"Follow your passion" never mentions supply and demand

[MaxBlume]

I followed this advice for years, became a good designer, and I'm currently working a warehouse job because that career didn't pan out. Looking around this forum, I see the same pattern in a lot of people, painting, music, ended up broke and anxious, now stuck in a job they hate just to survive.

Here's what I think we all missed: "follow your passion" assumes the market pays for what you love. It doesn't. It pays for what's scarce and needed.

Art and music are winner-take-most. Everyone wants to do them because they're fun and high-status, so supply floods the market and only a handful at the top get paid. Bricklaying for example is the opposite: nobody wants to do it, but buildings still need to get built, so the income curve is flatter and almost everyone doing it competently earns a living. I've never heard anyone say "I'm passionate about bricks" but they earn good money, can start a family, and have actual free time to enjoy life and do whatever else they care about

The deeper issue is that "passion" was never the right first question. Baked into the advice are a bunch of assumptions nobody examines:

• That you have one identifiable passion, instead of several mild interests or none
• That passion is discovered rather than built through competence over time
• That the economy will reward whatever you happen to love
• That fulfillment should outrank stability and what's actually needed
• That your passions at 22 are stable enough to build a career on

None of this means passion doesn't matter if you genuinely like one path more than another, take it. But that's a second-order question. The first one is supply and demand: what's scarce, what's needed, what can you get good at that people will pay for. Satisfaction can follow from mastery and usefulness. It doesn't have to come first.

Anyone else here hit this same wall?

[Stick]

BINGO
Follow your passion if you want to be a brokie whos good at ur passion.
Follow the money if you want to be rich

[MaxBlume]

@Stick I mean, it hurts to admit, but we want to be maximally truth-seeking. And I think many people have invested so much into it (sunk-cost fallacy) that they keep trying with no results

[Schizophonia]

One doesn't rule out the other.

[Ulax]

You'll like Cal Newport's So Good They Can't ignore you book

[MaxBlume]

@Schizophonia Order's the point, not either/or. Most people here start with "what do I like" instead of "what does the market need." Feels kind of selfish too, honestly, doing what you like instead of what's actually needed

[MaxBlume]

@Ulax Agree with the core idea. Only thing I'd add: market needs keep shifting, so it's not a one-time choice, you need to keep adapting to where the demand actually is

[Joseph Maynor]

It implies I don't have to change and I should be able to make a living being exactly as I am, this can be a problem.

[Joseph Maynor]

There are two variables for career life purpose IMO -- (1) Talent up to a standard where someone wants to give you money for what you have to offer + (2) Actually hanging a shingle aka marketing yourself effectively so you develop a following who wants to give you their money. 

Both of these are likely to need refinement.  So even if you are following your passion at the higher level, at the practical level you still have to satisfy requirements where you might be pushed way outside of your comfort-zone to satisfy for success.

[Majed]

@MaxBlume There are several ways to monetize your passion as an entrepreneur, learn about those .

[Joseph Maynor]

5 minutes ago, Majed said:

@MaxBlume There are several ways to monetize your passion as an entrepreneur, learn about those .

Actually doing it is the test though.  

[Majed]

@Joseph Maynor Theory is also important though. Do not skip over it.

[LordFall]

Yeah, it's definitely easier said than done. I would say don't give up on your dreams and passions but learn how to integrate current market trends into it and build a highly valuable skillset to be able to create a solid offering that meets market demand.

I've had periods of making thousands of dollars a month doing something I love and living easily from it. Others of needing to get a job to pay my bills and put the business on pause for a while. It's part of the journey.

I'll cosign @Ulax's recommendation of So Good They Can't Ignore You, really good book that gave me a lot of clarity about the path I was on. 

I actually got it for a girl I was seeing at the time 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by LordFall

[Joseph Maynor]

12 minutes ago, Majed said:

@Joseph Maynor Theory is also important though. Do not skip over it.

In this area, I tend to think theory is mostly overrated and a distraction.  I'm assuming you know what your career life purpose is already and now you want to turn that into a business.  You are clear about what you want to do, but you cannot turn it into a successful business -- which requires you are getting paid money sufficiently to make a living ideally off just doing that.

This is when passion becomes a business question.  If you can't turn it into a successful business, the career life purpose is not met.  We need to be clear about these kinds of distinctions IMO.

Edited 3 hours ago by Joseph Maynor

[Majed]

@Joseph Maynor Yeah, I think that today you can turn pretty much any passion into a business, given you work on it and you're patient. 

[Joseph Maynor]

Just now, Majed said:

@Joseph Maynor Yeah, I think that today you can turn pretty much any passion into a business, given you work on it and you're patient. 

And I still haven't done this, but I have started other businesses and know what they require.  But I am still doing what you are all doing myself.  

[MaxBlume]

@Joseph Maynor I also think it's mostly execution, and people who think and theorize too much can use that as a form of procrastination to avoid executing. But it's important to work on the right things, otherwise it's just wasted effort, and you figure that out by learning and evaluating. I mainly thought about employment and the actual value you provide to people

[MaxBlume]

@Joseph Maynor

Yeah, "marketing yourself" is a big one. I applied to over 1,000 jobs in the past two years and got nowhere, maybe doing my own thing is the better move. Employment feels too unstable anyway, with a boss who tells you what to do etc.

Leo's actually a good example of this combo, he's genuinely good at marketing and provides massive value to a lot of people

[d i e g o]

Whats critical to understand. You get paid for the percieved value you create.

as artist for example. many people like to look at art but dont want to have it. so it is hard to sell.

but then they recognize you as professional in your art form and probably would like to learn the skill exactly from you. Teacher of their passion is a much more reliable income source for passion followers than actually selling the objects of their passion. 

 

[MaxBlume]

@d i e g o True, I see a lot of people teaching on Skool and making good money doing it. But then you need to be comfortable being on camera. Leo said himself that he's deeply introverted but still speaks to millions on camera, that probably took huge pain to make money to push through. For me, I'm more of a builder type