Why "Following Your Dreams" is Keeping You Poor

Following your passion keeps people poor, or at least poorer than they ought to be. And maybe you feel lost right now. I get it. I've been there. I was dead broke in my early 20s and I read all the self help books I could get my hands on and a lot of them said, follow your passion. And ironically, that didn't help me. Then I started changing what I did and my life changed as a result. So problem number one with follow your passion, it gets cause and effect backwards. So often we become passionate about things after we get good at them, not before. You will hear people say, follow your passion. You'll hear really smart people, very successful people say that and think about why they might say that. They're like, well, let me look at myself. I'm passionate about what I do, so just do what I do. Be passionate. But the thing is, is it's just like saying, hey, if you want to be rich, fly private. Or if you want to be tall, go play basketball. It doesn't work that way. You get rich and then as a result of being rich, you can fly private. It's not that flying private's the reason that you're rich, right? So you will do the work to become passionate. Not that being passionate is necessarily the thing. Now here's the thing. Some people are like, well, some people just naturally have a passion. No, they found the thing earlier. They had their chance experience when they were in their early toddler years, or they're 5, 6, 7, they start painting and it's like, oh, God. So they follow the same process. They had some sort of chance encounter. They start doing a little bit of deliberate practice. All of a sudden they realize there's value in their skill. Their parents, their friends are like, oh, you're good at drawing. Oh, you must really like this. And then boom, all of a sudden, deeper passion emerges. They start identifying as it, and then boom. Competence, skill, and then passion. And so I say this to say that some of you, myself included, like, never really had something that just magically occurred. You have to start stuff that you're not necessarily as good at and have broader exposure to the allowed chance to take root. Number two, it's too vague and assumes everyone has a clear passion. And many people have no idea, right? So it's hard to say that you like X more than Y. You might like both, right? And so it's very hard to quantify. It makes it hard to decide. And so how good you are at something is a little bit easier to make an a B decision on, right? So If I said, you know, do you like pizza more than you like tacos? You would be like, I don't know. Like, I kind of like both of them, right? But if I said, are you better at English than you are at math? It's probably easier for you to make a call there, right? And so preferences versus skills are easier to determine a decision path, which then gives you clarity on what next steps to take. So give an example. So Bill Gates tried a bunch of different things. So he tried law, he tried mathematics, he tried programming before he found his direction. And he wasn't following a clear passion, but he was exploring his abilities and opportunities. And I'll give you a personal example. Back in the day, before I started business, I was like, well, I kind of like froyo. And I learned a little bit about that. I was like, I like fitness, and I like test prep. And so I kind of had these different skill sets and these different domains, but I was only able to have clarity once I started and then took action on it because then the feedback loop begins. And so the objective of developing passion is to get a feedback loop started. So, three, liking something doesn't make you good at it. All right? So think of it like this. Being passionate doesn't even guarantee that you have the skills for it. And sometimes it's better to have a career and enjoy your passions in your free time. My dad used to tell me, well, if I did what I was passionate about, I'd be a bartender at a ski slope. And I mean, he used to say it in Jesper, like, the point rang clear to me. He was like, listen, there's things that you do to provide for your family. There's things that you do to provide for yourself, build a future, have security, and there's things that you do with your free time. Now, some people are like, those things can be one in the same. But I'll tell you what, my dad loves what he does. And I'll tell you that he didn't start it because he loved it. He started because he wanted to be a productive member of society. Maybe it's a little bit that immigrant in me, but, like, you know, the rest of the world isn't so comfortable that they're sitting in sunshine and rainbows. But here's the crazy part. Many of them are more fulfilled than we are because they don't see anything wrong with doing the work. Doing the work is seen as a very like. It's seen as a dutiful responsibility. It seems a good thing. Guy provides for his family. Nothing wrong with that. So I'll give you a little. A little example here. So Warren Buffett follows a philosophy that he calls the circle of competence, all right? Which is focusing not on what excites you, but on what you understand best. And his passion follows his competence, not the other way around. So, for example, me personally, all the gym owners I know love fitness, but many of them were very broke. And so they said, hey, I should start a business around fitness because I'm passionate about it. And then made no money because they had to realize, oh, wait, I don't know anything about business. And so it's like being understanding. Fitness is like 5% of the fitness business. It's just kind of like, oh, I like cooking, I should start a restaurant. It's like, well, it's about 5%. And what's crazy is the thing that you're actually passionate about cooking or doing fitness has almost nothing to do with monetizing that skill. Real. So here's the fourth reason. I think it's bad advice. Follow your passion. Skips the hard work part. So getting really good at something means practicing the boring or the hard parts too, right? So, for example, I actually really like playing ping pong, something that I enjoy. So I decided I was like, oh, I'm going to look into what it would take to get better at ping pong, because I do like it and I play it a lot when I can. And I started watching what some of the teams do, and they're like, all right, 500 forehands, 500 backhands in a row. And I was like, oh, yeah, I don't want to do this. And so I may be passionate about it, but I don't want to do the work that is required to go from passionate to, like, world class or state level or whatever. Right. All of the research on deliberate practice shows that it's not an enjoyable process. I want to say this again. All the research on deliberate practice, which is required for competence, and competence is certainly required for making money in whatever career you want, is that it is not an enjoyable process. This is what the research showed. All right? I was actually kind of blown away by that. And so when you're repeating the same sales script over and over again, it's not that fun. Right? It's very tedious. Or you do the same basketball shot over and over again. Right. Or, you know, you do the same presentation, the same speech, you do it over and over and over again. So it's not novel. It's just focused on Tiny iterations on feedback loops. It's just sanding off the edges over and over and over again. And once all of the first level of roughness is faded off, you take a lower grade sandpaper and then all of a sudden you do it another level of smoothness. Like you just, you approach it in levels of feedback. I mean, one of my favorite quotes from myself is the real work begins when the excitement to work ends. A lot of skill development is like running a marathon where you have a couple people might cheer you on the beginning for making a decision to start. And then for 26.1 miles, basically no one cares. You're running and you're like, wow, this is really long. And then you're like, oh my God, I have to do four more of these one fifths, right? And you're like, holy God, this is. Or five more of these one fifths tough. And then at the very end, right, as you're about to accomplish, people just see you sprint the last bit and they're like, oh, congratulations. But you're like, it's the mundane middle. You have to master the middle. That's where all the, that's where all the gains come in. So I'll share a rule that has worked very well for me for developing skills. And so this is the hundred million dollar leads book, step four of Outbound. I talked about this, which is reach out to them 100. 100 per day, right? And so I call this the rule of 100. I talk about it at length a little further in the book. But like when I did my book launch actually for this book two years ago, I practiced the presentation that I did 90 times before I actually did it live. Right now the rule of 100 is about doing 100 per day, right? So it's hard for me to do the entire operation 100 times a day. Cause there's literally not that much that many hours. But I did it three full times per day. It was a 90 minute presentation. So about four and a half hours of deliberate practice per day. And I would watch the recording and then I would tweak the presentation where I stumbled or where I felt like I needed a better visual, where, whatever. And I did that every single day. And so the idea is that it just requires significantly more work and it's also not going to be fun. And the more practice you have at practicing, the better you get at it. Because I know that practice precedes excellence. And so the more times you start practicing and realizing that that practice leads to winning, you start to get excited to practice. Not for the practice itself, but because what practice means to you. Because you know what comes after practice, which is winning. Here's the fifth reason that I think follow your passion is terrible advice. It also sets false expectations. So it makes you feel like work should always be fun and exciting, and it isn't. An early mentor of mine told me, and I will never forget this, he said, never try to make money out of something you love, he said, because then you'll just ruin it and turn it into work. And it was so interesting. Cause he was a very successful guy. And of course you're gonna have people on both sides of this. And again, I wanna be clear. I think that you want to do things you enjoy. I just think that it takes time of not enjoying it to get to the part where you enjoy it. Because it takes time to get good. And so for anybody who's going to, like, try and blow me up on this, by all means do it. We're all going to die. No one's going to remember us. But, like, the point is, you have to develop passion rather than follow it. You have to create it. And so I'll give you a different example. Many Hollywood actors realize that it sucks. And that many acting careers involve more waiting, rejection, and business administration than actually creative fulfillment. And so Jeff Bezos talks about this where he says, everything is overhead. And so there's like, you might have. You basically have like maybe 10% or 20% or 30% of your day. Like, if you have 30% of your day that you love, I feel like you're winning at life, right? Because the other 70% is stuff that is required in order to get that 30%. Because the thing is, let's look at the alternative. You could just do nothing, right? And I think that if you do nothing or you hate everything you do, that there's probably a middle path. And I'll also say something that I think most people will disagree with, but I'll just shoot. I'm gonna shoot my shot. I think that the way that you approach the work you do can fundamentally change the work itself. And so there's this great. I think it's a parable or analogy, maybe it's a story, but basically of this man who basically swept floors for like 35 years. And he just did an amazing job. It's a Japanese story. And the way that he approached this and was like, how are you? Like, there's no way that this is fun or interesting. And he ends up saying, like, I imagine that they're paying me a million dollars every single day to sweep the floors. And so I think, how would I sweep them if they paid me a million dollars every day to sweep? And so it changed his entire perception of how to approach the work. And if the work that you do. Um, I saw this. This. This little post that went viral the other day of a waiter that had a tip that said, do better, right? So instead of having money there, it said basically $0. And the person said, do better. And he said, normally, you know, I could, you know, take this and be, like, really offended or say these people sucked. But he decided to take it to heart. And so the next day, he showed up to work and was like, I'm just gonna try and be the best. He's like, I'm gonna try to remember everyone's names. I'm gonna try and smile and be charismatic. He's like. And the craziest thing happened. All of a sudden, people were telling me I was so nice, and they started giving me bigger tips and they started talking to me about other opportunities. And the thing is, is that he was still doing the same job, but he was. The way he approached it was different. And so, like, would you say that you're. Was he. Did he become passionate about his work, or did he just decide to see the larger picture, that the work we do works on us more than we work on it? And. And so that leads me naturally to the sixth reason that I think follow your passion is terrible advice. It also just ignores money realities, right? Just cause you love something doesn't mean you can make enough money doing it. So just look at American Idol tryouts, right? Ain't nobody trying to see them sing, right? Even though those people love it. And so I remember, for me, early in my career, I wasn't driven really by a specific passion. I just didn't really want to be broke anymore. Like, as terrible as this sounds, like people used to ask me, like, what's the mission of gym launch? The mission of gym Launch, when I started gym launch, was Alex not being broke. That was the mission of gym launch. Now here's the thing. As I developed the business, it did become to take an industry from its knees to its feet. But at the moment when I started gym launch, I just lost everything for the second time. And I was like, I. I am not doing this again. It's like, this has to work, right? And so I. I say this, that, like, a lot of people have a lot of romanticism, but it's just not based in Reality. And people doctor their memories, they look back and it feels different than when you're going through it. And I'll give you a simple example of this. When you look back on some of the hardest things you've gone through, you probably have a sense of pride for having gotten through them, but you're proud in retrospect. And so if someone says, hey, you know, what's it like? It's like, oh, you know what, you just gotta enjoy the moment, you gotta revel in it. It's like you're not reveling in it. It sucks. But you keep going, you persist because of what you know, it's building inside of you, the skill sets, so that you can persevere at a higher level. So I'll give you, I'll give you a business example, all right? So there's a very harsh reality of supply and demand, all right? And so if your passion is something that a lot of people like to do, there's probably a lot of people wanting to do it. And so that means there's a lot of supply. And so it's going to be super, super competitive. Think acting, think singing, think painting. And so it might not be the most realistic path for making money. And like one of my early mentors said, it's like, well, what stops you from just painting when you want to paint and then making money when you want to make money? Seventh reason, I think that follow your advice is follow your advice. Follow your advice is bad advice is bad passion. Follow your passion is bad advice. All right? Is that it misses often more important life things. All right? So good work needs decent pay, good co workers, good recognition, security and purpose, all right? And so the environment you work in will absolutely affect how much you like it and how long you can endure it. All right, so this is a quote from my good friend Sharon Srivadza. In my 20s, I thought it was about the destination. In my 30s, I thought it was about the journey. And in my 40s, I realized it's about the company. And I thought that was so profound. It's like in the beginning you're just, you're always like, how do I get there? How do I get there? How do I get there? And then a little later you're like, you know what? It's about enjoying the process. But then later you're like, well, how do I enjoy the process? Well, if I've got the people I like around me, it makes almost any process enjoyable. And so there's other components that factor into the overall soup of what you want to do in your life and what you actually spend your time on. And so I'll give you two examples. So imagine you've got one career where you do what you like, but it's terrible work environments. You hate all the people. You actually don't like the thing you're producing, but you like the work that you do, but not what the outcome is. Right? So it's removing purpose, and it doesn't allow you to do some of the other things that you enjoy. Well, that would probably be pretty painful on the flip side, if you had a job where you're like, okay, I don't like this component of my job, but I like literally everything else. Well, you'd probably have a more filling life that way. Now, I will zoom out for a moment. If we want to break the world for a second, you don't need to have a fulfilling life. Who made that demand of the universe anyways? So I'll give you. Some people are like, well, life should be. Life should be fulfilling. I should. Life should make me happy. Right? You just demand of the universe. And by doing that, by the way, you create space between you and the outcome, which means you'll never achieve it anyways. So, 8th reason why follow your passion is terrible advice is that it doesn't allow flexibility in a changing world. This is a big one, all right? And a changing you. So think about, like this. What did you like when you were 12? Probably different things than you like when you're 22, which I can promise you, is different than things that you like at 32 and probably different than things that you like at 52. And so the thing is, is that the world cares also about different things 20 years later. And so you are going to change, and the world is going to change about what you like and about what it likes. And so if you say, follow your passion, what if you change or the world change as that's happening? And so being obsessed with your one thing doesn't give you the flexibility to evolve. And so, for example, what if you were really passionate about making MySpace pages? That was something you're really passionate about. Well, the world moved on. And so, like, either you're going to move on or the world moves on. And if you always obsess about that one thing, then it's like, that might change. And if you. If you burn all these boats around this one passion, it assumes that it will be there forever. And that's not really reality. And here's the ninth reason that I think follow Your passion is terrible advice. It's self focused rather than others focused. And there's tons of research that says that people who focus on others are the happiest. If that's your goal, you might not want to be the happiest. So fine. And so we tend to look back and are proud of the hard things that we overcame, especially in service of other people or a larger mission. So for me, I would make real business education accessible for everyone. And the thing is, is that I don't always want to record content. I don't always want to think about what we're going to talk about today or what, you know, what we're going to put out. But the service of that mission is very valuable for me. And there's a different body of research. I can't tell you where it is. So you can choose to believe it or not, but that people can actually endure a significantly larger amount of pain for other people. So hear me out. So if you got hooked up to an electric shock machine and they said, cool, we're just going to turn this up and just tell us when to stop. People stop. But if you tell the person that their loved one is in the other room and that every shock that you take, they don't have to take, people's tolerance for pain goes up like tenfold. And so to me, I see that as an allegory for how we can choose to live our lives. So that person who's experiencing the pain for, let's say, their loved one, their wife, their spouse, their daughter, their son, do you think that in that moment when they're, when they feel like they're shielding the storm from the people they love, that they don't feel like they have purpose, but objectively they're suffering. See how there's layers to this? And so the idea is, I think that saying follow your passion is very self interested. It actually doesn't allow you to plug into a much stronger motivation or fuel. And so I would prefer follow your purpose. It's called the martyrdom effect. But basically you can handle way more pain in the service of others, which is wild. But the thing is, if you're like, man, I'm struggling to get motivated, it's because you're trying to get motivated for you rather than get motivated for other people. And I know that sounds a little foo foo, but at the end of the day, like the research is the research, right? Like we are built this way, we're social creatures and it would make sense that people get applauded for Sheltering and protecting and serving the community. And I think that that's so woven into our culture or most cultures that we're willing to do so much for it. I can tell you right now, I absolutely can take more pain for Layla than I can for man and just replace Layla with whatever that thing is that you love. And so I want to tell you this story because I think it's a parable that really resonates deeply with me. And it's similar to that Japanese man who sweeps the floors, which is a traveler came upon three stonecutters working at a quarry. And so he asked them what they were doing. The first stonecutter replies, I'm cutting stone. I'm exhausted. It's backbreaking work. I'm miserable. This. He goes to the second stonecutter, he says, you know, what are you doing here? He says, I'm earning a living to support my family and, you know, cool. He goes to the third stonecutter and he says, what are you doing? The third stonecutter smiles and he says, I'm building a cathedral that's going to inspire people for generations, that my grandchildren and their grandchildren are going to be able to go to and worship our Lord. And the thing is, is that all three stonecutters, all three men are doing the same work, fundamentally having an entirely different experience of what that work means to them. And so that same work that you do that right now might feel terrible can be a job, that work can be a career, or that work can be a calling, simply depending on your own perspective. And so maybe just do what the world wants the that you're good at it, and then allow yourself the time to become passionate about it along the way as you get better. And so passion happens as a consequence, not a requirement. So if you're like, that's all well and good, Alex, but what do I do? Well, big operationalization fan. And so what do you do instead of following your passion? So here's a practical, action oriented framework that will invert that advice into positive steps that anyone can take. Number one, start with curiosity, not passion. So begin by exploring things that pique your interest, even mildly. All right. Just like Duckworth research showed, most successful people didn't start with a burning passion. They began with just simple curiosity that they were willing to investigate, they were willing to follow up. A different way of saying that is just something that you might be interested in, Right? The second is embrace the learning process. So commit to developing the skills and competence first, get good first. Recognize that mastery precedes passion. Getting good precedes enjoying it, not the other way around. And set skill specific building goals rather than kind of waiting for motivation to strike. Because I promise you, you're going to wait for a long time. Number three, value your existing ability. So assess what you're already good at and then consider building from there. Like Warren Buffett says, look at the circle of competence, right? Focus on the areas of natural advantages. Some things you naturally have done more early on in your life, just do more of those things. Four, commit to the deliberate process. Burn the boats. And I define commitment as the elimination of alternatives. Meaning accept that meaningful progress requires hard work and fundamentals. Might not feel exciting, right? Like Olympic athletes do. So many repetitive drills. Like Phelps used to talk about eight hours of swimming. Can you imagine that? Just lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap. It's just so many repetitions. And just understand the excellence requires practice and the boring parts are included. Five, set realistic expectations. So recognize that all work involves tedious aspects, stuff that sucks, right? So instead of expecting constant enjoyment, aim for overall satisfaction and meaning. And just remember that even dream jobs like Basis said have administrative tasks, challenges. They have overhead, right? They have stuff that sucks. It's just part of life. Six, take the reality of money seriously, right? Like, money will not bring you happiness, but it can help you avoid pain. Now, I also have a little bit of a nuggie on this, which is that people do get happier up to a certain amount of money, and then it stops. Alex's theory on this. Spending money is a skill. Most people can only learn how to spend money up to here and then they don't learn how to spend it effectively. I believe that money can continue to make you happier as you develop the skill of spending in a way that gets you better returns on it, on intangible returns rather than tangible returns. So if you have the. If you have to pick between two different things, follow the path that might have higher income earning. If you're about even on both, follow the money. Next, prioritize other environmental factors. All right? So if you want to change your life, change your environment. I've said this a hundred times, but if you want. If you're like, I'm really getting. I'm struggling to do, to do this, you know, to find this passion, go to a place where other people are passionate about it, all right? That environment in and of itself will create multiple feedback loops. Because all we're really looking for here is like, just be very real, is you just want to Find a feedback loop. That's all we're looking for. You just want to find a place where you can do something and get someone that says, that sucked. That was terrible. This is what you need to do better or different. And so finding a place where you have supportive colleagues or you've got supportive people who are all kind of in pursuit of the same thing, all trying to get better, that's the like, it will change your life. Next, allow your passions to evolve. So stay open to developing new interests throughout your life. You don't have to be stuck with one thing. If you change your mind, that's okay, right? Your four year old self will likely have different passions than your 20 year old self. They probably will find different people interesting at 40 as you do as 20, right? And the world will also change too. So having that flexibility is important. And so committing to this one passion forever, it's too heavy of a decision, I think. And so if you come into it, saying this might change will allow you to take the first step, because it's not. This has to be the perfect pick. I have to. This has to be the one thing forever. It's like it's too big, right? Just shrink it down, like, all right, well, I'm kind of interested in this for now. So start, right? And then finally connect your work to serving others. And I think this is arguably one of the biggest ones, just because there's so much research that supports it, is that you just want to find ways on how your work benefits other people. You look at, think about the Stonecutters, right? All three guys are doing the same work. One of them feels like so incredibly passionate about this because it's helping the world, it's helping his family out and he's getting paid while he does it. Like, and the crazy part is that all of them are doing the same work. And so I think the easiest way to become passionate about what you do is to choose to become passionate about what you do and find a reason that's larger than yourself to pursue it. And that passion and your ability to withstand the pain because the pain now has purpose behind it rather than it being meaningless. And if you want to see a real person taking their passion and then turning it into a, you know, a monetized business. I did this full breakdown of a girl who's really into fashion and stylist stuff. Don't worry, you don't have to be into that. But you can look at what she did to monetize what she enjoyed and what we did to help her grow the business.