Don’t Just Follow Your Passion
There are any number of books and blogs out there that are happy to tell you that you need to follow your passion in your work to be really and truly fulfilled.
I’m here today to tell you, they’re all wrong.
I must admit that until fairly recently I too believed in the chase your passion school of thinking and I even say in my book:
“I can’t guarantee that you will earn big bucks living your dream, but if you are really happy and can meet your basic needs, do you really care?”
In principal that’s fine and for the majority of people it is sage advice, even if I do say so myself. However, in practicality it fails to explain two aspects that should be taken into consideration if you are looking to make a successful career change.
Firstly, what if your passion can’t pay you a wage? Imagine you love nothing better than to wallow around in a tub filled with warm chocolate mousse accompanied by your best friend Ollie the Ostrich. It’s unlikely that you’re ever going to find anybody to pay you good money to do that, trust me I’ve tried.
That’s a seemingly obvious roadblock, but surprising amounts of people fail to notice it. Often they have read all the well-intentioned advice that assures them if they pursue their passion with every fiber of their being the big money wont be far behind.
I’m sorry to say it isn’t always like that. Sure, we all know stories of people that have done amazing things and accumulated a great deal of wealth by staying fully committed to their dreams. The reason we know of these people though, is because they’re the exception to the rule and their stories naturally bear repetition.
Unless they’re your friends or family it’s unlikely you’ll get to hear about many people that failed in their quest to work their passion. Yet there are a great many more of them than the runaway success stories.
Does that mean you shouldn’t chase your passion? No, of course not. It just means do it with your eyes wide open, stay flexible in your approach and know your values.
What about this scenario? You get the job of your dreams in a Circus and you absolutely love it. However, the pay is atrocious and you find out that the tone-deaf performing Chimp in the red stripey pants is earning a buck an hour more than you.
Worse than that is the fact that the hours are ridiculously long and you have to travel a lot which keeps you away from family. You can’t afford to buy your own house or send your kids to the school of you choice. You’re even starting to begrudge the dog his pedigree chum as you haven’t had real meat since the owner started topping up your pay with nuts and bananas.
Suddenly the whole deal doesn’t seem quite as enticing, does it? Ok, so you’re not one of those people that spend their 80,000-life time working hours unhappy with what you do, but you’re not exactly living in a Utopian Wonderland either. It’s also easy to see how this situation may put a strain on family relationships not least of which when you get caught making your Meatloaf Surprise and your partner realizes what the surprise is.
The problem with this situation is that although you love the job, you’re still not meeting your own value needs. If family is critical to you then being away from home is going to be unacceptable. Similarly, if significance is crucial to you you’ll probably be unhappy one of your Simian neighbors is earning more than you.
I’ve been working with a life coaching client recently who is looking to start up his own business. We were discussing what he was passionate about and there seemed few opportunities to make money in that arena. This led to a momentary impasse as we looked for ways to advance the process.
Then a thought occurred to me. What if we forgot about the specifics of the passion and just tried to align his values with the values of the business? After all, it’s values that dictate your passions and its values that are at the core of who you are as an individual. Surely then, they are the logical starting point.
Imagine you’re looking to change careers or start your own business and you have done a proper value elicitation and your top 8 top values are as follows: Family, Wealth, Commitment, Passion, Peace, Fun, Leadership and Open-mindedness
If you could do something that met (or at the very least didn’t conflict with) all those values and also met them for your employees too, wouldn’t that be something to get excited about?
Would it really matter what the business actually did, couldn’t you get passionate about what it stood for just as much as what it produced or offered? The fact is, if you’re a business owner you should be working on the business and not in the business anyway.
If you don’t start up on your own, couldn’t you translate this to working for somebody else? Couldn’t you commit to working for a company that displayed values that you respect? It may make finding a job more difficult, but the payback would be immense.
If you’re sick of compromise and you now want to follow your passion I whole-heartedly applaud you. Just make sure you use your values as the starting point and refuse to allow yourself to be dragged away from then however tempting something may at first appear.
I’d love to get your take on this and whether or not you agree.
.
Great post Tim! I totally agree that what you’re passionate about doesn’t always make you money. That is one of the biggest conceptions in the world today. Thanks for reminding us of this!
@ Justin – Thanks for dropping by and the feedback. I like your video btw, the opening line cracked me up. Anybody else here should go check it out.
One of my passions is good personal development material, so I read yours with great interest.
I laughed when I read this in your post about not just following one’s passions:
“…the pay is atrocious and you find out that the tone-deaf performing Chimp in the red stripey pants is earning a buck an hour more than you.
Worse than that is the fact that the hours are ridiculously long… You can’t afford to buy your own house or send your kids to the school of you choice. You’re even starting to begrudge the dog his pedigree chum as you haven’t had real meat since the owner started topping up your pay with nuts and bananas.”
You just described every job I ever had that wasn’t my passion. The Chimp, you didn’t mention, is ten years younger than you are, too.
So I figure, why not go for it? What have I got to lose?
Thanks for your insights.
@ Neil – Firstly, let me hold my hands up and apologize by saying when I read your comment through the admin panel I didn’t link it to this thread and the stuff that you had posted before. I thought it was a random comment in isolation and thought you were talking about the post in general. Now I get that you were responding to me.
If you want to judge my attitude as a person and coach by that brief comment then knock yourself out. You think I was being sarcastic, I wasn’t. There’s not even any room for debate because I actually know what I meant (and being sarcastic never crossed my mind), you’re only guessing.
I did consider going down the road of debating the word itself, but I didn’t really disagree with what you were saying and couldn’t see the point. Not only that, but sometimes I simply haven’t got the time.
Sorry you took it the way you appeared to.
after “settle for what you can get”
now we have:
“I know you are, but what am I?”
genius :)
I think your attitude as a coach and an individual is quite clear from this response.
loving the sarcastic use of the word “mate”.
Thank you for being so clear and instructive. I am assuming the work in your book is of a similar quality.
Perhaps I was expecting a concise or even relevent response to the concept of passion either being semantic or not.
However, your given response tells me everything I need to know.
No need to respond to this.
You have been helpful enough.
@ Neil – A bit like your comment mate! What were you hoping for?
how very cursory and disappointing
:(
@ Neil – Good points and my opinion on marriage is that it’s both.
@ Sean – Training s never wasted, but it may be time to eat the mouse now.
@ Evan – Yep.
On marriage and such.
If you are willing to speak from your uniqueness at the core of who you are and listen while your partner does the same, you will usually find that it draws you together.
It won’t hurt the passion side of your relationship either, in my experience.
Damn! That last line about hanging around trying to think of something witty to write was a killer ‘cos I had it all lined up. I was gonna say “What? There’s no money in wallowing around in a tub filled with warm chocolate mousse? But I’ve been training for years!”
… or something … suppose I’d better go grab the bloody e-book then …
Passion can never be a semantically vague….it has a definition.
In these post-modern times it is easy to get pulled around by semantics, luckily there are books which help.
Dictionaries :) …..actual, definite reference for what words mean.
Passion
–noun – any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
The important bit here is “compelling”…it makes us act.
If you talk about anything in terms of passion it must be something that you DO not something that you WANT, which is desire, not passion.
In answer to your questions above about my values, I do know what they are, and they include accuracy and power. Both of them are interdependent as they arent useful without each other.
However, my passion is to live what I think. This isnt easy and I am not always 100% but I HAVE to act on it, I dont have a choice, I am driven to…even when it is easier not to. I would have loved not to have responded to your response…time is tight and I have things to do, but I had no option.
But you see I HAD to as accuracy is critical, passion is not a subjective term, unfortunately, for a lot of people it is just easier to talk about passion than live with it.
Passion isnt desire, or yearning or excitement, passion is what sustains you when those things begin to dwindle.
Finally, is marriage is a compromise, ie. a trade off of your wants versus your partners or a sharing of common goals based on a deep understanding of what you both want?
The difference in those two states is quite huge.
:)
Tim that’s a good response and comeback. Hey it’s so infrequently that we get to catch you in an error. It was fun. :)
Of course you’re right it’s both on and in as I previously stated. I think the right attitude (at least for me) is to enjoy the strategy angle at least as much as the service delivery.
Well, actually because I thought at first I could make lots of money from blogging. So, I was wrong (in some senses – there aren’t many affiliates in my niche that I want to endorse, OK none at all. I could probably make a bit more money from affiliates but don’t want to – in one sense my choice.).
I do agree that we need to step back and think about our business and work on it as well as in it. (And I still think that, for worthwhile businesses, they exist for other reasons than being sold for a profit. My guess is that most other bloggers think this too.)
So what I am doing still blogging? Well, I have a membership course starting in a month – on authenticity as the path to lasting satisfaction. Sign up now, etc. . .
@ Neil – First of all, you get the award for being the first person every to mention Blackpool Rock in my blog! As the birth place of my mum, thanks ;-)
I don’t necessarily believe that compromise has to end in resentment and unhappiness. Every marriage is compromise, every job is compromise, that to me is just how the world is made up.
I do get your point though and agree somewhat.
Let me ask you this. Do you know what your top 5 values are, and are you living in accordance with them most of the time? If the answer is yes and yes, then you’ll be very happy and content with life. Will you be passionate? Not sure, but I’m also not sure whether we’re playing semantics and what exactly passion is for that matter. My ‘guess’ would be it’s different for each individual.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to comment, it’s very much appreciated.
@ Tom & Evan – Oh dear, I feel reprimanded and quite rightly so, because I was wrong. I knew what I meant and I latched on to the ‘catch phrase’ rather than explaining it.
So here’s the deal imho. We all *should* be working on our business primarily (unless of course we outsource everything including strategic thinking). Without the working ‘on’ it there is no business for 95% of one man bands. I spend as long on marketing in all its guises as I do with clients.
If I’m wrong, why are any of you writing blogs because few are financial successful in their own right.
And yeh Evan, very unlike you and quite frankly I was shocked!
I love it really ;-)
So…settle for what you can get? interesting advice.
Passion is passion, if you can settle…it wasnt passion in the first place.
If you have passion for something then you will do it regardless of whether you are paid or not.
Earning a living from something that drives you isnt easy…that is kind of the idea, its the passion that makes failure impossible…Because there is no other option, it is something that runs through you like lettering through Blackpool rock.
The problem you are outlining is that amost people cant have a career or business in something they LIKE or WANT A LOT. this is VERY different to being driven by a passion.
The secret to earning a living from your passion is understanding how your passion actually matters to someone else or helps solve someone elses problem….asking the massively important “so what?” question often helps. i.e “my passion is for paper towel folding”….”so what?”, what can that possibly be worth to others.
Compromise is impossible.
What people call compromise is actually settling for less than you wanted in the first place and this results in resentment and unhappiness. More useful is to re-profile connected goals entirely in the light of new information. no resentment…no unhappiness. then accepting them or not wholeheatedly.
Doing things with passion is one thing, we can only gain leverage with our passion when we establish what value it has and what that value means to others. If it has no value or meaning, then you will not be able to earn money from it.
Simple isnt it :)
Well, time to be a bit contrarian (unusualy for me, no?)
I’m working in my business. It is far more than just something to be sold (whatever St. Michael Gerber says).
It may fine for some to care about money first – but I’m not one of them.
@ Ari thanks for the mention pal and Tim I’m warmed by your comment as well.
I absolutely love this post because it’s so practical. Coaching on core values is generally the very first thing I work with career clients on. It’s funny we seldom have to invest time in identifying a passion because most clients come with one already identified. Isn’t that what you find?
Values and passions are just two of many pieces to the right livelihood puzzle. But if I had to pick one I agree with you.
Just one little nitpick if I may? You said, “The fact is, if you’re a business owner you should be working on the business and not in the business anyway.”
Please don’t should on me pal, you know better.
I think it’s perfectly cool to work both on and in your business. Isn’t that what we both do?
@ Kelly – I think to some extent I am still saying follow your passion, just that your passion maybe under wraps. It sounds like your hubby understands that and is making the most of it. Hey, maybe he should be a coach ;-)
@ Alex – That’s true, is passion woven into your identity. Never actually thought of that, but it does make sense and values are very much part of our identity. Good stuff.
I sometimes think I’m learning on the job doing this. In fact, I KNOW I’m learning on the job. Another 25 years and I should have it cracked!
Exactly – passions are one thing, but people also need to ask themselves if the passion matches with who they are as a person – if you love nothing more than curling up in a big comfy chair in your own living room then a passion for a circus job would quickly become a nightmare. Also, people need to be realistic – how do their passions fit into their current lives. Sometimes (like in my case) the reality changed and I emigrated to Europe. In other cases the dream needs to change (or probably most often, both need to adapt to one another).
Great post! Yay!!!
Cheers,
Alex
Thanks Tim for daring to be a coach that states the obvious. I think we always WIN and BENEFIT from pursuing our passions, but that does not mean they can be the way we make a living. That’s why writers groups and community theatre groups exist because all these people are passionate about creative acts that can be a bugger to pay the mortgage, or even the rent with.
Using some lateral thinking to meet your values and the basic underlying needs of your passion is a wonderful idea, and for many of us it is a much more achievable way to a fulfilling life.
My hubby used to be a musician and entrepreneur, and now he’s a strategist and manager. Until recently I thought he had settled or gone off course, then he explained to me that he doesn’t need to get paid to play music to be happy. He needs to collaborate, create, and have fun playing music, but money does not have to be involved.
He really enjoys the deal making and creative problem solving of his corporate job, plus now he doesn’t have to worry that he can’t pay the bills or provide for his child. He’s found his happy balance, and I think many people could benefit from looking at their life the same way.
Great article. And a freebie too. *claps*
I like freebies!
Kelly :)
@ Laurie – Yikes, stuffed and mounted, huh. Interesting!
@ Urban Panther – Yep, you definitely failed the one-liner test! OTOH look at the length of that paragraph, that’s what I call value for money. Glad you liked the post and thanks for the feedback.
@ Dave – I’ll take that fish thank you very much! Maybe I should do a post where people post their values. That would be fun ;-)
The man is a genius.
If you have no obligations to another soul on this planet you are pretty much free to do as you please. When I was young enough to have no such obligations I didn’t have the wisdom or the vision to make anything of the situation.
Now I’ve got a wife, four children, a mortgage I have to take them into account before I decide to take drastic action.
I can’t follow my passion. My passion was to fly jet airliners but it couldn’t happen and it can never happen. I simply do not have what to takes to do that job.
I love the idea of exploring my values to see how I could use them to feel a sense of passion about something other than flying jet airliners. I now realise that this is why I found some aspects of my former job rewarding even though I was dissatisfied with the job as a whole.
Arf Arf Throw him a fish.
Alright, I give up on the one-liners. What did that last? One day? Anyway, here is what I have to say: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I have gotten quite fed up with all these wonderful self-help posts saying follow your passion to be truly happy. Absolutely NONE that I have found put that in the context of your family and financial obligations, which are just as real as your need for fulfillment. And we do need money. I was on welfare for 2 years with 3 small children. It is not a pleasant way to live. Now I make good coin, and have built up an accumulation of financial obligations. I do not live extravegantly, but part of what is important to me is a house, car and boat. Those are all part of what makes me happy. Those cost money. The trick, therefore, is to be able to maintain those AND find a job that I don’t dread going to every morning. I know I am not the only one in this boat. So, what to do? Well, somehow I have to find a job that pays the same (or close enough) but is more in line with (as opposed to being) my passion, as you are stated. End of Panther rant.
Well Tim, I have been both stuffed and mounted but never at the same time. It aught to be interesting. It you do, will you promise to hang me in your office. I bet I would be entertained all the time.
@ Debs – That’s EXACTLY it!
@ Phillip – I don’t disagree with any of that at all. In fact, I wouldn’t be much of a coach if I did. Unfortunately though I’m going to keep quiet on what my clients passion is other than to say no Ostrich were involved.
@ Evan – Agreed there isn’t room for 2 billion DT’s, and aren’t you glad there isn’t ;-) OTOH, think of the opportunities if you were a comb-over hairstyling expert.
@ Evelyn – I guess it doesn’t happen overnight for many, but I think it can do. And if you go in thinking it’s not possible, maybe you’ll miss an opportunity when it is there because you’re not expecting it?
@ Laurie – There you go, a living breathing example of how his works. I may have you stuffed and mounted ;-)
@ Ari – Thanks for the heads up for everybody. Toms site is without doubt worth checking out and I am lucky enough to count him as a friend.
@ Cath – Interesting example with the gardener. I can guarantee you one thing though, if you checked his values ‘Family’ would be at number 1 or 2. That was his passion.
BTW, it was actually your post the other day that inspired this one.
Hi Tim – I used to think passion wasn’t important – until I started a business that I wasn’t one bit passionate about.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of believing that they’ve got to turn some hobby or interest into something they’re passionate about. And as you said, that often doesn’t work out.
But it helps to start a business in a field you’re passionate about, or interested in enough to keep learning. For example – when I had my fire and flood restoration business – it wasn’t that I was passionate about flood damaged houses. But I enjoyed learning about the environmental and health aspects of the business.
And I loved how it was so unpredictable and challenging (thanks to the great weather we get here in the UK).
Some folk can do great without any passion at all though. I heard recently that some guy had made millions from a gardening business – he had no interest in gardening, he just wanted to provide for his siblings.
I guess the key is having something to motivate you.
Hi Tim,
I also agree with you. I’ve always believed that where your calling lies is where your needs and the world’s needs meet. Finding your passion is only half the equation.
My colleague Tom Volkar happens to have a post that talks about essentially the same thing. Have you checked it out? It’s a cool synchronicity that you two are on the same wavelength.
http://www.delightfulwork.com/2008/09/14/finding-your-business-sweet-spot/#more-138
ari
I agree with you. You really gave me a way to describe why I was so unhappy with my last job. It totally conflicted with my values. I did the value test you suggested in your last post. Non of my values were supported in that job. Many of the values I cannot tolerate were surrounding me.
The business I am starting really supports my values. I am already so much happier even though the jerk I told you about who screwed me has now filed a suit against me. I’m not happy about that.
Thanks for a great post.
The “follow your passion” recommendation needs to be balanced with asking yourself what your values are, for sure. Assessing family needs is also important. Like you said, you can’t just take off on your own to be some struggling circus act when you have mouths to feed at home.
I’d also recommend working gradually towards any passion. A dream job or business does not happen overnight!
I absolutely agree. I also think it is worth experimenting and trying stuff (you can’t know anything with complete certainty in advance).
I think people’s real passion is about their values.
All those books (and blogs) saying that ‘one person did this so anyone can’ are just stupid. I just want to write every time: no, there isn’t room for 2billion Donald Trumps or whoever (because they rely on – and make money from – the labour of others). There may be one person who did it but about 1million or so who didn’t. It may be that they just got lucky (the successful and wealthy usually believe their success is due to their hard work or virtue, but that doesn’t mean this is right). I’m an optimist, you won’t know if you don’t give it a go (but this doesn’t mean you have to throw in the day-job immediately).
Tim,
I don’t disagree with you at all, however, would be super curious to know what your clients passion was, and why it was hard to find a way to derive a profit from it.
The sad fact is, I find very few passions, muses, or even things that people hate that can’t somehow turn into a profitable business, sometimes it takes a little bit of thinking “outside the box” and a little bit of opening of the eyes.
What most people don’t realize is that opportunity exists around them all the time, and at any given moment, however, because we haven’t trained our brains to find, capture, and monetize that opportunity, we often miss some of the greatest opportunities. People like Donald Trump have been able to derive great profit from things that most people at the time felt were impossible and projects that would be large failures, people like Donald are able to do so because they are able to see great opportunity in places that others have missed it. The honest to god truth is, if you don’t learn to find, seize and monetize an opportunity, someone else will.
A great exercise is looking at today’s economy, there are opportunities which people would naturally think to be large failures, when in reality, if they think a little bit outside of the box, these opportunities can be turned into great profit.
Ok, enough rambling, I need to go back to reading your book.
Phillip B. Roberts
I completely agree with you here Tim. I run a painting and decorating company. To be honest I couldn’t give two hoots about putting on paint, but I’m passionate about excellence, both in treating my staff and in looking after my customers. That definitely gets me out of bed in the mornings! Thanks for a great article.