“Life is long. Success is difficult. Passion is fleeting.” – Michael Masterson

Why “Profiting From Your Passion” May Be a Big Mistake

When I first retired at 39, I bought a half-interest in an art gallery, believing it would be the perfect hobby-like, retirement occupation. I pictured myself sitting amidst beautiful paintings, reading interesting books, and chatting with art lovers about Karel Appel and Jules Pascin.

Instead, I was thrust into a high-pressure selling situation. One in which my partner expected me to press friends and former colleagues into buying art. After six or seven months, I had to admit to myself that this experiment in mixing my love of art with the desire to profit from it had failed. So, I got out. It cost me a considerable sum of money, but it was worth it.

What I learned was that the job of running a business – even a “passion business” – is first and foremost about selling. And selling is always hard work.

It’s also mandatory and therefore ceaseless. If you are not continually finding new customers and reselling old ones, your business will shrink. A shrinking business is, of course, a dying business, and disappointing. But the death of a business you believed to be your life’s calling is downright depressing.

My fantasies about being a gallerist were shattered by the reality of having to constantly sell art. Not just to strangers, but to everyone I knew (one of my partner’s success secrets). All the things I loved about collecting art (as a hobby) were ground into mundanities by the application of them towards profit.

After a brief respite, I abandoned that retirement and went back into the business I had been in previously. But this time I told myself that I would change my idea about being in that business. It would no longer be about creating maximum profits, but about building a profitable business that I could be proud of.

Most of what I did on a day-to-day basis was the same. But I became more selective about the quality of our products and the satisfaction of our customers and less concerned about the bottom line.

The result was a surprisingly happy ending. I was able to enjoy the hours I spent working and – to my surprise – the business grew far beyond what it had been.

I can’t say for sure exactly why this happened. But I think one of the factors was that in my second go-round, I was constantly pushing to make all the Ps that make up a business better – the products, the protocols, the procedures, and the people. And my primary criterion for better wasn’t profit but something more personal. Something like, “If I make this change, will this improve the business in some way that I will like it more? In some way that will make me feel better about it? Prouder of what it is and is becoming?”

I don’t mean to imply this was a come-to-Jesus moment, that I returned to work as an entirely different person. It was much more subtle than that. I was still mostly about “ready, fire, aim.” I was still very much a pusher and a grower. And I still kept my eye on the bottom line. But I was no longer obsessed with growing profit. It was important to me – actually, mandatory. But I didn’t actually care whether we made 20%, 10%, or even 5%. I was secretly more interested in making the business into something that felt good to me.

The psychologist Jordan Peterson said that parents should raise their children to become the sort of adults they themselves would like and admire. This is sort of what I was doing – nudging the business along as it grew to become something I could like and admire.

I suppose you could say that with the gallery I tried and failed to convert my passion into profit, and with the business, I found a way to convert my profits into a passion.

For the Young and Still Hopeful…

A word to my younger readers: I’m not saying it’s impossible to turn your passion into a successful career.

I’m saying that, before you commit, you should think seriously about the fact that in trying to make a career of your passion there are four possible outcomes:

* You succeed and are happy in your success.

* You succeed but discover that success kills your passion.

* You fail and are emotionally defeated by your failure.

* You fail and are fine with your failing and move on to a happy life.

The most common advice you’ll hear from successful people about charting your career is, “Don’t walk towards it. Chase your dreams. Don’t listen to anyone that doubts you or warns you about the risk. Fly without a net.”

This advice is utter foolishness. It will not help you succeed. Nor will it make you happier if you do succeed.

Remember, generally speaking the people giving this advice are celebrities – the one in a thousand that were good enough and lucky enough to make a success of their passion. And they are usually dispensing this advice at award shows – where they are enthralled with their own wonderful selves.

Any parent or person of authority that would give such advice is either stupid or selfish or, more likely, both.

Here’s my advice: If you are young and have a particular passion, go for it. But do so only after you have mentally prepared yourself for the four possibilities listed above.

Start by identifying the psychological rewards your passion brings you now. Be honest and specific. Excitement? Engagement? Admiration? Validation?

Imagine yourself working relentlessly towards your goal, ignoring everything else in your life – friendships, family, marriage, even a bit of your self-respect. Would you be okay with that?

If your answer, “YES!,” imagine yourself 10 or 20 years into the future. You’ve achieved your goal. You have turned your passion into a profitable career. You have the status. You have the money. You have the validation you were looking for. But you’ve lost the excitement and the engagement. The work doesn’t fire you up anymore. Would you be okay with that?

Imagine, too, another scenario. Imagine that, after several of giving your all to making your passion profitable, you come to the realization that the prospects of success are approaching zero. Imagine that you look around and find an opportunity to start a different career – one that would almost certainly be profitable but for which you have no passion. Would you be able to make that change? Maybe with the idea that you could you put aside several hours a week to continue practicing your passion as a hobby? Would you be able to do that? Without second-guessing yourself?

Now imagine that while you are building your current career – a career that you had no passion for when you started – you begin to treat it like you are passionate about it. Imagine what you would do to convert it into something that would give you those feelings of excitement and engagement and admiration and validation that you now are hoping to get from your passion. How would that feel?

Imagine that after enjoying a profitable career that you found a passion for, and continuing to enjoy your current passion as a hobby, you retired from the first and spent your golden years engaged fully in the other.

How does that feel?

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