Don’t Follow Your Passion | 5 Minute Video
Should you follow your passion, wherever it may take you? Should you do only what you love…or learn to love what you do? How can you identify which path to take? How about which paths to avoid? TV personality Mike Rowe, star of “Dirty Jobs” and “Somebody’s Gotta Do It,” shares the dirty truth in PragerU’s 2016 commencement address.
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Script:
There are only two things I can tell you today that come with absolutely no agenda. The first is “Congratulations.” The second is “Good luck.” Everything else is what I like to call, “The Dirty Truth,” which is just another way of saying, “It’s my opinion.”
And in my opinion, you have all been given some terrible advice, and that advice, is this:
Follow your passion.
Every time I watch the Oscars, I cringe when some famous movie star—trophy in hand—starts to deconstruct the secret of their success. It’s always the same thing: “Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t have what it takes, kid!”; and the ever popular, “Never give up on your dreams!”
Look, I understand the importance of persistence, and the value of encouragement, but who tells a stranger to never give up on their dreams, without even knowing what it is they’re dreaming? How can Lady Gaga possibly know where your passion will lead you?
Have these people never seen American Idol?
Year after year, thousands of aspiring American Idols show up with great expectations, only to learn that they don’t possess the skills they thought they did.
What’s really amazing though, is not their lack of talent—the world is full of people who can’t sing. It’s their genuine shock at being rejected—the incredible realization that their passion and their ability had nothing to do with each other.
Look, if we’re talking about your hobby, by all means let your passion lead you.
But when it comes to making a living, it’s easy to forget the dirty truth: just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you won’t suck at it.
And just because you’ve earned a degree in your chosen field, doesn’t mean you’re gonna find your “dream job.”
Dream Jobs are usually just that—dreams.
But their imaginary existence just might keep you from exploring careers that offer a legitimate chance to perform meaningful work and develop a genuine passion for the job you already have. Because here’s another Dirty Truth: your happiness on the job has very little to do with the work itself.
On Dirty Jobs, I remember a very successful septic tank cleaner, a multi-millionaire, who told me the secret to his success:
“I looked around to see where everyone else was headed,” he said, “And then I went the opposite way. Then I got good at my work. Then I began to prosper. And then one day, I realized I was passionate about other people’s crap.”
I’ve heard that same basic story from welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, HVAC professionals, hundreds of other skilled tradesmen who followed opportunity—not passion—and prospered as a result.
Consider the reality of the current job market.
Right now, millions of people with degrees and diplomas are out there competing for a relatively narrow set of opportunities that polite society calls “good careers.” Meanwhile, employers are struggling to fill nearly 5.8 million jobs that nobody’s trained to do. This is the skills gap, it’s real, and its cause is actually very simple: when people follow their passion, they miss out on all kinds of opportunities they didn’t even know existed.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/dont-follow-your-passion
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Kinda true, I came across the opportunity to go to college for Auto Body and Paint, I received a scholarship and a partner with whom I'll be working for, this just so happened to be my passion but it only happens due to the opportunity I came across in the first place
…is arms manufacterer an exception to this?
As Mike Rowe says: “Never follow your passion, but always, bring it with you”
https://youtu.be/CVEuPmVAb8o?si=EEuxVRiZ40maXymn
I think this is true, but I also know if you want to be successful in something with few succesful stories, you have to be both delusional and ruthless in what you will do and sacrifice.
Well, you definitely suck at making youtube videos, but you made it work. So, to anybody reading this, I'd be willing to bet that if this idiot can make it, you can.
Mike Rowe suggests that a college education is worth nothing, just because it doesn't always lead to a satisfying or lucrative career. However, an education is much more than a ticket to a good job – it is a source of enrichment that will last your entire life, regardless of what you do for a living.
OK, dad!
Whenever I tried woodworking for the first time, I also sucked, making similar bullcrap little things like you said you showed to your grandad. And yes, people in my life also tried to tell me how I should start doing more useful things. But I, unlike you, am not a lazy piece of shid and I recognised that if I would practice I would achieve better results. For privacy reasons I cannot say what I am making or where in life I am, but I can confirm that my work is much better nowdays, and a woodworking career is potentially ahead of me. The difference between you following your passion and me following mine is that you gave up at the start. And also, If you would grow up to have a similar job to your grandad, you would absolutely be doing some high paying and/or useful job, because there is a housing crisis happening.
So should you follow your passion? If you are intelligent enough to recognise that giving up wont get you anywhere, then yes. Absolutely follow your passion. However, If you're stupid enough to give up what makes you happy, then go ahead and live a boring life demotivating people on the internet, not doing anything useful while dragging others down to be like you.
I am following my passion for well over 20 years. I've started progamming in visual tools like Bertík or Peter. Without formal education, without any support or even any friend. Seems to me, that it is very bold statement here.
What’s ironic is I thought of a very similar idea. Long before I watched this video.
I was lucky I guess, I did follow my passion, and I loved the results. I had from the youngest age I can remember I wanted to be a soldier, I wanted to be in the US Army. Watching all of the war movies on TV in the mid 1960's I wanted to be in the infantry. Well, I joined the Army Reserves at 25 and became a Cavalry Scout and loved the Army life. After I did one annual training, I went active duty and loved it. This one time I followed my passions and dreams, and it worked.
The second time was auto racing. After I was chaptered out of the Army on a medical discharge for PTSD and got divorced from my first wife my second wife supported me in my dream of racing. Before I was married the first time, I had done SCCA & FCCA Solo II competition and had 1 win and 4 second places in 5 events. Not a bad record. In the mid 2000's I started to do indoor kart racing and got to the point I felt I could race in a league. I never won a race, but I was working my way up the finishing order until the recession hit in 2008 and that put an end to my karting career. After that I started sim racing on iRacing and again found success. I came home with many certificates over the years and knew that would be as close to actual auto racing as I would get.
I was lucky in that I was able to follow my dreams and find success along the way. I found it fulfilling, enjoyable and exciting. I'm 64 now and I can look back and say I had a very successful and enjoyable life.
Great video!!
Yes, that’s what I tell my kids!
Don’t follow your passion!
This video changed my life 8 years ago
You can have a passion for being neat and doing what you're doing correctly. Maybe if you can't be bothered to finish things, do it right, cooperate, be a good student, then that's actually the problem.
Lol dumbest vid on YouTube today
I remember Jimmy oyang saying his dad used to say don't follow your dreams you will end up poor do what you hate to make money then ues the money to do whatt you love.
Nice word salad. I like the way you think. I must be one of those poor fools who has been taken in by all the poopular advice about " Following Your Passion." What a crock. But you said it right. NEVER follow your passion. But do bring it with you.
People who don't go after their passion become miserable yes I do get that your passion won't make you money and stuff like that but it does make your life fulfilled
❤
i followed this advice 4 years ago, and it saved my life. I can now expect to retire, probably early too. And i do really enjoy what i do. disclaimer: survivorship bias, it took A LOT of work and sacrifice to actually follow this advice.
I followed my passion and ended up in a career that earns less and less with it passing year. I wish I had heard this advice in my early twenties.
I hate Prageru but they were right about this
This is what inspired me to change my gender! Thank you prager!!!
This really helped me untangle my current situation.
The truth.
I recommend the 3 year rule, Give yourself a chance to make money at it. If its not working out, make it a hobby and find something that will. As long it doesn't put you in debt like a degree does, no harm done.
This is so ridiculous. Mike Rowe, who himself is a fkn reality tv personality, who is famous in his own right for doing dirty jobs…. Is now telling you to shut up, sit down, and do as your told because following your passion is somehow wrong? His evidence is Actors and Actresses who followed their passions and are millionaires with awards, and the reality tv show american idol where the entirety of the show is dramatization of rejection! The more ridiculous you are at your rejection the more likely you are to get air time.
PragerU is gaslighting garbage. And I've lost respect for Mike.
Well said Mike. So true. Experience speaking here.
The problem is the kids are told you can have a better job you don't want to be like me get a education well how's things going now you have a big debt no job. You know what get you self a trade. Go to trade school you might get dirty but you will get money. You need that to pay bills!
my dream job was to be a porn actor
That sewer worker seemed like he just landed in a place that would take him, if he can’t argue with the pay or task or hours that’s fine l, someone has to do the job after all but there’s no way he can summon that much enthusiasm, that was that high or genuine, sounds like cope and internalised failure to deal with the fact that this is all he’ll be doing for the rest of his career
Also that’s funny you took 1 class in wood working and the end product wasn’t a mastery of wood working and your grandfather took 1 look at it and basically siad “don’t ever do wood working again”
Does he realise that skills haft to develop you haft to work to get skills they aren’t passed down through genetics Unlike intelligence or strength
Don’t just do whatever you can otherwise you’ll be as disposable as everyone else, humanity needs people who get into high positions to advance the species, the alternative is everyone is just mediocre and humanity stagnates and settles for things that are “good enough” until something catastrophic happens and we all die
They played this at my high school and parents lost their shit. Mind you they are Millennial parents who were preached to and bought into the passion lie.
Lots of bartenders in LA who followed their passion.
Find something that your good at and you find meaningful
I think this is more complicated than this, you have to think: What gives you happiness in life?
And that's your goal, that's what you do.
If having a huge house is your goal do just that, if working as … is your dream, than do that IF you are ok with how you will be able to live through that job.
If it is too risky don't make it your only source of income, work as something else and continue your dream in your free time or as a hobby, until you are able to safely life as this as your main job.
In the end, do what makes you happy whatever that is, if owning a certain amount of money is then do that, ask yourself HOW DO I WANT TO LIVE IN THE FUTURE? And be realistic, calculate it, don't dream about it.
My life is a case study in precisely what he is warning you against. I didn't come to my senses until I was in my late 30s.
The world needs passion in order to have a stable and advanced future.
Yes and don’t give up too easy. Be honest with yourself and if you start to hear a consensus from your friends and family about your direction maybe take the advice in consideration.
I got the advice after high school, “Follow your dreams, the money will follow.” I did. It didn’t. Ended up following an opportunity. This lasted 38 years and paid well and while it had its ups and downs, I found the work agreeable most of the time. Followed a couple of passions as hobbies because the job provided enough money to do so. Now happily retired.
I was in high school when I first saw this video. Now, 7.5 years later, it was definitely one of the most important pieces of advice I've ever been given. I have many hobbies. None of them ever ended up leading to a permanent career. I started working for my friend's business 3 years ago as a side job. I had no real passion or interest in the individual tasks, but I got more and more involved, learned the ins and outs, and became a partner. Then it all collapsed due to internal disagreements between people in the company. It was at that moment, I realized that THIS is what I wanted to do. So a few months ago, I started my own company, doing the same thing, but better. I am not passionate about driving everywhere, or spreadsheets, or all the other tasks required to make the business run, but I am passionate about the business as a whole. All of my hobbies are still there to fulfill me, and from time to time they end up lending themselves to my business in small ways. If I had been hellbent on getting work that involved my passions, I would have passed up all the opportunities that lead me to this. I would have passed up new passions I never knew I could have. Now I have a profitable business that I work 7 days a week, 80 hours a week on, and I love every second of it. With a profitable system, all that's left to do is scale it, which is easy, because I've already done it before, except now it's 100% MINE
Hey, Emmy winning actor Mike Rowe, did YOU follow your passion when you became a professional actor?
Following your passion is a waste of time. Nobody is passionate about anything that provides a living. The only way to “succeed” is to put your head down and work at a mindless job until you’re done. Unfortunately that is becoming less of an option in this country.
You heard it here first folks. Give up on your dreams, you suck at your hobbies so you should become a miserable blue collar worker unsatisfied with your job.
Mike's voice puts me to sleep
Well, one thing I can tell about this guy is that he's almost certainly one of those "art is a hobby, not a profession. Get a real job you lazy moocher" type of people.
Perfectly clean truth: I used to NOT follow my passion and worked trade jobs. I worked as a plumber's helper, railcar mechanic, and finally as a pole barn builder. I tried to BRING MY PASSION with me, but it didn't work. No disrespect to the trades, but I personally did not like working the trades. I followed my passion, went to college to become an electical engineer with a 3.93 GPA. I made the National Engineering Honor Society and accumulated no debt. I am very satisfied with my work and I make more money than I ever did working in the trades where I had no passion. Real dirty truth: Don't listen to mike rowe or praegeru in general.
This is terrible advice that will make you miserable. Mike Rowe is a millionaire larping as a blue collar worker and I have zero respect for him.
You are some miserably depressive people over at Prager U.
I keep coming back to reshare this because it's just that big of a truth bomb.
No