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Passion. Remember what that felt like that? Heady, electric and just plain good. Passion is in short supply these days, snuffed out by second places, long hours and layoffs. Guess what? It鈥檚 time for folks to step it up and reconnect with what got them where they are.

I just watched Oregon鈥檚 football team beat Wisconsin in the highest scoring game in Rose Bowl history. It was dominated by offense until sometime late in the third quarter, when the Ducks鈥� defenders remembered what got them there. They got to the ball faster 鈥� Kiko Alonso鈥檚 interception stands out 鈥� hit harder and jumped in to finish tackles. And they succeeded in stopping the Badgers and grabbing the Rose Bowl trophy for the first time since 1917.

A developer friend of mine recently remarked: 鈥淚鈥檓 tired of architects and contractors telling me how awful the economy is. I know that. I want to talk to someone who has excitement and passion for their ideas.鈥�

How do people rediscover their passion? Well, for one thing, it means slowing and not speeding. Strategic coach Dan Sullivan points out that entrepreneurs are actually more productive when they take a break from work. We need to recharge to have new energy and a fresh perspective.

It鈥檚 tempting to think that we just need to work harder and longer, but that just makes us more tired, depleted and less productive. We can鈥檛 see new solutions or get excited when we鈥檙e in the mode of plowing through work.

Delegate more 鈥� the work will get done and the team will feel more empowered. Distinguish between immediate and important. Not everything needs attention right now. And avoid the burnout of the proposal mill.

The firms that are winning aren鈥檛 chasing everything. Be realistic about your chances of winning and save your resources for better pursuits. Winning firms are being selective about projects and investing more time into getting to know fewer of them. And when they have more time to understand a project, by living in the owners鈥� skin, the solutions they develop are not tired and familiar, but fresh and exciting.

When Jonah Cohen was a young architect, he slept in a fire station to better understand how to design one. 鈥淚t was a great experience that taught me a lot about how firefighters experience their built environment,鈥� said Cohen, who is now managing principal for THA Architecture.聽Owners remember and reward that kind of commitment.

The deeper one looks into a project, the more exciting the possibilities become. A firm can ditch the prepared PowerPoint presentation and just talk about the project.

Hennebery Eddy Architects, for instance, recently won an Oregon State University project as an underdog candidate. It put in the work to understand the project beforehand and was excited to share its ideas. Its passion took the firm from fifth place to first.

Passion is not only about enthusiasm, but also commitment. Hennebery Eddy took extra time to understand that project. And the owners got that. There is no passion if you鈥檙e racing to throw your proposal on the pile at the last minute.

Passion can look like taking the brakes off your design team, letting people come up with unworkable ideas, walking the neighborhood of a new school and understanding that work doesn鈥檛 happen in a vacuum.

Whether it鈥檚 designing a stormwater system or a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design platinum-rated community center, passion for a project comes from understanding the whole thing: the people who will live with it, the history of the community and the new ideas that could work.

Extra effort and thought are required to connect to project owners on a larger level. But passion is what sells these days, precisely because there is so little out there.

Leo MacLeod is a new business coach and a strategic consultant. Contact him at [email protected].