How to combine passion with work as a knowledge worker, the hard way
Because sadly, easy ways tend not to be as easy as they seem.
While the notion of “chasing a passion” begs for more complexity than the idea initially suggests, it can be poor advice if your skills in the trade aren’t valuable in the job market, or have no potential to be. That’s why a nuanced route has come into fruition for the vast majority of workers: if you don’t possess a special highly sought-out skill or the rightful track record that gets eyes swerving, you’ve got to compromise. This isn’t something new, but it’s a topic that deserves more conspicuous stage time for those who doubt they’ll ever combine passion with work. Most knowledge workers today can do this by working in an industry they’re interested in, rather than attempting to become millionaires solely through their passions and hobbies.
This also gives rise to an additional layer of complication in job discovery: more often than one may suspect, turning a passion into work no longer makes it a hobby — it’s real work that takes the fun out of the otherwise enjoyable activity.
So is there an ideal balance one can realistically seek out? I’ll explain why there is one, and why deliberate practice, in the form of dedicated work and learning, is needed to reach such delicate horizons.
It was July 2013.
Pigeons and calm morning breezes set a real European ambience — I remember that I had took the time to count the pigeons flocking around street markets and the like, and gave up after reaching 100 before noon. Colorful sounds of organettos and mandolins, spoken gently out of both street performers and local music stereos, filled the otherwise empty-feeling air.
It was lunch time, and my family and I sat down at a beautiful little pasta restaurant near the Coliseum in Rome during a 2-week summer vacation.
As we ordered our food, I took out my iPad mini. Being just 14 years-of-age in a generation born within the digital era, my taste for travel and exploration was hindered by my desire to just stay behind hotel doors and browse the internet. My only interests at the time were playing FIFA, watching soccer, reading manga, and all-things video games. I didn’t just see my interests as hobbies — they were joyful passions. Nothing else made me think about my future career than the possibility of only working in capacities I felt truly emotionally attached to.
The server was a bright young man who, upon an instant glance, was just as passionate about soccer as I was. After kindly taking our orders, he saw me play a simple soccer game on the iPad, prompting his attention.
“Goal!!!” he yelled as I scored with the in-game characters. I looked up, startled.
“I love football my friend, it is my passion,” he explained. “I want to work forever in football if I can.”
My father, taking over the conversation for me as I was barely “of-age” to really carry forward a mature response, asked the waiter what he hoped to do. While lost in memory, I remembered two things from that moment which carries forward to today. 1: That the waiter attended the Foro Italico University of Rome, one of the oldest universities in the entire world. And 2: He had hoped to become a footballer when he was younger, but wasn’t skilled enough. Instead of giving up entirely on his dream, he decided to study sports science — an area relevant to his love for football — so he could still technically live a dream working in his passion. It may not have been playing footy in a crowd-filled stadium with thousands of fans while earning millions a year, but it was a passion-driven goal balanced by realism and diligence.
Thinking back to that day, I realized the waiter was one of many examples whom I’ve also came across in my career thus far: someone who was building up a skillset that would perfectly blend both a strong career and an area of unwavering passion. He probably loved waking up, watching soccer games, following soccer news, and engaging with his community within that realm. He took his childhood dream, revisioned it, and planned out a set of skills to pursue in order to achieve new goals still relevant to his core passion.
And yes, while I could’ve just talked about anyone, I had to bring up that young waiter in Rome to express this simple article in a more suave manner :)
This is where I’ll leave the story to come back and bring upon 3 takeaways:
1. Plan out your ideal set of skills — one that is valuable and attainable.
Focus on a blend of what you’re good at, what you don’t mind doing, and what is actually valuable within the job market.
For example, I’ve met friends working within the gaming and web technology space as customer success specialists. They all have a general interest in gaming and making people happy, so they leverage that interest with what skills they’re actually good at or can attain. This includes proper customer communication, business analysis, knowledge of CRM tools, and technical understanding of their product or anything similar thereof.
However, the idea here is that by focusing on a few core areas of strength and experience, they can optimize for building this skillset, so that they can one day be valuable to most applicable job markets or even industries to the point of true autonomy and true career satisfaction. After all — the goal is to feel fulfilled with your job, not fall-filled.
2. Seek out companies within industries of real interest.
Next is to find the right environment to really foster and grow that strong yet raw set of skills. Working in a space you’re interested in will help drive that motivation and gear you towards your ultimate vision. Lest in the possibility of you disliking an industry or company mission; make sure that mission aligns with your own. Find that company or organization within an industry you’ve had your eyes on, and seek out a healthy, sustainable balance of both work and underlying passion.
Remember that you don’t need to start out in a space of passion — you just need to get good enough first to eventually make it there.
3. Become really good and valuable.
Our careers are long-term life-drivers, and our present career-decisions can be long-term investments.
As long as you continue building upon a core set of skills that enables you to deliver unmatched achievements or even small wins, you’re sustaining the longevity, as well as the potential for growth, of your passion-driven career.
Make the most of your underlying interests by utilizing what you’re good at, or what you can be good at. Combine your core set of skills with this passion through the form of a company mission or an industry of interest, and blast off into the Team Rocket voyage of enjoying the journey rather than the destination.
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