Nick HutchisonFounder and CEO, BookThinkers

For what are you willing to suffer?

5 Jun 2023 · 1 min

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1:01

In a brief interview, Speaker A answers a question about how a person in their 20s who wants to leave engineering can find direction. He explains that the common phrase “follow your passion” is often misunderstood; the word “passion” originates from the Latin for suffering, as in the Passion of Christ. He reframes the question to ask, “What are you willing to suffer for?” suggesting that the activities you’re prepared to endure hardship for are the ones worth investing energy in, because that willingness predicts greater effort and success. He then advises aligning one’s personal ideology and worldview with the work or brand they choose, noting that congruence between how you see the world and how a brand or organization sees it increases the likelihood of a meaningful connection. He references his own writing on the topic, indicating that these ideas are elaborated in his book.

What advice would you have for someone that is trying to break out of the mold that they're in?
And, you know, they're in their, their 20s, and they see that they don't like that thing. They don't like the engineering, and they want to break out of it. What advice would you have for that person?
I like the idea of what are you passionate about? We often use that word passion without understanding its origins, etymology. So the word passion itself comes from the religious texts, and it means to suffer. Think about The Passion of the Christ. It's the suffering of the Christ. So we ask ourselves, Luke, to— for what are we willing to suffer? And those are the things that you should, in my mind, you should allocate your energy towards. You're likely willing to go the extra mile, and the willingness to do that will help increase likelihood that we'll be successful at it. And so I tell brands, I tell students to start with, what is your ideology? And I write about that pretty extensively in the book. We find where there's congruence between the way you see the world and the way I see the world. When things are aligned, we're more likely to connect.