Passion vs ‘Love What You Do’

What’s a better strategy in life: pursuing passion or pursuing financial stability?

For the lucky few, these paths are one and the same. But for the majority, pursuing passion doesn’t pay the bills.

“Do what you love and the money will follow.”

It’s a nice idea, but in many cases it’s simply not true.

Flawed thinking.

I think passion is a red herring. Especially for people who don’t have a strong internal calling in the world.

Some people do, which is brilliant for them. Life is more black and while. Their north star is clear. Like Elizabeth Gilbert who knew at age 8 that her passion, her vocation, her divine calling was to be a writer.

For the rest of us — and for most of my life, me included — the fuzzy grayness can seem like a real stressful problem to solve or think about with much clarity.

What’s my passion?

Maybe I just don’t have a passion. But now what?

This is why I think passion is a red herring. A better filter for most of us is:

“What can I love doing?”

Which is very different to, “what’s my passion?” And it’s also different to, “do what you love.”

It’s a re-frame that doesn’t paint you into a corner you can’t escape from.

“Love what you do,” can maybe become a passion once you are further along your journey and have more clarity, but it comes with no expectations.

“Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.” — Seth Godin

If we can fall in love with serving people, creating value, solving problems, building valuable connections and doing work that matters, it makes it far more likely we’re going to do important work.