Why Follow your Passion is a bad idea (here’s a better way)

Now after identifying what rocks your boat (read:passion), you should have developed a better mentality when approaching the topic of retirement.

However, passion alone is too fleeting and unrealistic.

You must also balance things by considering what you do best which people will pay you for it.

Here, you’ll learn how to mash up these 2 main ingredients, and others as well.

Especially important in retirement stage.

Note to younger people: Passion comes much later

Passion is not in your DNA.

You are born to do what you are doing now. Or be a good investor. Or be a parent. You were just born.

But you have eyes.

So you see what other people are doing.

You have ears. So you hear who’s winning. And then your brain asks, “Why am I here?”

People believe if we look inside ourselves and discover what our passion is, we’ll be happy. That’s not how it happens.

Passion comes later.

First, you have to start with an interest

Second, you have to build career capital and used that as leverage. Look into your industry and ask –

‘What would be valuable here?’”

This is how you get autonomy in the workplace.

And then, that’s what lets you get a sense of mastery and a sense of impact, and this is where passion actually comes from.

Third, focus on rare and valuable skills.

For example, coding was no longer rare and valuable. And competition was about to explode.

But being a data scientist is.

Control competition and you’ll control the market.

Fourth, get to the cutting edge of an industry

Mastery leads to passion, not the other way around.

You weren’t “born” to invent the next iPhone. Nobody was. Even the people inventing the next iPhone weren’t born to invent the next iPhone.

“Innovations don’t come at the very start of your journey.”

You have to get to the cutting edge, learn what’s missing, identify room for growth and innovate.

Fifth, and lastly, do deep work

Deep work is the process of becoming great.

It requires hard, hard focus and pushes your skill to its limit.

It’s what you do to become the best in your field. And discover holes in your organization. Or in the planet. It’s how you create ride-sharing, social networking, Google maps underwater.