Alex Hormozi: Following your passion can lead to poor outcomes; instead, focus on developing skills and finding purpose.
Alex Hormozi - Why "Following Your Passion" Will Keep You Broke
The speaker argues that following your passion can lead to poor financial outcomes and suggests a more pragmatic approach. They emphasize that passion often develops after gaining competence in a skill, not before. The speaker shares personal experiences and examples, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, to illustrate that exploring various skills and opportunities can lead to success. They argue that focusing on competence and practical skills can provide clarity and direction, rather than relying on vague passions. The speaker also highlights the importance of hard work, deliberate practice, and the reality of financial needs. They suggest that passion should be seen as a consequence of skill development and purpose, rather than a starting point. The speaker provides a framework for success: start with curiosity, embrace learning, value existing skills, commit to hard work, set realistic expectations, consider financial realities, and connect work to serving others. This approach allows for flexibility and adaptation in a changing world.
Key Points:
- Passion often follows competence; focus on developing skills first.
- Explore various skills and opportunities to find direction.
- Hard work and deliberate practice are essential for success.
- Consider financial realities and set realistic expectations.
- Connect work to serving others for greater motivation and fulfillment.
Details:
1. 🔄 The Pitfalls of Following Passion
- Following passion can lead to financial struggles, as indicated by the experience of being 'dead broke' in early adulthood, suggesting the need for a more strategic approach.
- Self-help literature often promotes following passion, but this approach did not yield financial success, emphasizing the importance of balancing passion with practicality.
- A shift in actions and strategies, rather than purely following passion, led to positive life changes. This suggests implementing practical career strategies alongside passion.
- To move from financial instability to success, consider integrating passion with actionable career strategies, focusing on market demand and skills development.
2. 🎯 Passion Follows Competence, Not Vice Versa
- Passion often follows competence, meaning people typically become passionate about activities after they have developed skills and proficiency in them, not before.
- The common advice to 'follow your passion' is misleading because it reverses the cause-and-effect relationship between passion and competence.
- Successful individuals may attribute their passion to their success, but often, they became passionate as a result of their competence and success in their field.
- The analogy is given that just as you don't become rich by flying private jets, you don't become passionate by merely deciding to be passionate; rather, passion is a byproduct of becoming skilled or successful in what you do.
3. 🔍 The Vague Nature of Passion
- Passion often develops through early exposure and chance encounters rather than innate feelings. For example, individuals who discover interests in childhood often cultivate them through deliberate practice and continued engagement.
- The development of passion includes receiving external validation, which encourages further engagement and identification with the activity, leading to increased competence and deeper passion.
- Many individuals, including the speaker, initially lack an intrinsic passion; they need to explore various activities, allowing chance passions to emerge through exposure and experience.
- The idea that everyone has a clear and innate passion is misleading; passion can be ambiguous and requires exploration of different experiences to fully develop.
- Case studies and examples of people who found passion through exploration could further illustrate how passion is often cultivated rather than discovered.
4. 📈 Prioritizing Skills Over Preferences
- Determining skills is easier than preferences, enabling clearer decision-making pathways.
- Bill Gates explored various fields such as law, mathematics, and programming before settling on his direction, highlighting the value of exploring abilities over following a predefined passion.
- The feedback loop from taking action and exploring skills helps in developing passion over time.
- Exploring different skill sets, as shown by personal examples, leads to clarity only through action and feedback.
5. 🏋️♂️ Embracing Hard Work and Practice
- Passion alone does not equate to skill; enjoyment doesn't guarantee proficiency, emphasizing the need for consistent practice.
- It's often beneficial to separate career and personal passions, pursuing a stable job for security while enjoying passions during free time.
- Feedback from a parental perspective underscores the importance of work for family stability and security, suggesting that passions can be secondary.
- The narrative suggests fulfillment can come from being a productive member of society, even if initial work isn't passion-driven.
- Hard work is culturally valued as a responsibility and source of fulfillment, contrasting with comfort-driven lifestyles, highlighting the benefits of effort and contribution.
6. 💼 Competence Drives Success, Not Excitement
- Warren Buffett's 'circle of competence' philosophy emphasizes focusing on what you understand best, rather than what excites you.
- Passion should follow competence; understanding your field deeply is key to success.
- Personal example: Many gym owners are passionate about fitness but fail because they lack business knowledge.
- Understanding the core activity (like fitness or cooking) is only 5% of the business success; business acumen is critical.
- Monetizing a skill requires more than just passion for the skill itself.
7. 🚀 The Necessity of Deliberate Practice
- 'Follow your passion' advice often overlooks the importance of hard work and practice, especially the less enjoyable parts.
- Becoming skilled in any field requires practicing tedious and challenging aspects, such as repetitive drills in sports.
- Example: Improving in ping pong requires drills like 500 forehands and 500 backhands, illustrating the discipline needed beyond mere enjoyment.
- Research indicates that deliberate practice, essential for competence and career success, is typically not enjoyable.
- Competence, driven by deliberate practice, is crucial for financial success in any chosen career.
8. 🏆 Excellence Through Consistent Effort
- The concept of consistent effort is illustrated by the analogy of sanding something down; it requires repeated iterations to achieve smoothness, akin to refining a skill through persistent practice.
- The 'mundane middle' of any skill development process is crucial and requires mastery, as this is where significant gains are made.
- The 'Rule of 100' involves reaching out to 100 people per day, which can be applied to various activities to build proficiency through repetition.
- In preparation for a book launch, practicing a presentation 90 times before delivering it live demonstrates the importance of deliberate practice, equating to four and a half hours of daily practice over a span of time.
- Continuous practice leads to improvement and eventually excellence, creating a positive feedback loop where the anticipation of the results of practice motivates further practice.
9. 💡 Adjusting Expectations for Success
- Following your passion can set false expectations that work should always be fun and exciting, which is not the case.
- A successful mentor advised against making money from something you love, as it can ruin the enjoyment and turn it into work.
- Developing passion takes time and often involves periods of not enjoying the work before reaching a point of fulfillment.
- In creative industries like acting, much of the career involves waiting, rejection, and business tasks rather than creative fulfillment.
- Jeff Bezos highlights that even in fulfilling jobs, only about 10% to 30% of the day might be enjoyable, with the rest being necessary overhead.
10. 💰 Balancing Passion with Financial Realities
- A middle path exists between doing nothing and hating your work, which involves changing your approach to work.
- Changing how you perceive your work can fundamentally alter your experience of it, as illustrated by the Japanese story of a man who imagined being paid a million dollars a day to sweep floors, transforming his perception and performance.
- A viral post of a waiter receiving a tip note saying 'Do better' led him to improve his attitude and performance, which resulted in better tips and more opportunities, demonstrating that attitude shifts can lead to tangible benefits.
- The approach to work can lead to discovering larger purposes and opportunities beyond immediate tasks, emphasizing that work influences us significantly.
- Following passion without considering financial realities can be misleading; practical approaches to work can yield both personal and financial rewards.
11. 🌍 Adapting Passions to a Changing World
- Pursuing a passion doesn't always equate to financial success, as exemplified by the American Idol tryouts where talent doesn't guarantee income.
- Initial business motivations can be driven by necessity rather than passion, such as the founder of Gym Launch starting to avoid financial struggles.
- The romanticization of past challenges can alter the perception of those experiences, making them seem less difficult in hindsight.
- The reality of supply and demand affects the viability of turning passions into profitable ventures, especially in competitive fields like acting, singing, or painting.
- An alternative approach is to engage in passions as a hobby while pursuing separate income-generating activities.
- Some individuals find success by aligning their professional skills with their passions, thereby bridging the gap between interest and income.
12. 🧩 The Role of Environment in Passion Development
- The advice to 'follow your passion' often neglects the significance of work environment factors like pay, colleagues, recognition, security, and purpose.
- Job satisfaction is heavily influenced by the work environment, which can either enhance or diminish one's passion for their work.
- Shiron Servata's perspective illustrates the changing focus of career satisfaction through different life stages: from destination in the 20s, to journey in the 30s, to company in the 40s.
- A negative work environment can negate the love for the work itself, removing the sense of purpose and leading to dissatisfaction.
- Conversely, a positive work environment can compensate for certain job elements that are not enjoyable, contributing to a fulfilling life.
- The need for a fulfilling work life varies among individuals and is not universally prioritized.
13. 🎯 Finding Purpose Beyond Passion
- Pursuing solely personal passion can hinder adaptability in a changing world, as personal interests and market demands evolve, similar to how MySpace's decline shows the risk of over-specialization.
- Focusing on passion alone is self-centered and may not lead to long-term happiness. Research suggests that focusing on helping others increases happiness more effectively.
- Experiments show people can endure more challenges when their efforts benefit others, such as increased pain tolerance when helping a loved one.
- Purpose is often derived from overcoming challenges for a greater mission, rather than following personal passions, exemplifying how broader goals can lead to deeper fulfillment.
14. ⚙️ Developing Passion as a Byproduct of Mastery
- The martyrdom effect suggests people are more motivated when their work serves others, highlighting the importance of purpose in developing passion.
- Humans, being social creatures, find fulfillment in actions that benefit the community, which can enhance motivation and passion.
- The parable of the stone cutters demonstrates that the perception of work can shift from being a job to a calling, depending on one's perspective and the meaning they attach to their work.
- Passion often develops over time as individuals become skilled in areas where they excel and which also meet societal needs, emphasizing the role of mastery in passion development.
15. 🔧 A Practical Guide to Cultivating Passion
- Start with curiosity, not passion: Begin by exploring things that pique your interest, even mildly. Most successful people started with simple curiosity, not a burning passion.
- Embrace the learning process: Commit to developing skills and competence first. Mastery precedes passion, and setting skill-specific goals is crucial.
- Value your existing abilities: Assess and build on what you're already good at. Focus on areas of natural advantages, as advised by Warren Buffett.
- Commit to the deliberate process: Accept that meaningful progress requires hard work and fundamentals may not feel exciting, akin to Olympic athletes' repetitive training.
- Set realistic expectations: Recognize that all work includes tedious aspects. Aim for overall satisfaction and meaning rather than constant enjoyment.
- Take the reality of money seriously: Money won't bring happiness but can avoid pain. Developing the skill of spending money effectively can lead to happiness.
- Prioritize environmental factors: Changing your environment can create feedback loops. Surrounding yourself with passionate people can foster your own passion.
- Allow your passions to evolve: Stay open to new interests throughout life. Your passions can change, and flexibility is key.
- Connect your work to serving others: Finding ways your work benefits others can increase your passion and help withstand challenges.
