Is Following Your Passion A Terrible Idea?
Sep

Truth be told, I have been struggling a lot lately with my mission. My mission, as I have made clear to you all, is to inspire people who feel stuck in a boring, unfulfilling, or downright shitty job or relationship.
But my goals are not as clear. Yes, I want to help as many as people as possible. Yes, I want to do remarkable things. Yes, I want to earn a full-time income doing this.
But am I honestly working towards that?
I’m not doubting that I have the ability to help people change their lives for the better. I know I can and do.
My struggle, as eluded to in my post, The Struggle Within, comes from a deep emotional level that is hard for me to explain.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my future and what I really want to accomplish with my life and I’ve taken a good bit of time to get away from technology. I’ve also spent some time in solitude (mainly through hiking) in order to gain some clarity.
It was during this time that my good friend, Ian, called me to tell me about a book. He is familiar with my struggles and said I needed to read this particular book.
So Good They Can’t Ignore You
It’s called So Good They Can’t Ignore You and he told me it just might be able to help me with my internal struggles.
Ian has been a friend and someone I have turned to for business advice since I started blogging in 2010. He runs a very successful tennis instruction site called EssentialTennis.com, and I hold his opinions in high regard.
So I bought the book in the hopes it would shed some light into my frustrations with my business path.
I finished it in a day and a half and what I had hoped was going to be the catalyst for me transforming my business into something greater, I found quite the opposite.
It actually called to attention a much different question; am I on the right path?
The author Cal Newport’s premise for the book is questioning the often overused catchphrases like “follow your passion” and “do what you love” as it pertains to finding your true calling and/or work that matters.
He dismisses these statements, claiming they are dangerous and lead to chronic unhappiness and failure.
And if you know anything about me or this blog, you know that his “wisdom” flies in the face of everything I stand for and basically dismisses what I have come to adopt as my philosophy on living life.
His main point is that following your passion is terrible advice. I, in contrast, preach that following your passion is essential for doing work you love.
The Book
This is not intended to be a book review, but rather an overview of his philosophies. Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t waste my time writing about something like this, but this book makes sense. A lot of it.
The book can be summarized by the following points:
- The theory of choosing a job/business based solely on what you are most passionate about is flawed because actual “career” passions are rare and trying to find yours leads to high job dissatisfaction rates, job/business hopping, and chronic unhappiness. Since you are always striving to find your “real” passion and never seem to, your life become a hamster wheel of dissatisfaction.
- Following your passion is bad advice because most people don’t have a pre-existing passion waiting to be discovered and then matched to a suitable career.
- Passion is a side effect of mastery. In order to love your work, you must provide a rare and valuable service to others. You must also have autonomy and a sense of being connected to others in your work environments.
- Taking on a mindset of what you can offer the world is a far better (and more effective) approach versus what the world can offer you. It’s what the author calls the “Passion Mindset” versus the “Craftsman Mindset.”
- Become “so good they can’t ignore you” in your chosen endeavor and you will ultimately find happiness and passion in your work.
- Becoming “so good” requires an almost fanatical dedication to your work. He mentions the 10,000 hour rule frequently as a way of achieving excellence. This is often a grueling and arduous process but must be done anyway.
- Focusing on your passions makes you focus on what you don’t like about your work and leads to chronic unhappiness. ( I can agree with this one). By constantly asking ourselves “what do I want” or “what do I truly love”, we are left unfulfilled because there are rarely concrete answers, but rather ambiguous ideas. Cal reports that this mindset is almost guaranteed to leave you perpetually confused and unhappy.
- If you want something rare and valuable (such as a highly rewarding career), then you need to provide something rare and valuable in return.
- Having the courage to quit your job is not enough, but rather it needs to be accompanied by skills of great and real value.
- To find your career passion, you must have a mission. A mission gives you a focus on your goals and maximizes your impact on the world. A mission requires career capital in which we can offer something valuable first.
The Passion Hypothesis
The Passion Hypothesis states “the key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then find a job (or business) that matches that passion.”
This has become an extremely poplar niche for “lifestyle design” type bloggers to write about. Follow your heart and the money will follow, is a common mantra.
Ever since Tim Ferriss wrote the 4HWW, millions of people have jumped on the “pursue your passion” bandwagon and I have too.
Life coaches are popping up everywhere you look and most have a similar message stating that we must follow our passion in order to find our life’s work.
But Cal not only brushes this notion aside but tells us that this is terrible advice.
He instead tells us the following:
- Career passions are rare. Instead, most are passionate about their hobbies and are not viable business opportunities.
- Passion takes time. It not just something where you wake up one day and say “I think my calling is saving bottle nosed dolphins.” Instead, he says that we will find our passion mastering certain workplace skills.
- Passion is a side effect of mastery. Meaning the more efficient you become at something, the more likely you are to consider it a passion.
- Following your passion leads to us looking for the “right” career or business that is truly our life’s work, which it turn leads to job hopping and self doubt because we rarely find it.
- Although the “passion” movement has exploded over the last 10 years, we are unhappier as people than we have ever been.
In his words, Cal states:
Telling someone to follow their passion is not just an act of innocent optimism, but potentially the foundation for a career riddled with confusion and angst.
He has examples to prove his theory, which of course can be viewed from either side. He doesn’t share any stories of people who followed their passions and actually succeeded.
Any one of us could do a study proving that following your passion is more effective than his teachings if we really wanted to. But that’s not the point of all of this. My point is that there may be something to all of this.
He states:
If you spend too much time focusing on whether or not you’ve found your true calling, the question will be rendered moot when you found yourself out of work.
The Passion Mindset VS The Craftsman Mindset
The Passion Mindset is the focus on what value your job/business offers you. Like with what I do here. I look at ETG as a way to help people but also offers me the opportunity to work from home, travel if I desire and work from anywhere. Things that I value.
The Craftsman Mindset is the focus on what value you can bring to your job/business. The theory is that once you provide tremendous value at work, you will begin to find your passion and reap the rewards of a fulfilling career.
He shares a story of a particular “lifestyle design” blogger who subscribes to the passion mindset. The story details a man who quit his 9-5 job at age 25 in order to pursue his passion. His passion is being able to live the life of an Internet entrepreneur and show others how to do the same.
According to the author, this blogger’s only product was his enthusiasm for not having to conform to society and work a “traditional” job. Sounds familiar….
The story continues to tell how this blogger struggled to gain readers, keep them interested and ultimately disappears altogether. The reason being is that his enthusiasm was not a valuable trait and he had no career capital from which to draw and build on.
I agree with the fact that we must provide a value to people or there is no business. As it’s been told to me many, many times; blogging is not a business. I get that.
The author’s example shows us one person who tried the passive income route, which clearly takes a great deal of work in order to build something that generates significant income.
But his point also hit a little too close to home for me as well.
While reading this book (and since), I have thought a great deal about this. What value am I offering my audience? Is my passion for ending the grind enough? Is it a business model? What can I provide that will meet this criteria?
Career Capital
Career capital is defined as the skills you have that are rare and valuable to the working world. This is the key currency for creating work you love (according to Cal).
In essence, what he is saying is that those who do not possess remarkable skill at their chosen work (i.e. the millions of people leaving their careers to find something more meaningful, but have little or no experience in) are screwed.
His focus is on creating a compelling career and this is done only by having 3 things:
- Creativity. Having the ability to be highly creative in your work.
- Impact. Being able to make an impact on people and/or the world.
- Control. Being in control of your time and future.
And while I agree with these things, they can be found in any endeavor regardless of whether or not you have innate skills in it.
He suggests that because so many are focused on having all these things in their work, they rarely come to fruition because by the time they’ve invested enough career capital (i.e. learned a valuable skill), they have already quit to pursue something they (incorrectly) think will be more fulfilling.
The Courage Culture
This is something that is very popular right now among lifestyle-type bloggers. It’s the idea that the only thing standing between you and your dream job/business is the courage to take that first step (i.e. grab your balls).
Cal claims this is dangerous because in ignores the importance of having career capital to back up your aspirations and leads to people quitting their jobs for a new situation, which often puts them in a far worse situation than they were previously.
I have to disagree with this flat out. Take me for example. I quit my career, left behind all kinds of “security” and income in order to do what I love.
Am I in a much worse situation because of it? I would argue the exact opposite to be true. While I many not have the same financial resources that I did, my quality of life has improved ten-fold. Can you put a price on that?
I honestly believe that had I stayed in my job, I would have gone the way of stressed out cardiac patient and been a miserable son of a bitch for the rest of my heart attack ending life.
He also mentions Pamela Slim’s program, Rebuild Your Backbone, which is geared towards people struggling with taking that first step towards following their dreams. He states that this “Passion Mindset” approach strips away merit and that without real skills and real value offered (in addition to the courage needed to follow your dreams), this doesn’t make sense and is a recipe for failure.
The Passion Camp
I am obviously in the passion camp. I honestly believe that following your passion is how you find what will make you tick. This book does not dissuade me from my beliefs, but I do see many of his points on why solely following your passion may not be the best approach to finding work you love.
I’m also a HUGE fan of Gary V, who is all passion. He screams, curses, and beats it down people’s throats; do what you love and you CAN monetize it.
I wholeheartedly agree.
This book disagrees with this notion. For example, Gary, in his 2008 Web 2.0 Expo speech, says if you love The Smurfs, then you can find a way to make money talking about Smurfs. This book would argue that there is no real value being offered in this scenario and would be a poor decision to pursue it.
A Few Issues Here..
Here are a few things that I don’t agree with and don’t like about this book:
- He trivializes lifestyle bloggers/entrepreneurs and almost makes a mockery of this career choice. He also fails to mention any successful case studies of people who are making a full-time living from going after what they love without the “required” career capital.
- Most of his studies are done on highly educated people (he has his PhD from M.I.T) and the book takes an almost condescending tone towards those not formally educated.
- He seems to value academic merit and education more than anything else. Education is very important I agree, but there are things far more valuable than getting a piece of paper.
- Says “regardless of what you do for a living, approach it like a true performer.” For example, although you may hate your job, you should strive to excel in it, which may ultimately lead to you being more passionate about it.
- Is geared towards the employee mindset people, which many of us are not.
- Putting all your focus and energy into your job, whether or not you think it’s your calling.
- Courage to try a new field is not wise because you have no skills or “career capital” yet.
The Big Questions
And as many things that I don’t like about this book, I hate to admit that I agree with some of the things he says, especially the things that are in direct contrast to what I write about here.
After reading the book, I felt like I was a deflating balloon. And because of this, I knew there were some hard truths in here that I was unwilling to look at and/or accept.
I have begun to rethink my business direction and focus because of this and know it can only serve to help me grow as a person and as a business owner.
As I read it (and reread it), I kept asking myself the same difficult questions:
- What valuable service am I providing right now?
- What rare skills (or career capital) do I have in my business as a blogger here?
- Am I pursuing something that I can truly excel at?
My answers are more disturbing than the questions:
- I am selling inspiration right now. I’m selling the possibility of being able to make a huge change in your life by seeing how I did it in my own life.
- I honestly am struggling to think of my unique skills. I have many skills that are valuable but I am not offering anything remarkable here, other than my story.
- I can’t honestly say yes here. I am struggling to find my marketable skills that will set me apart from the million other bloggers. Yes, I can write well. Yes, I have the ability to connect with people on a deep level. Yes, I can inspire people to change. But is it enough? Can I teach YOU how to do what I’ve done and then inspire you to actually do it? And if so, is THAT enough?
These questions and answers are really forcing me to reevaluate my path here and where I want to go.
Also, given the topic and its impact on me, I decided to reach out to Cal and although he claims that he is purposefully difficult to reach (and doesn’t use social media), I sent him an email anyway. My hope is to revive my Podcast one last time and interview him. We’ll see if he responds…
I’ll be sharing more about this in a future post, but for now, it’s over to you…
I really want to talk about this! What are your thoughts on his ideas? Which points make sense and which don’t?

Sebastian Aiden Daniels
Is following your passion a terrible idea? A very interesting post. I pinned it on pinterest for you.
As in anything in life, there are multiple angles that you can approach something from. I agree that trying to find what you are passionate and going after that 100% can lead to extreme dissastisfaction, at least it has for me since my passions often rely on a lot of external validation to succeed, i.e. writing, performing, and directing. It also can lead to burnout.
I think you should get in a good place financially before quitting anything and pursuing your passion fully. It will often be filled with struggle and frustration and you do not want the,”fuck I have to make some money to survive hanging over your head.”
I think his correlation of greater unhappiness and the explosion of the passion movement is a straw man. Maybe we are more unhappy because stress about the economy, constantly being connected to electronics and comparing ourselves to others, the general feeling of not being enough and not having enough, our society’s image of what we must achieve, the materialistic lifestyle that tells us we always need more even though it never really fulfills us and so much more.
Plus how do you know that people are unhappy as they have ever been, I’m sure there wasn’t a worldwide happiness consensus 200 years ago.
Maybe are society should stop focusing on achievement and trying to be famous and then people wouldn’t be so unhappy.
No matter what you do in life there will be times when you are dissatisfied, unhappy, unfulfilled, and questioning if you are doing the right thing. It is a part of life. We want to believe that we will find something that makes us 100% happy all of the time, but that isn’t fucking possible because moods are always changing. You can find people who are the most skilled at what they do and they are still unhappy. Steve Jobs was a pretty shitty human being, at least what I gathered from reading his biography.
Find your own way and what works for you. You’re the one who has to live your life. You’re the one who knows yourself best.
Steve
Hey Sebastian,
First off, thanks for pinning it. I’m not on there, so that helps 🙂
It definitely makes sense to be on stable financial ground before abandoning your job to follow your dreams. Unfortunately too many people in our business don’t do that. They struggle to make it, sell anything, put ads up, and sacrifice their integrity just to make a few bucks. I hate that.
It’s no joke trying to make a good income writing/blogging/Internet marketing and most people aren’t offering anything valuable at all. Just the same shit everywhere.
I don’t think we can be happy all the time and I don’t know anyone who thinks that. Even when we are doing what we love most, it’s not always positive. Shit goes wrong, we deal with idiotic people, someone steals from us, we fail miserably at something, etc.
I haven’t read Steve Jobs biography and didn’t know that about him. I have seen many a skilled person who is killing it in their field and yet is miserable because of the demands, pressure, hours, etc. Just doing work we love won’t make us happy.
Part of this process and this blog is finding what it is that works for me. I’m getting there…
Carissa
I’m glad to see this as I’ve been working through the same thoughts myself. I had decided that I’d had enough of corporate life and it was time for me to jump into freelancing.
As I got closer to my “give 2-weeks-notice” section of my timeline I started questioning if that’s what I really wanted. I couldn’t say yes, which I didn’t like but I knew it was true.
Instead I’ve decided to stay in my current job, make the most of it, and still pursue my writing interests. I’m more happy writing my blog too because I don’t have the internal pressure to “make it big” right now.
I agree with Sebastian’s closing statement. You have to do what’s best for you and sometimes that means changing direction, often more than once.
Steve
Hi Carissa,
Interesting comment here. I’m actually very impressed you had the willpower to not quit, when you really wanted to. Even more impressive is that you turned it around and actually embraced it. This is what the book talks about. He talks about going all in with your work and becoming great at it. Then the passion may come because you are given a lot more respect, freedom, and control over what you do and how you do it. There is where it gets interesting.
Taking that pressure off really does help. When I quit my job last year, I had tremendous pressure and it made things that much more difficult. I like your approach a lot and sincerely hope it works out how you want it to.
Evan
Thinking that getting very good at what you do will lead to popularity and/or money is dooming you to depression and quite possibly despair.
Think of any field you know well. You will find very skilled people who are less known than those who are best known. There are guitarists’ guitarists and painters’ painters’ i.e. those who are known to practitioners as excellent and better than many who are popular but who aren’t popular.
This doesn’t mean that all those who are popular aren’t great at what they do – just that there are those just as good or better who aren’t as popular or wealthy.
I don’t think only pursuing passion is wise. If you want to be popular and/or wealthy you need a hungry crowd. Or you need to grow one – and this can take a long time. It is far easier and quicker to sell what people want to buy.
If you have been in your current job for a while look at those promoted and see if pure merit explains their rise – I think i, and you, know the answer.
Advocating passion doesn’t mean being entirely clear. It is entirely compatible with learning (about yourself and your business) as you go – modifying, adjusting and taking new paths.
Steve
Hey Evan,
The point of the book isn’t about becoming great at your work in order to make more money (although that is a side effect often times) or becoming popular. It’s about finding the passion for it because you are excellent at it and are in turn offered more control, autonomy, and flexibility.
I agree that in order to create wealth (in a business), we need a hungry crowd that is eager to buy what we sell. In order to do that, we need to create something highly valuable. I’m not doing this for money or popularity. I do it because I love it and it drives me to become better.
My issue is that I am struggling to put a label on exactly what I can offer people, besides just inspiration. I have no interest in selling things just to make money here. And yes, I’m learning every day, about myself, my business, and people.
Susan
I love this post and agree. Passion is about ACTION. It’s not about figuring it out first through an epiphany and then pursuing it, expecting to be on fire about it. Luckily I didn’t know how else to support myself than through writing and eventually got better at landing work. Now I can work from anywhere and pick and choose projects.
I get what you’re after, but there’s not always a lot of takeaways here. Just great motivation.
This is what I think. You were onto something when you were discussing the mental game involved in working out and getting in shape. That’s actionable and can change peoples lives. Getting in shape and getting into the mental game of pushing can translate to all kinds of things like getting out of a bad relationship, jobs, and elsewhere.
People are clueless on how to do this. Tell us how. How to wake up early, how to work out properly, how to eat right, how to cheat once in awhile and keep a it correctly, how to bust through plateaus, how to change our body/social identities.
Steve
Thanks so much, Susan.
Sounds like you accrued a lot of career capital as Cal calls it. You are doing exactly what he talks about and I can see the benefit of that much more clearly now.
It’s really ironic that you mentioned the fitness angle, because I have been focusing much of my time/energy on that exact thing. I have basically created my own job within the fitness space and have partnered up with a successful business/gym owner and we are planning to do some big things! I also am ramping up my own fitness business online and off.
The struggle I have with going down the fitness path is that this blog isn’t about that and I don’t want it to turn into that. But you are absolutely right in that getting into and staying in shape can play a HUGE role is one’s success, motivation, self esteem, and ability to break free from a bad situation.
I could talk all day about the things you listed in your last sentence and have never really considered going there until I read your comment. I now see how valuable that might be to people and plan to write about it shortly. Thank you for this!
Davidd
Ah, there you go – you had a fair amount of “career capital” in the fitness industry at the time you left your other career. That’s what I was thinking when you wrote about disagreeing with Cal’s emphasis on the importance of career capital. Yes, you left your financial career capital behind, but you didn’t leave without a cushion of career capital in another field, and in fact, it was that career capital that opened up the opportunity for you to make the change.
Steve
This is very true, Davidd. And this has lead me to start really thinking about how to best use that fitness career capital in business, here and with other ventures. I’m working on a few things right now and look forward to seeing how everything unfolds..
Susan
I see your point – in a way. But I think this blog IS about that. It’s about the mental game. You can shape it around the fitness mental game as you go and see what happens.
Everyone can benefit from fitness. So maybe it’s “If your life sucks ass, change it by changing your body first” type posts. I’m not sure if it needs to be ALL fitness or all mental or all life stuff or what. But I do know it doesn’t need to be al or nothing.
You can do this.
Steve
It’s so funny that I haven’t really connected the two before. I mean, I have a TON of career capital in the fitness industry and know I can help people in a concrete and meaningful way. For me personally, I am far more productive, energetic, confident and happy when I am fit and eating well. These past few weeks (OK, a month and a half), I have been slacking on exercise and diet and I suppose it’s no coincidence that I have been feeling down and negative.
I actually started on a new track again this morning and am changing my routine to be healthier..
Thanks for the encouragement!
Susan
Happy to help!
But it’s for selfish reasons too. 🙂
I need a fitness kick in the butt. I’m in reasonable shape and active, but really want to step it up but don’t seem to have time or motivation. I take care of my 2 1/2 year old, work as a freelancer about 20 hours a week (or more), go on press trips, work on a blog, an e-course, a blog… fitness seems to lose out. And I admit it’s because I don’t see an immediate impact from it like I do my work and kid.
I can take the long view on so many things in my life like career but not fitness. My mental game is every minute counts. Whether I’m at the zoo with my daughter or working or trying to keep the house together. I see those immediate results. Guess I’m afraid because I can’t see fitness instantly working it’s going to be a waste of time. Intellectually I know that’s not right.
Straighten me out in an upcoming post sometime 🙂
Steve
Ha!
No time isn’t really an excuse and you already know that. A lack of motivation is something we can work on.I’ve seen this scenario play out many times and it all boils down to where your priorities lie. Sometimes it’s not the right time to dedicate yourself to being healthier (hate to say that), but usually it’s just a lack of will, direction, and or education.
Although you stay at home, you have ample time to exercise, and can do it right in your living room and with your child. It is frustrating when you start to exercise and don’t see any improvements, but you have to give it time. Every person’s body responds differently. I’ve had clients lose 2 pounds each week for months on end and I’ve had others lose nothing at all.
The most common issue with a lack of results is that you are not doing things the right way. There needs to be 3 main things present in order to gain lean muscle and reduce body fat. You need progressive strength training, cardiovascular exercise, and a diet filled with the right foods including enough protein. 9 times out of 10, people eat far less protein then they need in order to build muscle. This has nothing to do with becoming a bodybuilder or getting bulky. It’s just adding muscle where there was once fat.
I’ll be posting more on this soon..
Judy
What a great reflective and thought-provoking article. I haven’t read the book but I feel as your reader that you’ve given both sides of the story. From a lifetime perfecting a progression of crafts in paid employment I can safely say that being good and being promoted, offered opportunities are not the same thing. And that those same crafts are not necessarily easily translated into the online or small business world. I think that is why people say follow your passion, because when the going gets tough only those obsessed stay the course. Albeit learning all the time what works and what doesn’t. Being ‘so good they can’t ignore you’ is subjective to the ‘they’ and their definition of ‘good’. It’s an admirable aspiration to be balanced against courting popularity for its own sake. I’m only at the beginning of my online life and I’m sure I’ll have many moments in the future of ‘why am I doing this?’
Steve
That was my goal, Judy. I tried hard not to immediately dismiss his thoughts and beliefs because they are in opposition to my own. e actually has some excellent points which is why I have been so reflective here. I agree that being promoted is not what the author is taking about but rather it’s the control, autonomy, and flexibility that we are given once we become indispensable.
My career capital is in the fitness industry, which is easily translated into the web. Unfortunately it happens to be in one of the most saturated markets ever! I’m working on how to get my brand online.