Scott Adams is dead wrong about following your passion
Scott Adams wrote a piece in the WSJ a few days ago entitled, Scott Adams’ Secret to Success: Failure. It’s a very interesting read, if a little cynical (of course), but I couldn’t let what he says about following your passion pass without a rebuttal. Here’s a snippet:
“My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over 30 years, said that the best loan customer is someone who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet. Maybe the loan customer wants to start a dry-cleaning store or invest in a fast-food franchise—boring stuff. That’s the person you bet on. You want the grinder, not the guy who loves his job….So forget about passion.”
He does go on to say that ultimately he became passionate about Dilbert but at first it was just a get-rich-quick scheme.
If you’ve read much of this blog you know that I’m a big believer in having passion for your job. Adams likely hears advice like “follow your passion” and applies that only to entrepreneurs. And from that perspective I can mostly see his point. If you love making cupcakes, you might not be best suited to start a cupcake company. That’s fair. However, if you love making cupcakes…you should try like heck to find a way to do that for a living!
When its all said and done, when a person is sitting in the retirement home and looking back on their life, the ones that were able to follow their passions and who loved EVERY aspect of their life, those are the people that will feel satisfied. The people that just chased money and worked at a job they disliked to chase a dollar will not look back and feel like it was worth it.
Adams has a large voice – as does the WSJ – so I hope most people that read this article don’t make the mistake of ditching their passions and taking jobs they dislike or starting businesses that they aren’t interested in.
Add on to this that I’ve never met a successful entrepreneur that wasn’t passionate about his/her business. Never.
Enjoy your life. Otherwise, what’s the point?
I read the article over the weekend and had a similar thought. Looking back at it, I can see why commercial lending might favor the dry-clean business. Lenders just need someone to repay a loan. They aren’t looking for a 100x return.
I liked his story about turning down the offer to work for a horrible boss that guaranteed a VP position so that he could work in the trenches and learn the fundamentals of running a business.
I also read this article and had a
similar reaction. Except there are a few
examples that Adams gives that I think are spot on. It is easy to tell someone to follow their
passion when it has worked so well for that person. It is similar to telling a person to try a
diet because it has worked so well for me.
It also boils down to the definition of success. If you want to open a
cupcake shop in your town and your town already has three cupcake shops. It probably doesn’t make much sense. But, if you’re sole passion is to sell cupcakes
regardless of your return, then you could, I suppose, declare success. I do agree with Adams approach of following a
system. You may have the greatest idea
for a company or product but if and when the time comes for you to plug your
idea into a system, rather than follow your passion and you don’t. You are more likely to fail. I have been involved in a few start-ups that
chose not to take their great ideas and plug them into the system, but follow
their original passion. In each case
those companies failed.
Agreed, AS. I think he has some strong points and lessons learned, I just think he missed the boat entirely with the importance of passion.
Thanks, JD. I agree with what you’re saying but all of that applies to people starting businesses. If you love making cupcakes, and there are 3 cupcakes shops in your area, then I’d say work for one of them and love your job every day. That’s really my point, that more people should try to figure out what they love doing and do that for a living. Only a tiny sliver of people start businesses, and most of those fails, so most are better off working in a business that allows them to pursue their passions.