Season 1 - Episode 4 : Don’t Follow Your Passion, Develop Your Passion
There are countless successful celebrities who will tell you to “follow your passion”. I’m certain you’ve seen speeches by famous people at Ivy League commencement ceremonies that bestow the virtues of following your passions. Simply put, this is terrible advice. In this episode we're going to talk about how passion for your product or industry doesn't need to exist at the beginning, but will come as you keep working on your startup.
Background Story
Dave here. Turns out Chris and I didn’t start our business because were were super passionate about public safety. Yeah, we knew it was important and were generally supportive of it, but we weren’t exactly passionate about it. We were passionate about business, tech, and helping solve complicated problems - something that a public safety business was offering us at the time.
What was interesting is that as we got more into our business, product, and how it helped people, we increasingly got “into” public safety. We developed our passion over time as our business continued to improve and thrive. This is a good way to do it - if you only expect to start a business in a market you’re passionate about right now, you might be limiting your potential.
Outline
Following your passions is a bad call.
Finding passion is a process.
Getting better at something makes you more passionate about it.
Busted Myth
Myth: You can only be successful in a business where you’re passionate. On the contrary, it’s about being open-minded about your passions and allowing yourself to grow.
Secondary myth: If you follow your passions, you’ll be successful. That can’t be true, or we’d all be celebrities, pro-athletes, and astronauts.
Learnings
If you can only do things you're passionate about, then why aren't you a pro athlete, movie star, or best selling musician?! It's terrible advice to go after those types of careers because there is such a small chance of success.
The term “struggling actor” exists for a reason. A handful of actors make the majority of the money.
What do you do instead?
Find something that you’re good at, then spend a lot of time becoming great at it. Make sure it’s something useful and in-demand. It also helps if people generally think it's difficult, or people don’t generally want to do it.
For example, software development for Chris, and sales for Dave.
As Chris spent more time becoming great at software development he became passionate about it. It was that journey of becoming great that developed Chris’ passion for software development.
I (Dave) was very similar. I saw that he was good at sales through his time as a business manager for his college newspaper. Generally speaking, people think that sales is tough and isn’t appealing. But I knew that he was good at it, and could become great at it. I put in the time to become great and became passionate about how sales should be done.
Topic 3: Working at something makes you passionate.
For us, we’d now consider ourselves passionate about software development, sales, and entrepreneurship. But it didn’t happen overnight, we had to work at it.
The “working at it” was what made us passionate.
You don't need to be super passionate about the industry or product that you're working on for your startup. But working on it should make you passionate about it over time.
Don't turn away ideas because you're not passionate about them!
Summary
Don’t follow your passions. Develop them
Working at something makes you more passionate.
Saying “I only work on what makes me passionate” closes too many doors.