Should you follow your passion or follow the money?
I’ve tried both.
And I say the answer is NEITHER.
When you follow the money, you’re only half-heartedly invested in your work, which means you will likely fail at it, and do so unhappily.
When you follow your passion and “do what you love,” you radically limit your impact because you’ve defined your work by your own feelings and wants instead of the feelings and wants of your audience.
It means you’ve chosen work that makes you feel good instead of work that stretches and breaks you to the next level the way a worthy mission should.
The work devolves into a self-indulgence masquerading as a mission.
Don’t do what you love. DO WHAT YOU FEAR.
Do what brings tremendous value to the audience you’ve chosen to serve.
When we follow our fear, out of love for an audience and a mission worthy of us, we do things that may feel “not us” for the sake of others. We become someone else, someone new, even someone “alien” to us, because that is the path that will best serve our purpose.
It’s not easy. It’s not safe. And it doesn’t always “feel good.”
But it’s where the magic happens.
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Bryan Ward is the founder of Third Way Man and author of the LIT Black Paper
Wow! That is good advice & I believe true, too. I was a caregiver for the elderly for about 2+years and I did it and learned how much I really could help another person and I learned that it is so valuable to give of myself sacrificially for other people who have basic needs to be met and helped to be met by another person. Thank you for your article:) I have since gotten out of working but I think after reading this and God reminding me of the great value and return with this type of work I will do it again. Maybe soon! Thank you.
Well spoken, Bryan. Thank you.
That was uncomfortable to read, which means the message hit home. Thanks so much for posting this.
For the overwhelming majority of my life I’ve allowed fear to rule my life. Oh sure on occasion a glimpse of courage would appear and I would allow myself to dare. Momentarily I would believe that I could become “XX” but then just as things became a little scary I would allow fear to take over. I would drop out of college classes. I would stop going to work or even worse take jobs out of desperation.
Enough. I’m 51 and I can no longer keep running from myself. Instead I am going to seek out fear. I’m going after the scary stuff because that is where true desire,love,joy and life exists.
this spoke to me in a way that I was needing so desparately to be spoken to. thank you Universe