Don’t Follow Your Passion

Note from me: I will be away all week speaking at The Hawaii Social Media Summit. My friend Dan Black has graciously agreed to moderate my comments.

This is a guest post from Drew Tewell who is the author of the book, The Dream Job Program: Get the job you want. He helps young professionals land their dream job. You can read his blog and connect with him on Twitter and Facebook

The other day, while at Barnes & Noble, I was flipping through the book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, by Cal Newport. In it he talks about how “follow your passion” is not good advice. Later that day I read two articles that he wrote, one in The Harvard Business Review and one in The New York Times.

I think we’ve all heard the advice, “follow your passion” before. After flipping through Cal’s book, I began to think about it.

Say you have a passion for something that is not very desirable to an employer. And, at the same time, is not very marketable as a business either. It is just a hobby and the likelihood of it ever being more than that is not very high (although, Gary Vaynerchuk, in his book, Crush It, argues otherwise).

On the other hand, say you have a strength that you are really good at. It is something that is very desirable to an employer. In addition, it is very marketable as a business. But, unlike your “hobby”, you don’t enjoy doing it.

So, should you keep doing what you are really good at, your strength, hoping that someday you’ll enjoy it more. Or, should you “follow your passion” hoping that someday something of value will come out of it.

 In one of my favorite books, Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras talks about the genius of the “and”. Basically, the genius of the “and” means that you don’t have to choose between one or the other when it comes to two positive ideas or outcomes. You can have your cake and eat it too, as the saying goes. You can make a profit and do good. As for what we are discussing, you can do work that you enjoy, a passion, and get paid well because you are good at it, a strength.

Whatever your situation, if you happen to be thinking about making a career change, if you are currently looking for work, or if you are just trying to figure out what it is that you want to do with your life professionally, my advice would be start with your strengths and your passions. This is even where I start readers in my book, The Dream Job Program, helping them discover their strengths and passions.

It turns out, “follow your passion” isn’t half bad advice after all. It’s just half.

What do you think about the advice, “follow your passion?”