We’ve long heard the platitude of “follow your passion” when considering a career choice, but is this really the best advice? Should we really be following our passion? I’m a big fan of Mike Rowe (the host of Dirty Jobs) because he has a lot of non-conventional ideas about work, specifically his advice to “not follow your passion but to bring your passion with you to work.” In fact, before going on, read this post from Mike Rowe where he responds to an Alabamian who asks why he shouldn’t follow his passion.
Mike cites several examples from septic tank cleaners to pig farmers, none of whom were passionate about going the routes they did, but they learned their craft and because they were passionate people they learned how to love their jobs and made a good amount of money in the process. Fair enough.
A recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) found that there are around 5 million vacant jobs in the United States as of the end of October (not seasonally adjusted which brings these numbers down a bit). Over a million of these jobs are in trade/transportation/utilities, another million plus are in professional and businesses services, and hundreds of thousands of non-filled jobs exist in manufacturing and construction. Is that because we just don’t have people that are passionate about these jobs? Perhaps it’s because employers are too picky? Or maybe there really just aren’t people who can do the jobs that are available.
Mike Rowe does have a very good point though, many people see jobs such as: electrician, plumber, construction worker, and the like, as being beneath them. After all, who wouldn’t want a more glamorous job somewhere in Silicon Valley right? So what do we do?
I graduated from UCSC with a double major in business management economics and psychology. I was passionate about finance and business in general. So, I interned at Morgan Stanley before going to work at a start-up in LA that promised me amazing opportunities. A few months in and I was doing ppt presentations and data entry. The day the CEO asked me to go get him coffee was the day I knew I had to get out. After that job working for a start-up I took some time off to learn about SEO and online marketing. I took a handful of other jobs over the course of the next 1-2 years in various marketing roles before I went off on my own (where I’ve been for the past 6+ years).
Had I just brought my passion with me to work, I would have stayed at those miserable jobs I disliked so much, would have probably gone back to get my MBA, and would probably be working at some large consulting firm working 60-7o hours a week. I probably would have never written any books, become a speaker, or done many of the other things that I have done as a “solopreneur.” I became passionate about the future of work and not working for anyone else and I worked hard to turn that passion into a career. Does this mean Mike Rowe is wrong? Not quite, see Mike offers what I consider to be a very powerful piece of advice:
“That’s why I would never advise anyone to “follow their passion” until I understand who they are, what they want, and why they want it. Even then, I’d be cautious. Passion is too important to be without, but too fickle to be guided by.”
That last sentence is really a nugget for most people to live by because our passions change all the time.
I’m all for following your passionate but doing so in realistic terms. For me personally I always had one thought in the back of my mind that kept me going which was, “I must be moving in the right direction because people are hiring me, I’m getting more speaking requests, and people are reading my content.” My rationale was that I should keep going in my current direction until I saw “negative signs,” that is, people not wanting to work with me, a sharp decline in revenue, etc. If you’re following your passion but are getting nowhere or keep seeing those “negative signs,” then something is wrong. There needs to be a balance between what you are passionate about and what you are good at. If you focus just on passion you might end up nowhere and if you focus only what you are good at without being passionate about it you might end up as a zombie in the workplace. Remember that for every person that succeeded by following their passion, hundreds if not thousands have failed.
Again from Mike:
“Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it. And just because you’re determined to improve doesn’t mean that you will. Does that mean you shouldn’t pursue a thing you’re passionate about?” Of course not. The question is, for how long, and to what end?”
For how long and to what end? These are questions only we can answer for ourselves but they must be answered. You may try this for a few months or perhaps a year. You may be willing to sacrifice your current savings (as so many start-up founders do) or even your relationships. But at some point we all reach a point where we say “maybe it’s time I tried something else.”
So yes, you should follow your passion but do so with some boundaries set around it, be realistic and practical for what you can and can’t do because the last thing you want to happen is to turn “following your passion” into a “fools errand.”
Comments