Finding Your Passions
I dedicate this book to all those people who have discovered what they truly love to do and have spent their lives doing it.
To those who are underpaid, overworked, sometimes underappreciated, and yet wouldn’t trade what they do for anything in the world.
Because they have discovered something that many people spend their entire lives searching for.
They have found their passion.
There’s an old saying: “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
And there’s a tremendous amount of truth in that simple statement.
A teacher who truly loves teaching will spend 30 years in a classroom, inspiring generations of children, often for a fraction of what their talents might earn elsewhere. And when retirement finally comes, many of them don’t want to leave.
A pilot who loves flying will continue flying until his eyes, his health, or the government tells him he can’t anymore.
A fisherman who loves fishing will be out on the water before the sun comes up, long after most people have decided that getting out of bed is too much trouble. And he’ll keep fishing until the day he drops.
Why?
Because to these people, what they do isn’t simply a job.
It’s who they are.
They don’t wake up every morning thinking about how many hours they have to work before they can go home. They wake up thinking about what they’re going to accomplish that day.
And that’s a wonderful way to live.
Unfortunately, not everybody discovers that feeling.
In fact, I believe one of the greatest tragedies in life is how many people spend their entire existence doing something they don’t particularly like, simply because they never figured out what they actually wanted to do.
They choose careers because the money is good.
They become doctors because their parents wanted a doctor in the family.
They become lawyers because somebody convinced them that being a lawyer was prestigious.
They chase titles, fancy offices, expensive cars, and the approval of people whose opinions shouldn’t matter nearly as much as they do.
They spend their lives trying to become somebody else’s definition of success.
And sometimes they accomplish exactly that.
They make the money. They buy the house. They get the impressive job title.
And then one morning, after 20 or 30 years, they wake up and wonder why they’re not happy.
Because they spent their entire lives chasing something they thought they were supposed to want, instead of discovering what they actually wanted.
And here’s the really sad part.
Many of these people aren’t foolish. They’re not lazy. They’re not incapable of doing something extraordinary.
They simply never discovered their passion.
Nobody ever taught them how to look for it.
Nobody ever told them that finding something you genuinely love doing might be more important than finding something that pays well.
And that’s one of the reasons I wrote this book.
I have always believed that passion is one of the most powerful forces behind success.
Think about it.
When you genuinely love something, nobody has to force you to do it.
Nobody has to stand behind you with a stopwatch.
Nobody has to convince you to work harder, learn more, improve your abilities, or try again after you’ve failed.
You do those things because you want to.
A person with genuine passion will work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for years, not because somebody is paying them overtime, but because they cannot imagine doing anything else.
They will endure setbacks that would make other people quit.
They will spend years learning things that other people find boring.
They will make sacrifices that seem completely unreasonable to somebody who doesn’t share their enthusiasm.
And they will keep going.
Not because success is guaranteed.
Not because money is waiting around the corner.
But because the journey itself means something to them.
And that’s the secret.
Passion doesn’t guarantee success, but it gives you one of the greatest advantages anyone can have: the willingness to keep going when everybody else has already given up.
You can force yourself to do something you hate for a paycheck. Millions of people do it every day.
You can become competent at it. You might even become financially successful.
But there’s an enormous difference between being good at something because you have to be and becoming extraordinary at something because you love doing it.
One requires discipline.
The other creates its own discipline.
And when you combine passion with intelligence, persistence, hard work, and opportunity, extraordinary things can happen.
So this book is dedicated, first and foremost, to those fortunate people who already know what they love.
To the teachers, pilots, fishermen, artists, scientists, mechanics, entrepreneurs, musicians, farmers, builders, inventors, and everybody else who wakes up in the morning genuinely excited about what they get to do.
Whether you’re making millions of dollars or barely paying the bills, if you love what you do, you’ve discovered a kind of wealth that money alone cannot buy.
You’ve found something priceless.
You’ve found a reason to get out of bed in the morning.
And to those of you who haven’t discovered your passion yet, this book is especially for you.
Maybe you’re young and trying to decide what to do with your life.
Maybe you’re 40 years old and wondering whether you chose the wrong career.
Maybe you’re 60, looking back at everything you’ve accomplished, and realizing there’s something else you’ve always wanted to do.
It doesn’t matter.
There is no age limit on discovering what makes you happy.
There is no rule that says you have to spend the rest of your life doing what you’ve always done.
And there is certainly no requirement that your passion must impress anybody else.
Your passion doesn’t have to make you rich.
It doesn’t have to make you famous.
It doesn’t even have to make sense to anybody but you.
It just has to be yours.
My hope is that somewhere in the pages of this book, you’ll begin asking yourself questions you’ve never seriously considered before.
What do I really enjoy?
What would I do even if nobody paid me?
What makes me lose track of time?
What would I spend my life doing if I stopped worrying about what everybody else thought?
And perhaps, somewhere along the way, you’ll discover something about yourself that changes the direction of your life.
Because ultimately, that’s what this book is about.
It’s not about becoming rich.
It’s not about becoming famous.
It’s not about becoming what your parents, your friends, your teachers, or society think you should become.
It’s about discovering who you are, what you love, and finding the courage to build your life around it.
To those who have already found their passion, I dedicate this book in admiration.
And to those who are still searching, I dedicate it in the hope that one day you’ll discover yours.
Because life is simply too short to spend it doing something you hate, just to earn enough money to enjoy the few hours you have left.
Find what you love. Find what makes you want to get out of bed every morning.
Find what you’re willing to work for, struggle for, and dedicate years of your life to, even when nobody else understands why.
And when you find it, don’t let anybody talk you out of it.
Because when you finally discover your passion, you may discover something even more important.
You haven’t just found what you want to do with your life.
You’ve found a life you actually want to live.