There has been a recent flurry of articles on the subject ‘Don’t do what you love.’ This is pretty much in response to an unattributed popular phrase ‘Follow your passion’ or its earlier version ‘Do what you love and the money will follow.’
As the father of this idea, I feel compelled to comment. I introduced this idea to the world in my 1974 book The Seven Laws of Money. The first law is ‘Do it. Money will follow if you’re doing the right thing.’
I wrote this theme in response to all the people who were coming to me soliciting help in raising money for their project. Mostly hippies. It was the right response to the subject at the time. Most of the thousands of projects I saw needed to be tried in the real world to know if there was a market. Simple, clear advice.
It promptly morphed into the ‘Do what you love and the money will follow.’ Which is a mystical statement that I couldn’t support. That morphed into Nike’s ‘Just do it.’ A very American sentiment.
Frankly, as advice for the corporate world it is nonsense. Most people enjoy their work, because of its sociability and its challenges, but doing it as a passion is probably rare. For owners and top managers the business world is hard and stressful. That is a reality.
If you are just starting out in the world and are a highly competent person, I would always encourage you to do what you love, but be prepared to do it for a long time without much monetary reward.