To find work you love, don't follow your passion | Benjamin Todd | TEDxYouth@Tallinn

Mainstream career advice tells us to “follow our passion”, but this advice is dead wrong. Research shows that people who take this approach are ultimately no more likely to enjoy or excel at their jobs. Instead, if you’re looking for a fulfilling career, here’s a new slogan to live by: Do what’s valuable.

Benjamin Todd is the co-founder and Executive Director of 80,000 Hours, an Oxford-based charity dedicated to helping people find fulfilling careers that make a real difference. In three years, 80,000 Hours has grown from a student society to a thriving charity featured on the BBC, the Washington Post, NPR and more, and whose online careers guide has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people.

[pocok]

Let's not forget, that every time a successful person gives career advice, there is a selection bias in the background. Other people might tried the very same thing and failed, but we will never hear about them, because they are not successful.
Your personal experience is the most reliable source of information, don't follow any advice blindly. Try things, don't be afraid of failure, and see what works for you.

[timelessadventurer]

A 15 minute talk to tell you to help others to be happy. There, now I helped others by saving them 15 minutes

[thomaslavelle]

my experience is that once your "passion" turns into job, it changes it's characteristics . It turns into something that eventually disgusts you because you have to do so many tedious and unpleasant duties that didn't exist when it was just a "passion". This has happened to me 3 times in my life. because I was stuck on the idea of only doing things I was" passionate about" and naturally good at. Finally after seeing through the whole "passion" fallacy, My advice is that it's best to find something that you neither like or hate, one that you can take or leave, you don't mind going to work, in other words neutral. If it helps the world, great. If it only helps the people you serve, fine.if it supports your life well and doesn't burn you out, cool. As a add-on piece of advice, I would suggest when you need to make a decision between 2 things, for example learning a trade or becoming a professional dancer, do both. When you are young, you have enormous energy, so do both things. Then you have practicality and passion both covered.

[jackclouds]

99% of people don't care about success and money, most of them just think that they do, but actually everyone is looking for empathy, connection, realization, belonging, love and being loved, being able to feed yourself and your beloved ones, etc...

[Je_suis_Jefe]

You could be passionate with something and be horrible at it at the same time.

[ofnir]

I literally just quit a job I was very skilled at because I absolutely hated it. Though hearing what I've been told when I left, I would have probably made it to the top and have had "success". I was also helping people not get their money stolen on fake electronic scams, so you could say I was making a difference in people's lives.

I ran away from "success". Why? Because I was about to kill myself if I stayed there.

Honestly, I believe the best success you can have, is living a life you actually want to live. And there's just no objective way to calculate this

[poly_hexamethyl]

Counterexample: I followed my passion and have a successful career. Conclusion: Don't follow other people's examples. When young people ask me for career advice, I always feel uncomfortable. I never suggest that anybody use me as a role model. You need to figure out what works for you.

[InMotionForAMillion]

"Following their passion actually made them more likely to die."

Well, that's uplifting.

[katenka_ana]

Me before this video: I have no idea what I should do
Me after this video: I have no idea what I should do

[blackhawkX]

Man, the world is full of people who follow their passion and have fulfilling lives, and also it's full of people that follow money and have fulfilling lives, and others that pursuit a meaning and have fulfilling lives.
The key is to find what is best for you out of those things and balance it with the others because that way you can find a way to make it fulfilling and give something back to society. If you can't balance these things of course you're going to fail, it is not as simple as saying "choose/don't choose what you're passionate about.

Lately I've been realising that almost anyone can apply for a TED talk and speak like if they had all the answers. So, it's on us, to figure out which TED talks are useful for us and which ones are not.

[emmamorgan]

I think what he's trying to say is just don't blindly follow your "passion" or interests as a career. Rather you should incorporate your passion(s) into a career that doesn't only benefit you. I just started going to college for interior design and honestly am still not sure if this is really what i want to do. I care a lot about the environment and feel like a career involving that would possibly be better. With that in mind I could easily become an interior designer who uses only recycled and sustainable materials for my projects and could inspire others to do so as well. The question I'm left with is "is that doing enough for the environment to me?"

[louisehelgesson]

I didn’t even watch the TED talk. I just read the comments 😂

[horrorpill]

"The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all the matters of the heart, you'll know it when you find it." - Steve Jobs (1955-2011).

[pistopit]

Once your passion becomes your job, it stops being so passionating over time.

[riyascorner]

“The job you find boring was someone else’s dream job”

[Hexanitrobenzene]

Something tells me that when he was "passionate" about martial arts and philosophy, he didn't know himself well.
His true passion is helping others, and he is fulfilling it by working in a charity.

Passion and happiness are very subjective words with many meanings. Naturally, confusion arises when using them.
I think what he is really trying to say is this: "Don't simply follow your interests which bring you pleasure and joy (note: I'm not using the word 'happiness', it is something a lot more permanent than joy). Instead, do something you really *care* about. Something you care about will probably be hard and tedious, but it will be worth it, because it will be meaningful."

[manny]

Follow your passion, don't follow your passion. fuck! fuck I say! you all have to realize that their is absolutely no RIGHT answer for this conundrum. what you do is pick something, and make that choice the RIGHT choice.

[dorro]

You don't have enough motivation without passion, you can't do something valuable, something really qaulitative without passion. Our brains don't work well with things that they don't like.

[sockysworld]

Trick yourself into pursuing value, while secretly following your passion.

[emox]

It’s just his point of view, don’t let the others tell you what to do in your life, follow your dreams, fail, fall down in pieces, rise up again and never give up. There’s no only one path, you may end up finding a new path for your life. So do things, try, explore, and you will discover yourself!