Should You Quit And Follow Your Passion?

Quitting everything and going after your dream is the subject of dozens of books.  As a business owner and industry leader many other business owners wanted to duplicate my success and would ask me how to do it.  

To be truthful, I have told many people that they had to find their own dream and pursue it.  They couldn’t be me, my dreams, mission and goals are mine and mine alone.  Many people have paid me for advice, and until now, I was overlooking two pieces of key information in the formula.

I have to give credit where credit is due, because I have been taking this for granted instead of making sure everyone understood these keys to success. Cal Newport in his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, pointed out something that was right there all along and I was glancing over it.  

There is a bit of irony here since I am taking a hosting and interviewing class right now from Marki Costello, and just about everyone in the class will glance right past the “bombshells” and go for the “safe” route.   This is exactly what happens in business.  As entrepreneurs we get caught up in our mission and forget to listen to the market.

Some time ago another entrepreneur friend told me “You have to keep a lot of irons in the fire, and go with the ones that get hot.”   At the time it didn’t make much sense, and it is still not advice I would give everyone, but Cal Newport puts it a better way that makes sense to me, and is worth passing on.

The First Key

The foundation of any endeavor that requires financial success as part of the grade has to first pass the test of the market.  Simply put, you must do something people will pay you for.  It doesn’t matter how good you are, if there isn’t a market need, and you can’t convince people that they have one, you can be the greatest, and still be broke.

Lets face it, money does matter.  In a way it should right?  Society rewards us with money for solving their problems, not ours.  When you solve your problems you relieve a little stress, when you solve societies problems you are rewarded with money and power.  That isn’t selling out, that is being real.

The Second Key

Cal Newport also points out that you might get lucky and find that your dream is also financially rewarding, but that is rarely the case.  When you explore the lives of people we call “successful” in both life and financial rewards, he noted that they did several different things, and went with one that worked and became the best at that "thing".

The two keys together provide and an interesting insight, that was sitting right in front of me.  I had been skipping right over it all along, and yet it is exactly why my residential technology business did well in California, and only average to boring in Texas.  The market wasn’t as willing to pay for the technology in Texas no matter how good I (an my company) was.  In California I had both the market and the skills, in Texas, it was mostly just idle skills.

Instead of looking at it as putting many irons in the fire at once, I think this is more like putting an iron in the fire, branding the cow, and seeing if anyone will buy the brand.  If not, get another iron and try again.  If they do, get really good at making that brand better. 

This is why truly successful people can have many successful ventures.  Richard Branson comes to mind here.  Once one Iron got hot and everyone liked the brand, he built it up and used that to buy the next iron.  While we all know the brands that stuck, records, airlines and cell phones, I am sure there are just as many or more that didn’t take and we never heard of.

Looking back over my successes and not so much successes, it is clear that success is much more a simple formula than I ever gave credit for.  Pilot? I got pretty good at it, and people pay for it. Both keys here.  Business developer and consultant? Yes people pay well for what I have learned and my knowledge in their business. Both keys here  Actor? people are starting to buy it, so I’ll probably do more, have a market that will pay, only have some skills and have a plan to improve them. Athlete?  Clearly a market, but I never got the skills to a salable level.  Musician? Ditto.  

At the end of the day, Cal Newport is right.  Trying to become a Rockstar just ended in misery, I was in love with the dream, not the product and process so I never attained the skill level needed for my brand to sell.   Practicing chords and notes made me nuts.   In business, flying and acting, for whatever reason I don’t have any problem pushing to new limits every time I go to work.  I like building the skills and thus obtained the second key.

If you have been chasing your passion and it feels like you are chasing your tail, Cal’s book might help you get on the right track.