More problems with passion
The passion narrative is just BS
Scott Adams said, “Passion is bullsh*t”.
In this video from ten years ago, he talked about how “follow your passion” is just a convenient narrative, full of survivorship bias, and missing out the full context of how success comes about, like for example, luck.
He talked about how that line just happens to be the convenient, feel-good thing to say when billionaires are asked about their success. They can’t say they are smarter than poorer workers – won’t be very polite. They can’t say they worked harder, because every job is hard in their own way. They can’t say they were lucky either, because that would undermine their credibility, reputation and bruise their own egos. So the easy narrative to reach for is just “passion”. Everyone loves hearing that. Every time “passion” is mentioned, it ignites false hope in people that just passion alone is enough for success.
I love his story about his job in the loans department at a bank, and how his manager schooled him in filtering out risky loans. The ones who are borrowing bank money to start a business because it’s fun and they are passionate about it – those don’t get the loan. Because when it gets hard and it’s not fun anymore, they bail out. It’s those who are in unsexy business (e.g. laundry), have done the research, did the work before, have boots on the ground and show spreadsheets who get the loan.
Nobody’s passionate about a laundry business, but everyone gets passionate when the business helps them get rich. Which ties in with my point in my previous post about how passion can come from external validation, or scale.
I love his counter-opinion because this runs counter to so much of the narrative in the indie hacking space. Scratch your own itch. Solve your own problems. Work on something you’re interested in. Build and they will come.
I wonder, would I one day choose to work on something that I’m not entirely passionate about, but had validated scale (and/or riches)? So far, optimising my enjoyability of the process is a key factor when considering any new project or product. It’s be interesting to one day try out Scott Adams’ approach.
How does one go about finding such a project?