Talent VS Passion: career secrets they don't tell you
Tags: beginners, productivity, career, learning
Published: 2024-03-25 12:03:53

Do this instead and rock it.

![Photo by Melisa Popanicic on unsplash](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/2xlwyhj76k6d7ahu97sq.png)
_originally published on [medium](https://medium.com/illumination/dont-follow-your-passion-career-secrets-they-don-t-tell-you-7f0c16737c8c)_

As kids, most of us were exposed to colors and asked to pick a favorite.

Few of us asked "why?"

It's okay to have a favorite color, but it should be by your choice, if you don't naturally have a favorite, don't force yourself to pick one, instead expose yourself to more colors.

This piece isn't really about colors.

We're in a world where you can create anything you want; your own cup, your own shirt, your own career, your own life.

There is abundance!

Do you think Lionel Messi has one favorite shoe?

Do you think Beyonce has one favorite cloth?

Do you think Mike Tyson has one favorite glove?

Do you think I have one favorite SpongeBob episode?

When you expose yourself to abundance, you'll find many things you truly love.

If you have only one favorite music, you’re not listening to enough music

If you have only one favorite food, you’ve not eaten enough food

If you have only one favorite friend, you don’t have enough friends.

If you have only one favorite color, you don’t know enough colors.

If you have only one favorite SpongeBob episode...

You get the idea.

You don't have to pick one career and sacrifice other things you may like, you can have everything you want, if you don't see an option, create one.

I don't know about you, but in my childhood, I was given a bunch of careers : Doctor, lawyer, engineer, accountant, architect etc. And asked to choose.

I didn't know which one to pick, when I was like 6, one day I'd love to be a drummer and make a lot of noises with sticks, tomorrow I'd love to be an engineer: I'd pick up a torchlight that is working, losen the screws and break the parts I couldn't lose (I was fixing it 💀), then the next day I'm an artist, and lots more crazy examples

Every

Single

Day

One thing was, when they gave career advice, some said "go with what you're good at", others said "follow your passion".

![AI generated image of child adjusting bicycle chain](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/vkq13r9slbvh7empuhlc.jpeg)

They could see me adjusting my bicycle chain like that, then they'll say "you should become an engineer".

Or sometimes when I argue with my mom she says "why don't you become a lawyer huh? Since you're so good at arguing".

Although, these aren't even good metrics or reasons you should pursue a career.

What about what you want? What about what you love?

what do you do if you're not good at what you love?

**Should you follow your passion or your talent?
**
First of all, YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL.

But if you're starting out...

Don’t follow your passion

Following your passion is often touted as the ultimate career advice. Have you ever heard "follow your passion and you'll never work a day in your life", first of all that's not really true, secondly, it's not the right way to start.

The problem with the advice is they're making false assumptions of your own passion (that they know nothing about):

1. **Limiting Assumptions:** They say follow your "passion", they never say follow your "passions". They assume that individuals will only have one "main" lifelong interest. However, people are dynamic and multifaceted, with the potential for numerous passions throughout their lives. Limiting oneself to just one passion can restrict personal growth and exploration of other interests.

2. **Evolution of Passions:** Passions are not static; they evolve over time as individuals grow and experience new things. What may have been a passion in the past may no longer hold the same appeal in the present. Embracing change and allowing for the evolution of passions is essential for personal development. In a world where change is the only thing that's constant, it's not advisable to force yourself to stick to any job throughout your lifetime.

3. **Discovery Process:** Many individuals struggle to identify a specific passion, especially when it comes to tying it to a career. The pressure to find one's passion can lead to stress and anxiety, particularly for those who have yet to discover it. It takes time, exploration, and self-discovery to uncover one's true passions.

4. **Skill vs. Passion:** Having a passion for something doesn't necessarily equate to proficiency or skill in that area. Pursuing a passion without the necessary skills or talent can lead to frustration and setbacks in a professional setting. It's essential to assess one's strengths and abilities realistically.

(E.g. being 5 feet tall and passionate about basketball)

5. **Passion vs. Profession:** Turning a passion into a profession can sometimes diminish its appeal. It may lose the intrinsic enjoyment and satisfaction it once provided as a hobby. Balancing passion with practical considerations is crucial. Nevertheless, you can get exploited when you're too passionate about your job.

6. **Privilege and Financial Considerations:** Financial constraints and the need for stability may necessitate prioritizing practicality over passion in career choices. It's essential to acknowledge the role of privilege and consider practical realities when making career decisions.

**Follow your Competence instead.**
To have an awesome fulfilling career you need to start with following your Competence.

"talent" + "market" = "competence"

To be competent means you're good at something that's useful.

Let's pick out and dissect each item of your competence:

**What is your talent?**

This is more of introspection, you need to ask yourself and see what recurring themes you see in your life and make sure it's real and you're not fooling yourself.

**Here are some helpful questions:**

1. How sure are you about your talent?

2. How exceptional is your talent?: Be as quantitative as possible, if you walk into a room of 100 people that have similar talent, are you among the top 5? Top 10?

3. How do you know your answer to No. 2? Has any third party verified it? (Your mom doesn't count), have you won a significant competition?

4. How would you compare yourself to the best at your talent?

For example, say you're talented at chess, as of the time of this article, Magnus Carlsen has the highest chess rating of 2830.

find out what your chess rating is,

or what your shots on target rate is,

what your speed is in your field, use any metric you can access that is used to measure the best and compare yourself to them,

are you top 20% in that metric? Are you in a stage where you can hit the remaining top 1% with hardwork, consistency etc, or are the odds against you?

5.What is the most profitable application of your talent? How much does someone in the area make? How hard is it to get there?

Once you make these evaluations, you'll have better ideas of your talent and hopefully be able to make better choices.

**What is the market?**

By market I mean; demand, usefulness, does your talent solve a problem? Does it help people? There're some talents that are incredibly hard to monetize (if not impossible) and will get you nothing.

To better understand why you should follow your competence, first understand Maslow's hierarchy of needs. A psychology theory by Abraham Maslow in his theory of human needs in 1943.

![Maslow's hierarchy of needs](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ukek1x8doaeuiq9bzo7h.png)

According to his theory, you must start from your physiological needs before you can reach your self actualization needs.

Doing what you're passionnate about is one of the highest levels of needs. (The need for self actualization)

And can only follow once you've satisfied the lower levels of needs.

If you can't meet your physiological needs (food, shelter, health, family support, etc). Chasing your passion would be useless, and you'll spiral down into depression after burning out.

Don't get enamored by a few people that only followed their passion all through and succeeded, it's risky and not feasible. (If you look deep into it, they had the lower levels of needs, maybe by luck or something).

For every lucky person that's successful from just their passion, there's hundreds of depressed people whose stories didn't go so well, and if you noticed, people don't like bad stories so the media won't tell you those stories.

Follow your competence and see if it turns into a passion, worst case is you'll not like the choice and be unhappy, but you'll be successful enough to be capable of making better choices that'll make you happy and achieve a higher level of success.

• If you follow what you think you want and talent without a market, you'll starve and end up quitting anyway.

• If you follow what you think you want and the market but not your talent or skills, no one will give you a penny (unless you're a beggar) and you won't be able to help anyone because you'll stink.

• If you follow your talent and market, you can achieve what it takes to fully pursue your passion and find meaning.

So it's adviceable to make temporary compromises to acquire what is required to do what you really want.

But make sure you draw the lines, don't do something you dread just to meet the lower needs. There's always a small way to start, something that aligns somehow and will allow you to pursue your goals, if you haven't found it then you need to open yourself up to more experiences.

Life is a journey, like climbing a mountain, you can't do things that are in the opposite direction of where you want to be and expect it to be easy or possible to come back later, make sure you don't lose direction of where you want to be.

Chances are, you don't really know what you want (only what you think you want) till you expose yourself to as much knowledge and experiences as possible and make deep self introspections and evaluations and then find out what you really want and then create it.

**Create what you really want**

When you expose yourself to knowledge and experiences, you're not exposing yourself to your purpose, you're exposing yourself to other people's knowledge, other people's experiences, other people's creativity.

You needn't get stuck there, you can learn more about yourself through them and then figure out what's required to create your own knowledge, experiences, objects, methods etc. that other people can interact with as well.

Create our own, don't live off other people's brains forever. That's how you become the top 1%.

The richest people in the world are not affiliate marketers.

You'll never be the richest if you're selling other people's products.

You'll never be the smartest with other people's ideas.

You'll never be a great artist by making duplicates of other people's work.

You'll never break the world record for fastest man with exactly the same speed as the fastest man.

You can never make a better "duplicate" of something.

You need to add your own unique spice.

It has to be different, unique, in a big or small way before it can be better.

Imitating good things from people is a great way to start but don't get stuck once you get as good as them, be better, the next step is to create your own unique things that other people can imitate to find their own purpose.

You'll never make an impact if you're repeating the same life a bunch of people have already lived.

Create your own products, your own life, your own impact.

Don't follow your passion, it may not be yours, create your passion.

I hope this was helpful.

Don't be shy to respond if you have any questions or thoughts on the matter.

I'll be sharing a practical FREE(for now) course to begin your journey of making money printing systems to chase your real passion in my [newsletter](https://tbk.beehiiv.com/), sign up, keep your eyes peeled for my email and implement.

[Footnotes]

https://www.chess.com/ratings

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

PS:

If you enjoyed this, feel free to share this with anyone you think it might help.

I’m Praise and I help people earn & make impact with their creativity along with all the fun, philosophies, and memes involved. Subscribe here (https://tbk.beehiiv.com) to "The Business Kingmaker" and learn how to make money printing systems the royal way.

Here’s to your success 🥂