When you love what you do, your clients get their drafts before the meeting… and your brain forgets to complain about it.
This morning, I messaged a new client:
“Hi! I knew it would be an exciting project! I’ll send drafts well before our meeting so you can comment and ask questions before I seal my letters.”
Her reply?
“Perfect, thank you! Glad you’re enjoying it 🙂”
And I really am.
People talk a lot about the importance of loving your work, usually in the same breath as passion or purpose. But what often gets overlooked is this: loving your work actually makes you better at it.
Especially in my world – the world of IP strategy – where the smallest nuance can shift the direction of an entire patent portfolio, being mentally alive makes a huge difference. When you’re genuinely enjoying the process:
- You’re more curious – you chase down that “weird” prior art reference instead of shrugging it off.
- You’re more attentive – you catch that tiny inconsistency between claim 14 and the product roadmap.
- You’re more strategic – you connect dots that weren’t even supposed to be in the same puzzle.
- And surprisingly, you’re less tired – because curiosity burns calories more efficiently than stress.
It’s not just about being “motivated” or “dedicated.” It’s that joy rewires how you approach complexity. You want to go deeper. You want to understand the client’s edge cases. You want to anticipate the question they didn’t think to ask.
That’s not a mindset you can fake – and certainly not in IP, where the stakes are high, the details are dense, and the margin for error is thinner than a claim amendment during prosecution.
So yes, I send my drafts early. Not because I have to. Because I couldn’t help it.
Conclusion: why loving your work makes you sharper, faster, and better
- Passion isn’t fluff—it directly improves attention, energy, and precision in high-stakes work.
- In IP strategy, genuine curiosity means catching what others miss and solving what others ignore.
- Clients benefit most when their advisor enjoys the challenge and dives deeper by choice, not obligation.
Check out my IP services for startups and for VCs – and let’s talk
