Throughout our lives we have been given some terrible advises, which sounds pleasant and satisfying to us.Not only some terrible advises but also movies,books,biographies have always been telling us
"Follow Your passion".
The importance of persistence, and the value of encouragement can be understood, but who tells a stranger to never give up on their dreams, without even knowing what it is they’re dreaming? How can anyone possibly know where your passion will lead you?
Have these people never seen Indian Idol?
Year after year, thousands of aspiring Indians Idols show up with great expectations, only to learn that they don’t possess the skills they thought they did.
What’s really amazing though, is not their lack of talent—the world is full of people who can’t sing. It’s their genuine shock at being rejected—the incredible realisation that their passion and their ability had nothing to do with each other.
Look, if we’re talking about your hobby, by all means let your passion lead you.
But when it comes to making a living, it’s easy to forget the dirty truth: just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it.
And just because you’ve earned a degree in your chosen field, doesn't mean you’re gonna find your “dream job.”
Dream Jobs are usually just that—dreams.
Because here’s another Dirty Truth: your happiness on the job has very little to do with the work itself.I remember a very successful tuition teacher in my school days, who told me the secret to his success:
“I looked around to see where I have an opportunity ,” he said, “And then I went that way. Then I got good at my work. Then I began to prosper. And then one day, I realized I was passionate about teaching .”I’ve heard that same basic story from welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, hundreds of other skilled tradesmen who followed opportunity—not passion—and prospered as a result.
Consider the reality of the current job market.
Right now, millions of people with degrees and diplomas are out there competing for a relatively narrow set of opportunities that polite society calls “good careers.” Meanwhile, employers are struggling to fill nearly 5.8 million jobs that nobody’s trained to do. This is the skills gap, it’s real, and its cause is actually very simple: when people follow their passion, they miss out on all kinds of opportunities they didn’t even know existed.
Once I was talking to an employee in a multi national company who wanted to be an entrepreneur during his college days .
He said he wanted to follow Baba Ramdev,
a person who is skilled at his work who identified the market and its problem at the correct time and opposed all skills to pursue his business and is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of India.
Entrepreneurship was his passion, and he followed it for years during and after his college. He took all knowledge from google, went to hundreds of investors pitching his product,his idea.
He did all he could to absorb the knowledge and skill that came so easily to any Non-Engineering with good financial backups entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, he struggled mightily to overcome his deficiencies .But he couldn't.
He was one of those contestants on Indian idol who believed his passion was enough to ensure his success.One day, he thought he could still reach where he want, unlike the common trend of employees shifting from corporate to startups he shifted from a startup to a multinational corporation , He worked hard,and soon lead the marketing team finding marketing as his passion .This felt contrary to everything he believed since years about the importance of "passion" and persistence and "staying the course".
But of course, he was right. Because “staying the course” only makes sense if you’re headed in a sensible direction.
And while passion is way too important to be without, it is way too fickle to follow around.
Passion =/= Ability
Which brings us to the final Dirty Truth.
“Never follow your passion, but
always bring it with you.”
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