Stop Chasing Your Passion

One of my absolute least favorite pieces of entrepreneurial advice is to follow your passion. Steve Jobs, I think, did the world a disservice in his Stanford commencement speech that’s been seen billions of times at this point, where he’s talking about how you need to pursue your passion and go find the thing that lights you up with your soul, with fire, and how if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. We’ve heard all of this before. The problem is, for me, in the beginning, I followed this advice, and what I was passionate about was rock climbing and different physical activities and sports. And so I went and I made that my thing. But the problem was, as soon as I made my passion, my work, the passion that I had for my work, lapped it, changed it, transmogrified into something that I didn’t enjoy as much, and suddenly, I was like, oh, I don’t love this as much. Maybe I’m not truly passionate about this. Maybe I need to go find something else that I’m really passionate about.

And so this sets us on this wild goose chase, looking for that miraculous, golden opportunity that’s going to fill your light, your soul, with fire, and that you will be passionate about. And the truth is, 99% of us don’t have that thing. You probably don’t have that thing. And so it makes a lot of us feel as though we’re doing it wrong, as though we’re on the wrong path that has us constantly questioning, is this what I should be putting my time and my energy, my focus towards, or should I actually go and make it focus on the thing and find the thing that I’m passionate about? Right. And so we go on this endless search, chasing our tail, trying to find the passion, and the passion’s never there. And as soon as we maybe are passionate about it, as soon as times get hard and it gets difficult and gets boring in that, I’m sorry, spoiler alert, that’s 99% of entrepreneurship. As soon as it gets hard, we go, oh, maybe this isn’t actually what I’m passionate about. And we jump.
We jump again to something else. Maybe this thing will be the thing that I’m passionate about. I will tell you that you will not find your passion this way. This is not the formula. I read a book a number of years ago called so good they can’t ignore you by Cal Newport. And I think that this is the right frame. The right frame for finding your passion isn’t by looking for what your passion. It’s by recognizing that competence leads to passion.
The things that we’re good at, we tend to like more because we’re good at them, we do them more, therefore we get better at them. And this becomes a virtuous cycle where we become passionate about the thing. Now, regardless of whether or not you’re passionate about the thing, just take a side step here and just recognize that if you want to move towards your greatness, you’re going to have to do a whole lot of things that you’re not passionate about. You have to do a whole lot of things that most people are not willing to do. The hard, boring work that most people aren’t willing to do, and you’re never going to really be passionate about that work. And the mindset frame that shifted and that helped me the most was simply recognizing, you don’t have to love it, do it anyways. You don’t have to love it, do it anyways. You don’t have to be passionate about what you’re doing.
If it’s leading you in the direction of the life that you want to live, if it’s leading you in the direction of becoming the type of person that you want to become, that is what you fall in love with. You can fall in love with that goal, with the destination. It doesn’t have to be with individual steps on a day to day basis. Now, yes, if you can find passion in that day to day, you’re going to have a lot more success. But just recognize that that passion will come as a result of doing the thing a lot and getting really good at the thing. And if you’re not finding passion in the thing that you’re doing, well, here’s the harsh reality. Here’s the harsh truth that most people do not want to accept. It’s that if you do not love what you do right now, it might be because you’re actually not very good at it.
Sorry. It’s the truth. And that’s. That’s hard for a lot of people who maybe been doing what they do for 2030 years. You’ve been an accountant for 30 years. I know my field. I know I’m really good at. Maybe you’re not.
Maybe you’re not now. Maybe you are, I don’t know. But that’s been a helpful reframe for me, is when I think, oh, I don’t love what I’m doing right now. It’s actually because I’m not very good at it. Like financial management, spreadsheet management. I’m not very good at it and I don’t love it. But if I spent 10,000 hours doing just that over the next three years, I bet I would grow to love it. I bet I would start to enjoy it because I would start to understand the nuances.
I would get through that valley of incompetence, and I’d start to get to the point where I was pretty good at it. Generally, it’s very hard to be passionate about something that you’re incompetent at. That’s the harsh reality. So I want you to look at your life and ask yourself, what do I not enjoy doing? And instead of looking at it through the lens of saying, oh, I don’t enjoy that, I’m not passionate about that thing. Reinvert that and say, I’m not passionate about the thing because I’m not very good at the thing. So what can you control in that variable? I can get better at the thing, and that will lead me to getting more enjoyment out of the thing. So focus there. Don’t focus on trying to find what you’re passionate about.
Things that will move you towards your goals, the skills, the resources, the conversation, the network. Focus on that stuff that will lead you in that direction and then do that. And that will lead you to getting good at the thing that will lead you to getting passionate and getting the results that you seek, but not by first trying to find the thing that you’re passionate about. I find so many entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurs, they just spin their wheels looking for years for the thing that they’re passionate about. They never get started, they never take the first step. And the harsh reality is that thing that you’re passionate about anyway, if you’re going to build a business around it, it’s not the thing that you’re going to get to do long term. So if you’re an accountant, let’s say, and you’re like, I love accounting, I love doing the bookkeeping, right? Like, as you start to grow your business, you’re going to be doing that less and less. You’re going to hire people to do the bookkeeping, to do the accounting for you, right? Now, you need to learn how to lead a team, how to grow a team, how to manage all of that.
Now, you need to learn the financial management of your own business, and you’re going to have to learn the sales and the marketing, right? You’re going to be spending all your time doing business, not on the thing that you initially were passionate about. Anyway. Accounting is a weird example, but let’s take the example of, like snowboarding. If you wanted to go start a snowboarding shop, you’re not going to be spending all your time out there snowboarding. You’re going to be spending all your time doing the things around the snowboarding. So I just. I find that advice. Find what you’re passionate about to be the wrong target to aim towards, focus instead on what are the skills that you need to.
You need to grow, that you need to acquire that would lead you to feeling passionate about the thing that would lead you towards. I like doing this thing because I’m good at it. So use that frame. If you don’t like doing a thing, frame it as I don’t like doing it because I’m not good at it. Even if it’s something that you’ve been doing for 20 years, I challenge you to take that frame. Maybe the reason I don’t like my job is because I’m not very good at my job. Yeah, it’s a punch in the gut to accept that, but the first step in moving towards your greatness is accepting complete accountability and responsibility for your situation. So if you’re not happy with where you are, then maybe it’s a reflection of the skills that you lack.

And I find that to just be so much more empowering, because it’s something I can go and do. I can. I can say, oh, I’m just not very good at this thing yet. I will need to go get better. And that is a constant process. And so at any point along the journey, if you’re like, oh, I still don’t enjoy it, well, then you’re still not good enough at it. I know it’s a bit circular, but it’s been very, very helpful for me, and I hope it helps you as well. So thank you for being here, as always, guys.

We’ll catch you in the next episode. But until then, to hyperfocus my friends.