Following Your Passion is Dumb

There’s this notion that people have echo’d forever that the best advice they can give you is “follow your passion” and this is something I strongly disagree with

I’m passionate about tennis, could I have built a business around this in 2019/2020 when I was starting off? Sure

Would it have made any money? Absolutely not.

I didn’t have any skills - and I wouldn’t have known what angle to take, and it wasn’t really a starving market

see when you’re starting off, you’re most likely getting into business for a reason

whether it is:

• to quit your job

• to drop out of school

• or for freedom

and if those are your goals, then you should take the vehicle that’s going to get you to those goals as quickly and predictably as possible, and most likely that’s not your passion

in 2021 I realized there was a starving market for a better solution to hire sales people, so I built Closify and made my first million from that company

was I passionate about a sales hiring platform? Not at all

In fact, that even ended up being part of the reason for exiting that company, it began to feel like a job just because I didn’t enjoy it any longer even though I didn’t work all that much

but my point is - you have to EARN the right to follow your passion, but it likely shouldn’t be your first business

now, if I wanted to start some form of tennis business, I’m confident I could make it work because I’ve accumulated a lot of skills, a network, a following, etc.

But it also wouldn’t have to be a giant business, because now I’m at a point where if it just made me another $10,000/mo and I enjoyed it that’d be a win for me

where in past companies I needed them to make much more for the return on my effort to be worth it

so if you’re starting off right now - put your passion to the side, and focus on what’s going to give you the freedom to chase your passions

and I’m telling you right now…. I’d REALLY be studying up on AI right now, we’re not far from the world of those using AI and those that will be replaced

you won’t be replaced by AI, you’ll be replaced by people using AI

also this is my 110th week in a row of writing a newsletter to this list, so if you’re still reading these, I appreciate you

Happy Thursday

Alex