Don’t Follow Your Passion. Be Passionate About What You Do.

Why purpose, usefulness, and value matter more than loving your work

Click HERE to watch:

“Don’t Follow Your Passion. Be Passionate About What You Do.”

That idea makes people uncomfortable because it sounds almost cruel given that the world keeps telling us the opposite. Find your passion. Chase what you love. Embrace it and never let it go.

But first, a story:

If I followed my passion, I’d probably play harmonica on street corners and draw caricatures on napkins in bars.

I’m pretty good at it, too.

I can get smiles, applause, free beer, and even handfuls of spare change. Which is nice.

So nice that I’ve told my wife not to worry, we’ll never starve. Because if I simply follow my passion, we can make tens of dollars.

What we couldn’t do is build a life, support a family, or help put our kids through college. We couldn’t say yes to opportunities that mattered because I’d be too busy chasing what made me feel good in the moment.

That’s the part no one likes to talk about.

Why Following Your Passion Often Fails

By itself, passion doesn’t care if anyone needs what you do or not. It doesn’t care if it’s useful. It doesn’t care if it solves a problem or creates value. Passion is selfish. It cares only that you enjoy it.

And enjoyment is not a viable business model.

Here’s where the confusion creeps in. People mistake passion for purpose. They think the thing they love most must automatically be the thing they should do for a living. And then when that doesn’t work out, they assume that something must be wrong with them.

After all, they followed their passion.

But there’s nothing wrong with them; they were simply sold the wrong idea. Mostly by rich, successful people who love to pontificate and spout homilies without actually having to suffer the consequences such saccharine sayings create.

Things like “follow your passion and the money will come,” and “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

You see, people who build meaningful careers don’t start with passion. They start with purpose. They look for something the world actually needs. Something people will pay for. Something that creates impact beyond self-expression.

Then, and this is the important part, they bring passion to that work.

Passion is fuel, not direction.

Passion is fuel, not direction.

It’s what keeps you showing up when the work gets hard. It’s what pushes you to get better when you feel you’ve plateaued. It’s what makes people trust you because they can feel you care. But it only works after you’ve chosen the right vehicle.

Start With Purpose, Then Bring the Passion.

I didn’t build a career because branding and messaging strategy were my childhood dreams. I built a career by discovering how to help people clarify what they do, figure out why it matters, and why it matters to them, and then communicate it effectively. That work was valuable. It was needed. It solved the very real problems real people had. And they were willing to pay handsomely for it.

Over time, I became passionate about it. And that’s the sequence most people miss.

Don’t beat yourself up because you’re stuck, frustrated, or wondering why your passion isn’t paying the bills. Instead, ask yourself a better question.

Who needs what I know?

What problem can I help solve?

Where can I be useful?

Bring your passion there.

You see, I can still play harmonica on the corner, and I can still draw on napkins.

And you can still do what you love and love what you do.

Just don’t confuse passion with a plan.

Instead, build something real and then pour your passion into it.

If this problem makes sense to you, maybe it’s because you’ve seen it in your organization, on your team, or in your career.

And if you’re looking for a keynote that challenges comfortable myths and gives people the language that they can use to reach their potential, let’s talk.