The TRUTH About "Doing What You Love"

DISCLAIMER: This post is not intended to discourage ANYONE from pursuing a dream they have a deep passion in. However, I am a realist, I don't live in the world of fairytales. 

So today I will be writing about what many people misunderstand about doing "what you love" and why it ever so rarely leads to wealth.

Firstly, why are most people not doing what they actually love for a living?

This is mostly because most peoples' passions are things that they personally value, but that other people don't find valuable enough to pay for.

And if we're talking about something that lots of people enjoy doing, then it will be easy to find people who will do it for free. 

The perfect combination is to have a career you love doing and you rewarded very for it Financially, but theres a few reasons why most people are not living like this...

1. Many people don't "love" to do anything that is marketable. 

They say they like to do certain things ("I love art"), but when you look at what they really do with their free time, (e.g., what they really "love"), it's something like watching TV, shopping, reading celebrity gossip, etc. These are not marketable skills. At least most of the time.

2. The things they love might not typically provide a very good living. 

Music is an easy example: With the exception of an elite few, most people who are in this field will not be able to make a great living doing so, no matter how much they enjoy it. They might get by, but for some that's not good enough.

3. Related to 2: Many people aren't very good at the things that they happen to love doing in order be able to be paid for it.

The only people who get paid for what they love are either getting paid very little, or they are exceptionally talented - it's not enough to love doing it, you also have to be spectacularly good at it if you want to get paid well for it.

Just because you enjoy doing something doesn’t mean you’re good at it. 

Strong job performance is what leads to a fulfilling and well-paying career. 

Instead of looking at what passions you enjoy, focus on finding out what you do best or what skills you use best every single day. 

4. Doing something you love at a professional level sometimes requires "polluting" it with extraneous necessities that diminish your love for it.

Let's say you love practicing MMA. Opening an MMA school comes with a bunch of responsibilities that have nothing to do with what you love about the martial arts. 

Business considerations, teaching kids (and dealing with their parents), putting up with idiot students ... Some would rather stay "amateur" than risk having their love for a certain activity polluted by these extraneous associations.

5. Doing something on a professional level is not the same as doing something for the love of it. 

Training the martial arts as a hobby is different from being a full time mma fighter. 

As a hobbyist you can decide to show up and train whenever you want, as a professional, you will have a STRICT schedule to abide by which will includes missing out on events with your family and friends.

I've heard stories of how some male athletes have missed the birth of their children because they had to be away with their team for an event.

Doing what you love at a professional level comes with a lot of sacrifices.

Why?

The challenge with passion is that most people don’t know if they have any. Those who do, were fortunate that their parents allowed their interests to flourish since childhood. 

And from a very early age, they got deeply interested in something that can be called their passion. 

It's an area where their natural talent was nourished. 

But those who don’t know their passion, will have to explore. That exploration would need money.

They will need to go out there, get their hands dirty and try stuff until they learn what interests  them to the extent of it being called a passion. 

Then they’ll need to hone their talents until they learn how to start making money from it. 

This is not to say that people who don't have money can’t go after their passion. They can and do all the time. But only because they know their passion. 

If you are unsure and still trying to figure out what your passion is, start making as much money as you can, as early as possible (LEGALLY) 

Passion is a luxury, money is a necessity

You need passion to make good money, you need good money to follow your passion

Most of us in the West have heard the phrase: “Do what you love.”

While there is some romanticism to it, the reality of life is that trying to build wealth by doing what you love is often a fool’s task.

Why is that?

This is mostly because “do what you love” is selfish, and to build wealth you instead have to add value to other people’s lives.

Listen, people don't care about what you love.

Why should they?

They care about what is important to them, and to get rich, you have to focus on helping others, not yourself.

Add Value

The simple truth is that to make money, you have to add value to the world.

And by value, I mean to others, not to yourself.

Get over it, your opinion doesn’t matter.

You may think that your ideas are worth millions, but that is irrelevant. 

What matters is what other people think about your ideas and are willing to pay for them.

There is a reason that some jobs pay more money than others - they add more value to society by the measure of what society is willing to pay for it.

It's a simple as that. 

You have to add value to others, then the money will come.

What typically pays the most are the things no one else wants to do because they are hard. 

This includes engineering, healthcare, and coding, but also includes jobs without degree requirements like welders, offshore rig workers, and entrepreneurs.

Few want to do these things, so they are happy to pay others to do it for them.

That is why adding value is what makes money.

If what you love to do doesn’t have an economic benefit, then you will have to find a passion for helping others that does - if you want to make money.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have hobbies that you love that don’t make money. Everyone should. 

What you will get paid to do is to add value to people’s lives, especially by doing the hard things they don’t want to do.

That is why “dirty jobs” often pay so well.

The bottom line is that if you want to be successful, you have to put other people before yourself.

Otherwise, you will always be chasing a dream of sitting on the beach, “doing what you love”.

Final thoughts

Passion is not a tool, it is a reason for living. If you have any passion and you are following and making good from, then I must say you are living your life to the fullest. 

Only a few people have the courage and skills to follow their passion and earn money from it.

Now the answer to your question is, money and passions both are important for a balanced life. 

If you are earning a lot of money, but you don’t have a passion or reason to spend that money, then you are just living like a dead person.

On the other hand, if you only have a passion to do something and don’t have money, then you are just wasting your time and energy just for the sake of ‘following passion’

But if your passion makes decent or huge money for you, then I must say that you are living a dream life which is a still dream of 90% of the people.

So don’t stop following your passion and try to figure out how you can earn money from your passion.

If you want to get rich of your passion, make sure your passion is marketable and it's in an industry that people are willing to pay well for it. 

Then you have to be real with yourself as yourself if you ARE or you CAN eventually BECOME good enough for people to be willing to pay you for said passion. 

Some people discover their passions very early in life and some discover it much later, don't put too much pressure on yourself if it's something you have yet to discover.

If you do not know what your passion is, get yourself into high paying field of work as early as you possibly can and give yourself time to discover what you have a passion in. 

You can't sit around for your passion appear with a hungry stomach. 

- Till next