Why it’s smart to follow your passion

Success is a volume game — so spend a lot of time on the things you love

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to not discount that common graduation advice
to follow your passion. In many cases, this can be
a wise career move. We've recently emerged from graduation season.

(00:28):
Commencement speakers everywhere urge the gown and mortarboard set to
follow their passions. Other people give this as advice to
a Few years ago, I helped design a survey for
alarms approaching major reunions at my alma mater. Sure enough,
that follow your passion chestnut was the most common advice
people shared. It's easy to laugh at this cliche, but

(00:51):
what I think is more interesting is the deeper reason
why follow your passion might be smart. Some luck, like
in the lottery, is random, but more commonly, success is
a numbers game. This means it is closely connected with
what we find intrinsically motivating for reasons related to how

(01:13):
we spend our time. As I watch my kids grow,
I have been fascinated by the various ways they choose
to spend the hours that they aren't at school or activities.
My eldest loves movies, but not just the plots. He
has become a diligent student of box office Mojo, a
website that posts daily revenue figures for major theater releases.

(01:36):
He studies the patterns and trends. He doesn't always love
his math homework, but he makes sure to tell me
when a movie's gross drops by just fifty in its
second weekend compared to an expected decline. My nine year
old has no interest in box office projections, but he's
spent hours constructing various cardboard contraptions from his Nintendo Labo kit.

(01:59):
I have to her ring him to practice the piano,
but he willingly built a cardboard piano, hooked it up
to a switch, and played electronic tunes. I know I
had my own obsessions as a child. My parents cleaned
out their home in advance of a move to the
East Coast, and my mother sent me one of my
old notebooks from when I was ten. I had filled

(02:20):
copious pages with a description of a stormy night. It
wasn't a good description, but judging by length a loan,
I was willing to spend hours writing something that wasn't
for school. Now back to that numbers game. As I've
interviewed people about their careers over the years. The theme
of persistence keeps coming up. People try a lot of

(02:44):
stuff a lot starting out. You don't know what will work,
but it makes logical sense that activity generates feedback and
other activity. You can pay attention to what works. You
can do your best to season the opportunities that arise.
I've seen this in my life. People sometimes ask me

(03:05):
how I became a time management expert, putting that in quotes,
this is not something you major in during college. And
I did not think, Hey, I'd like to be a
time management expert as I wrote that twelve page description
of a rain storm. But I knew I loved writing,
and I knew I was willing to write a lot

(03:26):
about anything, articles, blog posts, books that never got published,
books that got published but few people read. Incredibly problematic
book proposals, followed by slightly less problematic book proposals, and then,
in the fall of two thousand eight, an editor at
Penguin read a book review I wrote and asked if

(03:47):
I'd like to meet and discuss book ideas. My book
proposal of the moment became the raw material for a
book that came out called a hundred sixty eight hours.
You have more time than you think. And there was
nothing magical about that book review that my editor spotted.
Versus hundreds of other articles I've written, no one has
any idea what will work. You put a lot of

(04:09):
stuff out into the universe. Knowing that fairy godmothers are lazy,
you need to give them as many chances as possible
to work their magic. Putting stuff out into the world
sounds like a lot of work, and it is which
brings us back to the topic of passion. People won't

(04:29):
spend gobs of their own free time pursuing something they
don't enjoy for its own sake. They'll spend some time, sure,
but not the sheer volume of time necessary for luck
to happen. So that's why I follow your passion can
be wise advice, but it's not just wise advice for graduates. Now.

(04:51):
I know that taking big risks can be harder when
you're a grown up with kids and a mortgage and
all that. Still, I think it behooves everyone to spend
time thinking about what he or she finds intrinsically motivating.
You don't have to quit your day job, but you
can think about how you could spend more time practicing
this craft. How can you start putting more stuff out

(05:14):
into the universe. Talk to two people about your passion
and nothing might happen. Talk to a hundred people and
something will happen. We don't know what, but something. If
you can then run with it, even as a hobby
or side hustle, then that is the secret of success.

(05:35):
So why not spend some time today thinking about what
your passion might be. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

(05:55):
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Before Breakfast pod that's b the number four, then Breakfast
p o D. You can also shoot me an email
at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com
that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.

(06:18):
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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