Pursue Your Passion is Terrible Advice, Here’s Why
The Amplified Impact Podcast
June 4th, 2023
So, picture this…I’m sitting down to record this podcast episode, and I can’t help but reminisce about my younger days.
I remember how annoyed I used to get whenever someone dropped the classic line, “Follow your passion,” or “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
It used to drive me crazy because, to be honest…I had no clue what the heck I was passionate about.
If you’ve ever found yourself in that frustrating spot of not knowing what your passion is, there’s a great concept by Cal Newport in his book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.”
He makes a great point that it’s not all about pursuing your passion from the get-go. What really matters is pursuing something you’re good at.
Your competence is what can lead you to real passion…it’s like this beautiful cycle where as you get better and better at something, you start loving it more and more.
It happened to me with writing…I was never passionate about it initially, but I knew I had some skills. So, I decided to dive in, master the craft, and guess what?
Over time, I fell head over heels for writing. It’s all about building that momentum.
When you’re trying to figure out what you could be good at, let curiosity be your guide.
After all, nobody achieves greatness without being curious and having that burning desire to learn more.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“If you’re feeling lost or frustrated about not knowing your passion, give yourself permission to wander and explore different activities. Collect those polka dots of experiences and connect them later.'”- Anthony Vicino
LEAVE A REVIEW if you liked this episode!!
Let’s Connect On Social Media!
instagram.com/theanthonyvicino
Join an exclusive community of peak performers at Beyond the Apex University learning how to build a business, invest in real estate, and develop hyperfocus.
Learn More About Investing With Anthony
Invictus Capital: www.invictusmultifamily.com
Multifamily Investing Made Simple Podcast
Passive Investing Made Simple Book: www.thepassiveinvestingbook.com
Episode Transcript:
When I was younger, in my 20s, I remember being really frustrated all the time by people saying things like,you should pursue your passion and how if you do work that you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. And I remember being really frustrated by this because to be completely frank with you, I didn’t have a clue what I was passionate about.
And in 1 way, I took that advice of like, follow your passion, literally, and became a professional rock climber. And in many ways that was cool, that was great, like doing the thing that I loved every day was a blessing. But it didn’t necessarily set me up well in life to be a fully functioning member of society.
And so I felt like I took that advice and did like the literal, go do what you love, which is like, you know, if you love doing drugs, like, that’s, that’s probably not going to get you very far in life. And for me, like that would have been like, go play video games. And at that point twitch wasn’t around Thank God Because if it was I probably would have made a real good strong go at becoming a professional video game player would have been kind of cool, but I’m glad I didn’t do that because I don’t think that’s the type of life that I ultimately would have enjoyed But in the time, you know video games passionate about that Maybe I should go do that thing and I think that’s what a lot of young people think is like Oh, I like playing video games.
I like this activity So maybe I’ll go make that activity my my my work my pursuit because that advice of pursue your passion, it’s frustrating because when you’re young, you don’t really have a lot of things that you’re passionate about yet, especially where it relates to work and like bringing value to the world. So you’re left in this kind of weird situation where people are like, well, what do I do if I don’t know what I’m passionate about?
And I know from my personal experience that not having a clear answer to the question of what are you passionate about makes you feel like an idiot. It makes you feel like everybody else has it all figured out and that you somehow, stupid you doesn’t have the answer to like, what do you love to do? What are you passionate about? What’s your big overarching why that gets you up out of bed in the morning that like lights your soul with fire. Like how could you not know what that is? And when you struggle to answer that, that fundamental question that Simon cynic says, it all begins with why, like when you can’t answer that question, you feel like an idiot. That’s how I felt for years.
I felt like some, everybody else had it figured out. And like I was the jackass in the corner who like Couldn’t answer the most basic question. That was what do you like doing? What are you passionate about? And so if that resonates with you if you’ve ever been in that if you’ve ever felt even remotely similar to that Here’s here’s a here’s 2 ideas. I want to I want to share with you today that have really helped me over the course of my life, navigate this question of like, what is my passion? And. And hopefully, hopefully it can help guide you to so the first idea comes actually from Cal Newport who wrote a book called so good they can’t ignore you and The whole basis of that book is that more important than pursuing your passion is actually pursuing things that you’re good at. And that your competence breeds passion.
Like it’s the things that we’re good at that then kind of continue spiraling into love because as you get good at something, you get reinforced for it, which becomes a virtuous cycle. And so the things that we tend to be very good at in life tend to evolve into things that we’re passionate about. Which is, if you follow the trajectory of say Steve Jobs, who is maybe the most famous example of somebody saying pursue your passion in his Stanford commencement speech, You know, if you look at his trajectory through life, it wasn’t necessarily that he was passionate about computers or personal computing devices.
You know, that was just the manifestation of the skill, the competence that he had built as like a product designer, as a thinker, as a marketer. And that was the vehicle through which it is expressed. And through that in time, he became very passionate, I’m sure, and loved personal computing and all of that. But it wasn’t necessarily that he had started off with like this deep underlying love of personal computing. And so Cal Newport made the argument that, you know, you should more important than pursuing something that you’re passionate about, is pursue something that you can be great at. And through that greatness, you will develop passion for it, in a lot of cases. Not always, but in a lot of cases it’s true. And I found that true in my life. Like, I was never passionate about writing, but I recognized that I was good at writing.
And so I leaned into that and spent a lot of time and energy mastering that skill. And with time and mastery and the positive reinforcements that came with that, then I started to love and become passionate about writing. And so, instead of starting with the passion and then thinking that’s gonna lead to the competency, invert that and say, I’m gonna pick this thing that I think I could be good at, that I think I have a potential of being great at maybe, I’m gonna become great at. I’m gonna pursue it as far as I can, and in that process, I’m gonna learn a lot about myself, and I’m gonna learn a lot about potentially becoming passionate about that thing. Now the second thing, as you’re kind of looking at the landscape of potential skills or areas that you could pursue, you’re going to be asking the question, well, how do I know what I could be good at? How do I know what I could maybe be great at?
And for me, the simple heuristic that I use is that curiosity is the compass. Curiosity, the things that you are curious about, learning more and diving deeper, and that when you start learning about them, you go into the deep, deep rabbit hole, like that is probably a good indicator, a good signal that that’s something that you should pursue. Because Nobody achieves any level of greatness without a deep underlying amount of curiosity about that thing that encourages them to that enables them rather to to always Adopt the student mindset and like continue digging and learning and like growing and wanting to expand their potential That’s that’s born from curiosity, which is why in our businesses, it’s been really interesting to note that the skill or like the, the recurring personality trait that seems to most indicative of success is not like intelligence, not hard work. It’s not discipline. It’s not charisma. It’s not like how much money you had when you were starting when you’re young.
It’s curiosity it’s like the the drive to Find answers to be curious about the world around you to then ask yourself Why is it that way and in that digging process? What I found is that people who are very curious tend to also be very resourceful because that curiosity is a prerequisite of creativity. And creativity in my mind is the most important skill that any of us could develop in the workforce if we do not wish to be replaced through automation or through AI or whatever. So curiosity and creativity, I’ve talked about that at length in other episodes.
I encourage you to go listen because those 2 concepts I think are pivotal for anybody young or old that wants to take their life to the next level, who’s tired of living whatever life that you have right now that you’re not satisfied with. I find that those 2 traits are prerequisites to greatness. So hopefully that helps you guys think through, okay, what’s it mean to pursue something with passion? Like to pursue something that you could be passionate about. You know, in the beginning, try to pick a skill that you think you could be good or great at. And to do that, use, let curiosity be your compass. And give yourself time and give yourself the permission to wander between activities. I did a lot of wandering. Like I have 3 degrees in psychology, religion, and English, so I wandered a ton in school. And then coming out of school for the next decade, I wandered through so many different activities and so many different domains without any good insight as to like what was gonna serve me well.
And it’s only now in hindsight that I’m able to take those dots and connect them into a meaningful image But you can’t do that when you’re still young like you need to get enough dots on the paper before you can connect them and so in the beginning it’s about the The breadth I think of experiences rather than the depth. The depth will come later once you’ve kind of narrowed in on the things that you’re particularly uniquely suited for and interested in. But in the beginning, get the polka dot. Get the polka dots on the board and then we can worry about connecting them later.
This Week On YouTube
These 3 Daily Habits Made Me A Millionaire in 3 Years
Whenever you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:
1. Unleash your hyperfocused mind to dominate life, business, and everything in between? Here’s how:
→ The Hyperfocused Masterclass: the exact system I used to overcome ADHD, write 12 books, build 4 businesses, and acquire $70M of real estate.
There are a handful of spaces left in The Hyperfocus Masterclass for those who want to snag the early bird preorder special discount of $49.
Email anthony@anthonyvicino.com to let me know you want on the waitlist.
2. Learn to passively invest in commercial real estate with better returns, less risk, and zeo hassle.
→ Invictus Capital: my real estate private equity firm.
→ Multifamily Investing Made Simple: Top Apple Podcast.
→ Passive Investing Made Simple: Amazon Best Selling Book with 100 5 star reviews.
3. Want more like this? Check out these 3 popular articles from the vault:
