell am I doing? I've had times with this podcast where I'm like, Holy cow. Like I'm exhausted. This, this thing is tough.

It's really hard to keep up with our show schedule. It's hard to keep, keep up with our guest interviews. We do a lot of guest interviews and I have moments where I'm like, Oh my gosh, like, what am I doing? But you know what? I know the impact that we're having with this show. I know my passion for this show and for business development and for helping entrepreneurs and for helping business development specialists, salespeople, marketing people.

I know and I love it. And so that keeps me going. It keeps me working the late nights. It keeps me up on the weekends when I need to do a little extra work. It keeps me booking the best possible interview so that we get the best possible shows and we can grow this thing, guys. It takes passion. It takes passion.

You have to love what you're doing. And yeah guys, I don't know if you know it. I really love what I'm doing with this show. I don't know what I would be doing if I wasn't doing it, but I sure am thankful that I am here and I do get to do this. And so that keeps me coming back, that keeps me putting in the effort that keeps me working to grow this thing day in and day out because I love what I'm doing and I know the impact we are having on the world, and it is a worldwide impact.

And so find your passion. And it will help you get through those inevitable hard times. The next thing I want to talk about is determination, guys. Determination is equally important. And understand, I hate losing. I think I said it on like, I don't know, episode six or seven, whatever. It's like one of the first things I've said when I started this show was, I absolutely hate losing for better or worse, that has motivated me most of my life to put in that extra effort to burn the midnight oil, to get the things done that I need to get done to move forward.

Why if we're not moving forward, We're stagnating and if we're stagnating, we're dying. And that's why business development is an ongoing thing. That's why showing up and figuring out how to do it a little better each and every time is going to make you better. It's going to move the needle. It's going to move your company forward.

It's going to move you forward. It's going to move your podcast forward. It is going to move. the whole thing forward, but you have to have that determination. You have to be willing to put in that little bit extra to make it happen. Okay. I have put in the effort, even when it was hard to accomplish my goals, guys, and let's get real at almost everything in business, entrepreneurship, podcasting, personal growth.

It's harder than it looks. It takes more effort than it seems, and almost everything takes longer than you wish it would. But you gotta stick in it, because nobody ever succeeded by quitting. You can't win by giving up. Unless what you're doing is absolutely horrible for you. And then maybe you do win by giving up, but take it with a caveat here.

We are talking about hopefully growing a business, growing a podcast, something like that, right? If you give up, it's inevitably over for the most part. And so you have to use the momentum when it's available to you. And momentum is a finicky thing. And when you have it, you have it. When you don't, it's really hard to get it back.

And so. Sometimes you really need that determination to keep going. Even when it's hard, even when you don't want to release that show, even when you don't want to make those 20 calls, even when you're scared shitless of what the answer is. You have to pick it up. You got to be determined and you got to keep going because that is the thing that is going to carry you through to the next success.

Success is a funny thing because it doesn't come easy. But the cool thing is that if you stick at it, it's almost inevitable. And so I want you guys to understand if you can keep determined, it does make the difference. It can be the thing that pushes you to that next step. Determination though, It's incredibly hard to teach and understand that it's not like a carrot and a stick situation.

Determination has to be from within, and I know that that's really hard. And it's kind of one of those things where, like I said, you got to find your, why you got to find your passion, you got to find your passion. In order to find your determination, because if you can't intrinsically motivate yourself to make those 20 calls, if you can't intrinsically motivate yourself to release two episodes a week, you're going to have a hard time meeting that if not an impossible time meeting that, because Something's gonna come up.

Something always comes up. There are many days where I wish that I could have cut this show early and snuck out on a Friday and, you know, went camping early or whatever it is. But you know what? I stuck through it and I did my recordings and I produced my show. And yeah, it was tough sometimes. But you know what?

We're at 163 episodes in 19 months, 163 episodes in under 19 months, guys, couldn't have done it without determination. Couldn't have done it without burning the midnight oil. Couldn't have done it without holding myself accountable because I am passionate about what I do and I want to continue to make a difference.

It is a mix of things that keeps you coming back and you have to find these things and no matter what it is you do, right? But especially business development, because you guys know as well as I do picking up those phones, doing the active marketing process, making the calls, sending the digital introductions, holding yourself accountable week over week over week.

is what it takes. But that takes determination. It takes accountability. It takes passion. And if you can keep those things going, you are going to inevitably be successful, right? But determination can help you find the answers even when they are not obvious. It's the thing that makes you make that Extra phone call that leads you to that meeting.

It's the thing that pushes you over into the next level. It is your determination, determination and passion can and will make you an unstoppable force. And last but not least guys is accountability. Accountability is the thing that keeps you on track. Even when nobody else is looking, accountability isn't about other people.

It's about you. It's about who you are and who you want to be. Okay. Business development can be as easy as one, two, three, as long as you hold yourself accountable to a process. Okay. Process. We talk about it all the time. It's everything, right? If we follow a consistent process, week over week, month over month, year over year.

We are going to be successful. It's almost inevitable, guys. I really mean that. And I've seen it happen over and over and over again. If you do the digital introductions, if you follow your CRM, if you make the calls week over week over week, and you ask for the meeting every time you follow the process, you are going to book more meetings.

You are going to consistently move the needle, but it's But huge caveat does not matter. You can know the process all you want, but if you don't hold yourself accountable to following the process, you will never have consistent results. You will never ever be able to consistently move the needle, move yourself personally, move your company forward.

You have to, you have to hold yourself accountable. There's nobody else who's going to do it for you. And there's nobody else who can do it for you, because if somebody else is holding you accountable, that kind of sucks, doesn't it? That's not fun. But if you hold yourself accountable to your own standards, to your own expectations, and you meet and exceed them regularly, guys, it is empowering beyond anything you have ever imagined.

And you will succeed greater than almost anybody you know. And I truly, truly mean this. I mean this for each and every one of you. Self accountability is the answer. It's not being accountable for somebody else. It's being accountable for yourself. It's succeeding for your own good. It's making the calls.

It's booking the meetings. It's closing deals. Not for the company you work for. For you. For you. It's about you. Right. But trust me, if you can get to a point where you hold yourself accountable, it's as easy as one, two, three. And I really mean this. I really mean this. Honestly, guys, I give you everything on this show.

I give you the entire process. I tell you exactly how to do the business development. And every year we're going to go over the process again. And we're going to drill that thing down into your brains until you just follow it automatically. But here's the deal. If you don't follow the process, if you don't hold yourself accountable, you will not get the results you want.

There's no two ways about it. Nobody else can make the calls for you. Nobody else can do the digital introductions. Nobody else is going to do the work for you that is going to lead to consistent success. But if you do the work for you or you train people to do the work the way that you need it done and you hold them accountable, you're going to have success, right?

But the success is in the accountability. You can have the greatest process in the world, but if you don't hold yourself accountable, it's not going to matter. Accountability is a mindset, guys. You either are or you are not, but you do get to choose. That's the fun thing about accountability. You can choose today in this moment.

Let's say you're not accountable. Guys, I'm right here with you. My hand is way up. There was a lot of times in my life where I was not accountable, right? I blamed other people when things didn't get done. I didn't put in the effort week over week. I didn't care necessarily about the outcomes. I lived a lot of my young life this way.

So understand that I am, I am preaching to the choir when I am up here now, touting accountability, saying that it makes the difference. Thank you. I learned this late. You have the opportunity to learn this now. And so what I'm trying to say to you guys is, preaching from the choir, You can become accountable tomorrow.

You can make a choice right here in this moment to say that from this point forward, I will make X, Y, Z calls. I will send my digital introductions week over week, and I will do what it takes to book two meetings a week, three meetings a week, whatever it is that you need to do, you can make that choice today and you can make it happen.

Understand that. And not only that, you can get better and better and better at making that happen in a shorter timeframe with less calls. That's the funny thing is once you hold yourself accountable to a standard, you'll find ways to get better and better and better at upholding that standard. But the accountability starts with a choice and you can choose right here in this moment today to be more accountable to the results you want to be accountable to the person that you want to be, to the life that you want to live, but understand That the life you want to live likely takes serious personal accountability.

And you can't blame other people when it doesn't go to plan. Because you have a choice that you can make at any given time to change direction. You have a choice to put in that little bit extra. You have a choice to burn the midnight oil if you need to burn the midnight oil, it's on you, but the moment it's on you, it's empowering because you're not waiting for someone else to make you successful, you're not waiting for someone else to start that podcast, you're not waiting anymore, you're taking control of your life, and when I took control of my life, it changed my life.

And it'll change yours too. Remember guys, accountable people don't make excuses. They take action and responsibility for themselves. Understand that if you can take action and responsibility, you no longer have to wait for other people to give you what you want. You can go out and start chasing what you want tomorrow.

You can start that business you've been waiting to start. You can start that podcast you've been waiting to start. You know, you'll succeed. Why? Because you'll put in the effort. You'll do what it takes. You'll burn the midnight oil. You will hold yourself accountable. You will do something you're passionate about.

And you will be determined enough to get it done. If you can do these things, guys, it will absolutely, absolutely change your life. I am living proof that you can find these things within yourself. I used to live for the weekend. I blamed other people in my circumstances. I didn't care if I was successful or not.

Because at home I could just chill and play video games and watch TV. When I was in my like early twenties, that was me guys. I didn't care. And now if I look back at my life, if I could change one thing, actually scratch that, the thing I am most proud about in my life was when I took responsibility for myself.

You know what? I wouldn't go back and change that because the moment that I took that responsibility, that was incredibly empowering. That was a life changing thing. And one of the most impactful things that has ever happened to me in my life. And so understand. You can have that today. If that's not you right now, if you're who I was, or if you're in your early twenties and you're just kind of flying by the seat of your pants, you can change this thing tomorrow.

You can take accountability. And from this point forward, you will make the difference in your own life. When I found business development guys, my company, my podcast, my why. It changed everything. For me, it was business development. For you, it could be saving animals. It could be making the world a better place.

It could be taking plastic out of the oceans. Whatever it is, whatever it is, find your why. Because when you find your why, it'll give you the determination. It'll be your passion and you will hold yourself accountable. But it starts with why. Find your why. Find the thing you love and find a way to make that the thing you do the most of and guys if you're struggling to Move forward stop look around take a breath.

You don't have to find your passion tomorrow I didn't took me a while, but I'll tell you what when you find it You'll know and when you find it, you'll know It'll change your life because everything is easier when you have purpose. Shout outs this week, Aaron Haberman, Chloe Wu, Lauren Graff, Aniket Umbarkar, Tim Lynn, Geoffrey Moore, Daniel Sonnenberg, Kari Watchel, Dallas Hand, Adam Kimmel, Jemia Zagiel, Diane Damaso, Jamar Jones, Nate Simpson, Derek Nolt, Pietro Breviglieri, Rodney Lover, David Delvin, Tatsiana Zametalina, Jonathan D'Souza, Mario Aguilera, and Gary N. Until next time, this has been the Business Development Podcast, and we will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales. Sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.

His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the business development podcast.