It’s important to know where the line exists between practicality and wishful thinking. It’s equally important to have the capacity to do things you don’t necessarily want to do in order to provide for yourself when need be. I’ve had my fair share of jobs that I wholeheartedly despised in my life already and I’m prepared to have one again if push comes to shove. It’s an unfortunate part of life, but the fact is that sometimes you just have to suck it up and pay your dues so that you can pay your bills. That being said, if you hate your job and the work you do, you have got to put yourself in the mindset of understanding that it is temporary. I don’t know what it is about human nature that allows people to accept unending misery in the form of unfulfilling and understimulating work, but it literally pains me when I see people letting that happen to themselves. Sometimes I feel like people end up taking a job out of desperation and over time become comfortable with their pay, schedule, coworkers, etc. and end up trying to fit their life around those circumstances. “Good enough” becomes the mantra of the masses as you hit adulthood. It’s sad. We spend way too much of our lives working to give up on chasing our dreams and making a living doing what we love. 

No matter what job I had – whether it was pushing wheelbarrows full of rocks up the side of a hill in the sweltering heat, splitting wood outside in the frigid cold, or standing for seventeen hours straight in the corner of a dingy bar waiting to jump in the middle of two idiots boxing each other – not once did I ever think to myself that I was going to make them work for me in the long-term. Not once. On the contrary, I always felt more capable than anybody gave me credit for. I felt so underutilized, unappreciated and disrespected by the jobs I worked that it pissed me off. I didn’t even think I had to prove anything because I felt like it should have been obvious to the people I worked for that I could do much more if given the opportunity. Now I realize that most people in all industries are content with doing the bare minimum and are basically Stevie Wonder when it comes to spotting good workers in their businesses. Being in the position I’m in now where I run a company and have a hand in the hiring/firing process, it is unbelievable to me the amount of people in management positions who have their heads fully lodged up their asses. I used to suspect it, but now I know. Most of the jobs I’ve had in my life, I would have been more efficient running the whole business than whatever task-related position I was performing in. 

That might sound egotistical, but truth be told, we all have talents. Some people can sing, some people can draw. I can write and build businesses. In fact, I’m able to successfully leverage the first talent to bolster the second. But here’s the thing – it’s not just what I’m good at… it’s what I love to do. I’m currently working seven days a week and I’m sitting here writing this blog post at midnight hoping it offers something of value to one of the people who read it in the future and I’m doing it because I love to write and I want to help people however I can. I know that years from now, the fact that this blog was written and that it still exists will mean more to me than anything else I could be spending my time on right now. Similarly, the only reason I’m able to stomach working seven days a week is because I love what I do. It’s not just monotonous emails and stale meetings. It’s building something from the ground up. It’s learning how to combine the best of myself with the best of others to produce the greatest outcomes consistently. It’s strategizing. It’s problem solving. It’s taking risks. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. Waking up in the morning knowing that I live or die by how accountable I am to myself is like breathing oxygen to me. Everything being my fault is the ultimate liberation. I don’t accept that other people have the ability to decide whether I win or lose anymore. In my mind, that power solely resides with me. If I accomplish great things, it’s because I earned them. If I end up broke and picking up the pieces again – at least I earned that too. I push myself every day because I know it influences the probability of me ending up on the side of those two options I want to be on. I show the fuck up for myself and my team because I wouldn’t rather be doing anything else – even when it’s hard.  

This is why I want to discuss passion with you. When you find that thing that really lights you up inside to the point that everything outside of working towards being the absolute best you can be at it becomes blurry to you, it’s like something just clicks into place. It ignites your passion and your passion becomes your purpose. It turns into a legitimate obsession – an internal driving force that sustains itself through the inevitable ups and downs. No matter what you want to be successful at, it’s going to require a lot of hard work. Not to state the obvious here, but you will be much more likely to work hard when you enjoy your job than if you hate it. That’s why pursuing your passion is so important. You can turn it into fuel. When you’re driven only by arbitrary accomplishments like money and a big house/dream car, you fizzle out eventually. That’s why most people never achieve those things even though they sincerely want them. But if you feel like you’re doing what you were created for – like you found the thing you were placed on this earth to do with your life – then you’re able to transcend your limits and those things end up falling in your lap as a natural byproduct of your efforts. When you encounter difficulties, you either go over, around, or straight through anything that gets in your way. Desire, especially if it’s directed purely towards material things, is a finite resource. It can only take you so far when things get hard. Purpose, however, is renewable. If you continuously dig deeper, you will always find more of it to carry you forward.

I see a lot of “success gurus” and social media influencers shitting on the idea of pursuing your passion lately. They make it seem silly or childish to think it’s possible to make a life worth living that way. They go so far in treating it with contempt as if to paint prioritizing your own joy as emasculating for men or purely stupid for anyone to believe it can be done. You have to be mindful of the role money plays in your life and how it factors into providing the life you ultimately want to live, but if you don’t prioritize enjoying how you obtain that money, you’re really missing out on a key component of living a fantastic life. There are plenty of people out in the world selling their souls for dollars and then drowning themselves in the empty things that money can buy. It’s another form of gluttony that our modern day society perpetuates, and in many cases, celebrates. Don’t be fooled into thinking that’s the answer. There’s a quote from Aristotle that I really love that goes, “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” If someone offers you life advice that conflicts with that statement, make sure you believe they’re smarter than one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived before you act on it. It’s likely that they are not and that they are probably leading you down the wrong path. Don’t fall for it. 

Instead, explore your passions and choose a direction in life that is fulfilling to YOU. You can still desire material wealth, but challenge yourself to earn your way there by providing value to others and improving their lives and the world around you. Give your work meaning and make it something that feels good, keeps your conscience clear, and allows you to sleep well at night and look into the mirror without shame or disgust. The world wants you to give up on yourself and believe you can’t have success and genuine happiness. It wants you to believe the only people getting to the bag are the selfish, ruthless people who do it the wrong way. It’s bullshit. Success isn’t an either or and you don’t have to engage in shady shit, lie, cheat, steal, etc. to make it. You don’t have to compromise on your personal values to excel in life. You just have to do the work. If you understand the true nature of free enterprise, you’ll embrace the fact that it’s designed to create things that solve problems, reduce pain, increase convenience, and otherwise improve the lives of other people. If you love something and are passionate about it, I promise you there’s a way to tie it to one of those objectives and monetize it in today’s world. As an added plus, you will have to embark on a journey of personal self-discovery by pursuing it. A little creativity and determination goes a long way. 

Another point of emphasis when choosing your direction in life is this: if something doesn’t feel right, it’s not. No loopholes, no gray areas. There is right and wrong and you get to define them for yourself. Many people just don’t like their jobs, but many more work in companies or industries that make them engage in activities they don’t agree with. I know people who work in marketing and finance who try to justify their role in deceiving and exploiting others by claiming they’re just a cog in the machine. But guess what? No cogs, no machines. They’re there by choice because changing jobs, hitting the job market and facing pay instability is scary. People like to think they can deal in filth without becoming the thing they touch. But once you’ve made the conscious decision to do something wrong, you’re complicit in it. Corporate America takes many good people and compromises them against their own values. There is nothing admirable about a person who is smart enough to see wrongdoing, but too much of a coward to take a stand against it. It’s even worse when they rush into doing wrong willingly for personal gain. You can make a lot of money doing the wrong thing and buy lots of nice stuff with it, but you’ll always lack integrity. Just remember that we are all going to die one day, and the way you maintain your character will matter more in the end than the amount of money you accrue over your lifetime. 

The bottom line? When you don’t have meaning – when you don’t have purpose – the unhappiness it creates readily permeates through many other areas of your life. Think of your life as a canvas you get to paint. Unhappiness is like black water color on a paint brush being pressed firmly into the center of that canvas – it expands outward from its actual cause and bleeds into everything else. Happiness, on the other hand, inspires you and guides you in the right direction. It allows you to fall in love with the process of painting that canvas exactly the way you want it to be. You don’t feel rushed and you don’t care very much if other people see the beauty in your creation or not because it’s not for them. It’s for you. The best way to foster that kind of happiness within yourself, in my opinion, is by finding purposeful work first. Search for that thing that makes every moment you work on it feel intentional. The thing that makes you feel like what you’re doing really matters and is having a positive impact on other people and the world. If you find that, you will find the foundation to your happiness that you can then build something really beautiful on top of. Avoid being misdirected down the path that leads to nowhere. Follow your passion to your purpose and then walk that path wherever it may lead. You’ll thank yourself for it later.