Welcome To The Passion Economy
‘Follow your passion’ is a common mantra that the old like to share with the young. We all know that image: a person stands on stage, mic in-hand, expensive watch on wrist, and tells a sea of budding upstarts to pursue the things they are passionate about. Find what you love and do it religiously, and your life will be full of success, wealth, and fulfillment.
This has been problematic advice for a very long time. Simply put, the things we love to do often don’t make us much money. It’s a case of supply and demand – if something is exciting, then lots of people will do it. And if lots of people do something, then the market is competitive and prices have to drop. The casualties of the ‘passion following’ ideology over the last few decades include unpublished authors, actors working shifts in restaurants, and musicians defaulting on their mortgages. To quote the bombastic Scott Galloway, a Professor of Marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, “If someone tells you to follow your passion, it means they’re already rich.”