Follow Your Passion is Terrible Advice. Here’s Why.

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A super popular piece of career advice is to follow your passion, but actually that's not the best thing you can do to find a career you actually love. In this video, I discuss the lessons from Cal Newport's book So Good They Can't Ignore You about how to build a career you love. Enjoy x

⌚️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
0:40 Don't follow your passion
4:24 Develop a craftsmen mindset
12:13 Cash in your career capital for control
16:42 Finding a mission

[anastasiya]

I don’t fully agree… It’s hard to become really good at something you hate, because you just want to avoid doing it at all costs rather than put in the time needed to become better. And just because you can’t make money off your biggest passion (like video games or music) doesn’t mean you can’t have other interests that can guide you in your career choice. It’s not like you’re assigned one passion at birth and can’t be interested in multiple things. Like in the Steve Jobs example, he was probably genuinely passionate about his work, even if it wasn’t his first ever passion in life.

[theivantang]

"Follow your passion" works for some people and doesn't work for others. But the phrase "Be so good, they can't ignore you" is fantastic and universal.

[wsiel]

Passion starts the engine, but only discipline can keep it "rolling".

No matter how passionate you are, it is discipline, the only thing that will make you practice when you don't feel like it, or when you "don't have time" for it. That's the whole point of the book; find some things that meet the criteria and practice so much that you can't be ignored.

[chuck]

I read this book in 2014 and decided to chase money (the "adjacent possible") instead of my dreams. I ended up miserable and chronically stressed for the next 5 years of my life. Those were pivotal years and I'd pay any amount of money to get them back. Follow your passion, people. Just work hard at that instead of whatever seems the path of least resistance. Even if you end up poorer, you'll be happier. Time is your most valuable resource.

[krisantuswanandi]

Depends on how you define "passion". I don't think "I'm passionate about playing guitar, but I suck at it" is passion. Same can be said about "Be so good, they can't ignore you", what if passion is the drive to do things until you are THAT good?

[dori]

I love piano and even when I'm not good at it, I still enjoy every second of it and it allows me to practice and get better while enjoying the process.
But when you are not really interested in the subject, even if you are good at it, the process will be very difficult and remorseful for you.
So whether or not to follow your passion is not something others can definitively advise you on, it all depends on you and your personality.

[imnemo]

"Love doesn't mean it has to last forever", same applies for passion.

[thisissophiaisabelle]

Somehow Ali breaks down everything with clarity, which is something we all appreciate. Following your passion doesn’t always equate to achieving success. Every one of us is different.

[elizabethm.i.a]

I am ironically a musician in college for a music industry degree, and when he said what the craftsman mindset was, it sounded like exactly what I was doing. My goal is to be impossible to not hire because I want to be able to sing in any genre in any setting and be really good at that. And I'm already decently good at that. So, it's kind of funny when the "don't follow your passion" video just reaffirms that I definitely am doing what I should be, even though it *is* music, because music is that thing I'm really good at. I've seen videos like this before, and it's made me question if music should really be my career, but at this point, I'm just going to try my absolute hardest, and if for some reason it doesn't work out, I have a backup plan. I have a hard time believing that after all the music burn-outs I've been through and come back from, I could ever dislike it enough to stop. It's my entire life.

[DJayDiamond]

My thoughts:

1) not everyone has a passion and even of they do, its often a hobby which is incredibly difficult to turn into a financially successful career

2) instead find something you are passionate about but can also earn you money.

3) often the reason we do something is because its a distraction/stress reliever e.g. gaming, guitar, sports...if you turn these things into your main activities then theyll become the things you stress over and get bored of especially if you tiebthem to your finances. Chocolate cake is tasty but i dont want to eat it with every meal...

4) i like ghe idea that by focusing on getting good at something youll atart to enjoy it. This alunds like the motivation follows action principle which i think is generally true.

5) autonomy is suoer important

6) having a good team is super important

7) learning new skills and ability to enter a flow state is super imoortant

8) work life balance is super important.

[alexandria]

Ali with all my respect, just because you want to chase productivity and money over your dream doesn’t mean the rest of us have to

[CasualCreator]

Only passion can't lead to success but passion with hard work and dedication earn success.

[Ayundaru]

Gaming content creator here.. gonna have to hard disagree with the beginning of this video. I love video games and love my job making videos! The solution isn’t “don’t follow your passion”, the solution is moderation. So many gaming content creators overwork themselves, get burnt out, then second guess their skills and passion.

Don’t follow your passion is terrible advice

[_aiborie]

Kinda appreciate how fast Ali talks in his videos. No need to fast forward since he also goes straight to the answers. Thanks man

[negie]

I don't think this is the most sound advice. At least not for everyone. I think too often we take the extremes at times and then sort of run with an idea. There's a point where you don't love something enough, and there's a point to where you love it too much that you can't bother to follow it or see yourself fail in it, so you're more in love with the idea. And sometimes, very often times, I think this advice works better for people who place much more importance on emotional highs that they can't stick to one thing when it becomes 'boring' or hard..

In my mind, the thing I'm passionate about is the thing I keep coming back to like some crazed obsessed madman. Even when it makes me sad, or frustrated, or angry, or discouraged, or happy, or bored. It's a total and complete irrational level of dedication, despite the rollercoaster of emotions and phases.

[PreparedlySimple]

I disagree with the 'longer you're doing something and the better you become at it you then love it' - I've been doing office work for 30 years and while good at it, I hate it.

[claudiuhvuu]

Don’t follow your passion. Follow you effort. Follow where you spend your time because when you’re good at something, you tend to want to get better. -Mark Cuban

[Phoenix.Sparkles]

Being good at something does not mean you won't hate it, the truth is, you will hate every job you get unless you learn to be at peace with your circumstances. If you build amazing lego figures every day, it's not going to be equally fun every time, but if you can do it anyways without judging the experience, you can do anything and feel happy at the end of the day. It has nothing to do with passion, but passion brings fulfillment.

[little.prince]

Well, I am finally following my passion for the first time in years, studying my passion and also starting my career through mandatory practice and honestly I’ve never felt happier.

[Jejdjejbfjf]

You need passion to push through the difficult fields like medicine. If we focus only on “getting good”, then we tend to focus too much on pursuits with short-term gratification.