A common piece of advice that I hear frequently for people wanting to start their own business is to “follow your passion”.
This piece of advice has become popular for several reasons.
First of all, people want to believe that running their own business will not only be highly profitable, but also fun.
Secondly, when doing something for a long period of time, it makes it much easier and sustainable if the process is enjoyable.
However, to understand why this can be dangerous advice, we should first look at the definition of passion.
According to dictionary.com, passion is defined as follows:
“any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate”
The problem with passion is that “passion” is an emotion. And emotions eventually fade. Emotions are temporary, but businesses require ongoing execution to survive.
Running a business requires perspective and sustainability. And truth be told, while some parts of running a business are enjoyable, there are probably other aspects you may not enjoy.
So why else is “following your passion” not the best advice for business and what should we do instead?
1. Place the Needs of Others in Front of Your Own
Ultimately, building a profitable business is not about you. It’s about servicing the needs of your customers or solving someone else’s problems.
Are there people who “followed their passion” and launched successful businesses?
Absolutely! And if you can do that, then great.
But if you haven’t taken the time to research and evaluate the need of your product or service with the market, then you’re taking a big risk.
Your customers decide if your business will succeed by voting with their wallets.
So while we can pursue our passion, it would probably be in our best interest to evaluate the needs of other first.
2. Choose Sustainable Interest over Passion
Passions can change over time. After doing anything for a period of time, people will naturally become bored and want to try something else.
However, consistency is required to successfully run a business.
In the Philadelphia area, for example, some of the top salsa instructors that became well known for their teaching skills eventually hired other people to teach. A friend of mine who use to teach dance got tired of it and decided to quit after successfully running his own studio for many years and pursue other interests.
That’s why relying on passion is dangerous for business. Instead choose to focus on an interest that is sustainable over time.
3. Fall in Love with Boredom
Finally, running a successful business requires systems, processes and repetition. While passion may cause a person to start a business, successful business owners quickly realize that a good amount of the execution involves repetitive and systematic execution.
Finding out what works, scaling it and repeating it is the key to success.
Less successful entrepreneurs are constantly chasing the next “shiny object”. If you want to be successful in business, you might be better off “falling in love with boredom” rather than constantly “pursuing passion”.
Create systems and processes that work and repeat them.
The Ideal Solution
The reason that following your passion is such popular advice is because if you are going to do something long term, then it should ideally be something you enjoy.
However, in reality, not all the things that you will need to do in business are enjoyable. For many people, the list of tasks include accounting, sales, marketing and administrative work.
Nevertheless, doing tasks you don’t enjoy will drain you of energy. So here’s the ideal solution to starting your own business.
1. List out business ideas that have a proven need. Then find one that aligns with your interests
Evaluating the market for your product or services is more important than following your passion.
However, at the same time, creating a business where you can pursue your own interests is important as well. Doing tasks that aren’t interesting can drain you of energy and motivation over the long term.
List out business ideas that are likely to serve the needs of others. Then pick one that aligns with your own strengths and interests.
2. Outsource or automate tasks you don’t enjoy
Your business will always require some tasks that you don’t enjoy doing. When you start out, you may be willing to do everything yourself, but eventually doing tasks that you don’t enjoy will drain you of energy and lower the overall productivity of your business.
Therefore, as soon as possible, you should outsource or automate tasks that you don’t enjoy. Any task can be automated with people or computers, although some higher level tasks will be more difficult.
Find other people that enjoy doing these tasks and have them work on them so that you can focus on the tasks that you are good at.
3. Consider partnering with someone that complements your skill set
A lot of entrepreneurs are afraid of partnerships, but having a business partner can have many benefits, particularly if you partner with someone that has a skill set that you lack.
For example, one of the most well known partnerships is Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft. Paul Allen was more known for being the idea person, while Bill Gates was the action taker.
What tasks need to be done for your business to succeed? For many people, sales and marketing are tasks that are not enjoyable but still need to be done. So partnering with someone that focus on sales and marketing might be a good idea so that you can focus on operations.
So what do you think? How important is “passion” in business?
About Brian Liang
Hey Brian,
This is a great way of looking at it. I never thought about passion fading away, but it is true. I actually teach salsa from time to time, and I ask myself how do people teach the same thing over and over again every week. You definitely have to fall in love with being bored LOL, or at least figure out a way to change it up.
But yes, growing a business require other aspects as well. You may be passionate about salsa dancing at a studio, but there’s also marketing, sales, accounting, etc.. Most people don’t think about this, but this is the reason why the majority of businesses fail within a short amount of time.
Thanks for sharing Brian and I hope you have a great week ahead!
I found your post on kingged.com under Business/Finance
http://kingged.com/why-following-your-passion-is-bad-advice-for-starting-a-business/
Hi Sherman. That’s one of the things that deterred me from teaching salsa myself. I think you would really have to enjoy people, although even then, it could get repetitive. But I think the people that are truly successful in business are passionate about learning about business itself.
Brian,
You made some excellent points here and offered sound advice on finding a business that fulfills a need to achieve sustainability, creating systems and processes that can improve results through repetition, and finding partners who complement your skill set (whether they are business partners or outsourcing partners that can do better at certain tasks to increase ROI.)
However, I do have to say that I take exception to the statement “fall in love with boredom.” While systems and processes can be seen as repetitive and boring, that isn’t something you should fall in love with. No matter what you do, when you do it over and over it will get boring. You can ride a rollercoaster too much, you can eat your favorite food too much, that rings true for everything.
Systems and processes is what my company specializes in, so I’m in full agreement that systems and processes are essential to running a profitable and sustainable business. However, processes can be done too much and need to be updated and innovated as often as possible. If you take the time to invest in innovation, your job will never get boring! Of course there will definitely be things that you don’t like to do as much as others, but that is what outsourcing is for, right?
Great article, I look forward to reading more from you!
Sincerely,
Andrea
Thanks, Andrea. “Fall in love with boredom” is part of a business quote (perhaps I should have located an inserted the whole quote). But the point is that repetition and systems are often what propel a business forward and the people that succeed in business ultimate are able to focus on that, rather than entertaining themselves.
Systems and processes might seem like the boring side of business that doesn’t get talked about as much in the media, but knowing exactly what to do and working on it regularly can sometimes take the stress away and many people might actually prefer being in that stage rather than the earlier stages where you are excited about the business, but not sure about the exact steps to take.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Brian.
Interesting article, because it goes against my own thoughts and the advice I dish out to my clients and visitors. But nevertheless, you make some great points.
However, at the START, I would still advise somebody to go into something that relates to something they are passionate about or have an interest in.
For me, my first business was mobile phones and selling them on eBay. I did it for 12 years, and in that time released 4 courses on creating a successful business on ebya. I don’t have a business on eBay anymore – I got bored of the processes – taking orders, packaging and dispatching. Yes, I fell out of love with it.
That being said, it was a highly enjoyable 12 years, i made a lot of money, I learnt a hell of a lot and it has spun new businesses (like the course, and then my blog etc).
I wonder – if I had not followed my passion at the start (buying/selling/fixing mobile phones on eBay) ((tech is a passion of mine)) would I be in the position I am in now? Let’s say, I went into something different – let’s say a business of creating greetings cards/scrapbooks for people. I don’t think it will have lasted Brian and I wouldn’t be here right now, because I have no interest in it. Where mobile phones, I had a massive interest in.
Yes passion can fade, but that passion can grow into other areas (where I am now), so I still think at the start, people should create a business around what the are interest in/ passionate about.
Thanks for a thought provoking article!
Thanks Richard. I actually started on Ebay too, except I ended up selling fragrance oils, which I knew nothing about at the time. In fact, most of the things I’ve sold through the years were things I didn’t really know much about but I guess in my case, my interest was in the game of seeing if I could build a successful business out of it. I would say that ideally that there would have to be some interest or driving force, but interestingly enough it’s not always with the product or service itself.
Hi, Brian,
You’ve definitely made some excellent points here.
I don’t necessarily think someone has to do what they’re passionate about in business, nor do I think someone should do something they hate just to make money.
Yes, I think the key is to do something they’re reasonably interested in that does well for them and from there they can decide what they want…
So identifying your core gifts and special strengths, can definitely start with that and begin with a good hand. 🙂
Thanks for this thought-provoking article – sharing with friends.
˜Carol Amato
Thanks Carol! I think that’s a great way to put it. Figuring out what you want long term and aligning your strengths with it is the way to go.
There are also things in business that we may not enjoy doing, but we have to figure out how to get those things done as well.
Hi Brian,
Just landed here from your guest post at madlemming. I guess you are utterly right about the title of this post and I agree with you. Sometimes we need to follow success people advice rather than our passion.
Thanks
Thanks for stopping by and commenting, Samir! I’ve found that there are some things in business that are not enjoyable, but necessary. So it’s important to make sure that we get those things done.
Great article!
Well following a passion is going to take lot out of us but the last it is we are only responsible for loss and what we gain.So it is important to take the right decision on right time and moving ahead is also important.All we can say understanding the passion of ours and how we can get it is valuable.Thanks a lot for sharing!
Welcome, Mayur! Thanks for stopping by!