We’ve all heard the old saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” But what comes first, the passion or the passionate effort?
For instance, professor Scott Galloway with the NYU Stern School of Business has often heard guest speakers at his business school tell young people to “follow their passion.” And he has a very pointed take on this advice.
“What utter bulls***,” Galloway said during an author lecture in 2019. “If someone tells you to follow your passion, it means they’re already rich.” Instead, Galloway encourages young people to find what they’re good at, apply the time and effort, and strive to become great at it.
It’s true that we’re often told to follow our passion when it comes to work and professional careers. Yet we are finding that passion not only can come later, but also be developed. Often, finding what you’re good at and passionate about takes time.
This recent article from Inc.com details that while passion can spark effort, effort can also spark passion, which often happens with entrepreneurs and other successful people. Two notable examples of this are Steve Jobs and Mark Cuban.
As the article notes, Jobs had other passions prior to starting Apple with his business partner Steve Wozniak, such as calligraphy and Eastern mysticism. It was only after a computer retailer purchased 50 fully assembled Apple I computers for $500 each that Jobs ultimately found his career path and created one of the world’s largest tech companies.
Similarly, Cuban advises against following your passion and has spoken about the importance of focusing on where you put your effort. He has given examples of other passions he’s had that didn’t pan out, such as pursuing athletic careers in baseball and basketball. His advice is to invest your time in things at which you excel.
“If you put in enough time, and you get really good, I will give you a little secret: Nobody quits anything they are good at, because it is fun to be good,” Cuban said. “It is fun to be one of the best. But in order to be one of the best, you have to put in effort. So don’t follow your passions. Follow your effort.”
Business experts like Cuban and professor Galloway are not alone in their assessments. In fact, scientific research backs them up. A 2014 study in the Academy of Management Journal, which investigated changes in passion as an outcome of effort, hypothesized that while many believe entrepreneurial passion drives entrepreneurial effort, the reverse can also be true. The study found that entrepreneurial passion does increase with effort.
For instance, when creating a startup business, the more time and effort that entrepreneurs invest, the more passionate and engaged they become in that business. Each success and business gain further drives that passion.
But this isn’t limited to entrepreneurs. Many folks become passionate about their work, even though they may be doing work that they didn’t initially set out to do. That is the essence of cultivating their passion with time and effort.
As success can breed success, effort can breed passion and vice versa. And experts like Galloway are quick to point this out.
“Once you’re great at something, the economic accouterments at being great at something, the prestige, the relevance, the camaraderie, the self-worth of being great will make you passionate about whatever ‘it’ is,” he said.
So put in the time to spark your passion – it can only pay off.