Follow Your Passion. Good Advice?
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Follow Your Passion. Good Advice?
Follow your passion! I am sure you have been told that before by someone. I was told to follow your passion by an old teacher of mine when I was at high school when I told her I did not really know what I wanted to do when I grew up.
Luckily I did not follow her advice. Becasuse let’s be honest, to follow your passion is really not the best thing to do.
And why is that?
Well, first of all, we need to look at it in detail.
Passion is very simply a very strong and intense feeling about a person or a thing. To look at why ‘follow your passion‘ is bad advice, I will tell you about a passion of mine.
Now bear in mind, if you are not from the UK, then this may be a little alien to you but well, that is the way it goes.
Follow Your Passion. Good Advice?
Like a lot of men (and women), I like sports. But my far and above my biggest passion is football (soccer for you North Americans). But I am not a fan of your usual Barcelona, Man United, Arsenal, Liverpool and so on. No, they are are way too good and successful.
My passion, my favorite team is called Leyton Orient.
Who? I hear you say. Well, read on, unless the thought of reading about a mediocre team from East London is enough to make you want to end it all now.
Leyton Orient, or the Os are a third level team from East London. In fact, we are right next door the the Olympic Staduim. We have a small, but loyal and passionate fan base who follow the club through thick and thin, highs and lows. Which is rather lucky as there are few highs, and too many lows to count.
I began going in 1986, and went to almost every home game from 1989 t0 1999. It was around then that I got the travel bug and ventured on my world tour (still kind of on it).
As you may know, I have been in Japan since 2000 so I can only get to see them about three or four times a year. I did however, take a few weeks off work back in 2006 and flew to England for a do or die match against Oxford. I won’t bore you with the details. I will just say we won in the most exciting game in the history of sport (well, in my opinion).
If you are still reading, here is a rather loud and over the top video commentary of the winning goal scored at the death. We are the ones in red.
Follow Your Passion. Good Advice?
So what is your point Adam?
Ok, Ok. Well, you see, as much as I love my team, if I am perfectly honest, they have given me little back despite my financial and emotional investment. Now I will never desert them. I love them. But, if my passion is an unsuccessful, small a football team, then the advice ‘follow your passion’ is about as useless at it gets, especially in business.
I mean, if I took the advice of follow you passion, I would probably be trying to convince you all to become Leyton Orient fans. Even Tom Cruise could not do that.
What you should so is to take the feeling and desire that you have when you are truly immersed in something you love, harness it, and use that to drive you forward in your business. Then that will allow you to follow your passion
Follow your Passion
Mark Cuban is spot on when he says do not follow your passion, but follow your effort. That is why I am doing what I am doing right now.
When I started blogging online, I will be honest, I did not do it because I love sitting in front of my Mac. I did and continue to do it because of another passion of mine, my family.
And if I am honest, the more I have blogged, and the more I have marketed, the better I have become at it (still lots of room for improvement) and the more I enjoy it. It has kind of become a new passion. So now, when I follow my passion, there are numerous benefits.
I am working toward being able to spend more time with my family, and less time being tied down to a job. I mean, we all have one life, why waste it doing something that takes you further way from your passion.
When I follow my passion (blogging and marketing online, not football), I am also helping others. That is such a good feeling. When what you do helps others to achieve their dreams.
So by all means, follow your passion if it is a hobby, but do not allow this to cloud your judgment.
If you love to travel, follow your passion. Have your own sports team? Then follow your passion. Like to cook, follow your passion. Into health? Then perhaps here it is good to follow your passion.
Just be careful that just because you follow your passion, other may not.
Follow your effort and turn this into something that allows you to enjoy what it is you are passionate about whenever you want.