Imagine an Elon Musk as a professional gamer or a Warren Buffett playing the ukulele. These scenarios would have been possible if the two billionaires had followed their passions.
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Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at NYU Stern and founder of nine companies, claims that one of the most popular life tips – “follow your passion” – is, in fact, the sure way to be economically exploited. In one of his books, The Algebra of Wealthhe explains why it's talent, not passion, that really dictates a person's financial success.
Why passion does not depend on hunger
Galloway dismantles the myth of attractive industries such as sports, music, film or fashion. He warns that in these fields, the number of those willing to work purely out of passion far outnumbers the jobs available, which inevitably leads to exploitation and financial compromise.
The numbers are unforgiving. Only 2% of professional actors manage to live exclusively from this job. Half of visual artists make less than 10% of their income from their art. On YouTube, the top 3 percent of channels garner 85 percent of total views, according to a Financial Times article citing Galloway.
“A former client of mine, Chanel, is one of the most powerful brands in the world. The family that owns Chanel is a billionaire. And yet they had unpaid interns. Why? Because they could. 'Follow your passion' is Latin for 'get ready to be exploited'”Galloway writes.
From his perspective, the advice to follow your passion is usually given by people who have already become rich operating in mundane, lackluster industries. “If someone tells you to follow your passion, they are already rich”notes the author, adding that, as a rule, that fortune was built in unglamorous fields.
Instead, Galloway advises us to focus on talent—those skills that come naturally to you but are difficult for others. Unlike passion, talent can be observed and measured, develops the more you use it, and can be converted much more quickly into a profitable career.
“Passion for a field might help you progress, but talent guarantees it. When you do something you're good at, the results come faster. They give you confidence and motivate you to work even harder. The whole process becomes a pleasure, not a chore, so it's much easier to start over every day, for years.” argues Galloway.
To illustrate the clear distinction between passion and talent, Galloway cites the example of Connie Hallquist, one of her first hires at consulting firm Prophet, founded in 1992. Her initial resume reflected her interests and passions up until then: she had studied French literature academically, played professional tennis, and worked as a currency trader. Although she achieved results by pursuing these passions, her truly valuable native talent turned out to be something else entirely: management. He instinctively knew how to lead people, structure a plan and motivate an entire team towards the same goal. It was this talent, although less spectacular than tennis, that propelled her. Hallquist later founded his own company and became CEO of several successful businesses.
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Passion for a field ultimately comes as a side effect of skill, results and financial rewards, not the other way around, he says.
Continuous learning as a driver of opportunity
Beyond talent, experts emphasize the importance of continuing education to identify areas in which we can excel. For example, Adrian Negrescu, economic analyst, explained for “The Truth” that success depends on the ability to understand the economic context and react to it: “I would say that the most important advice, from my perspective, is to try to do everything to learn as much as possible, to improve yourself, to open your mind, your horizons. Learn, learn and when you think you know too much, look for new information.”
In his opinion, only in this way can we be able to understand reality, contextualize what is happening and be able to exploit the opportunities that arise. “In life, everything is about opportunities that you can follow or miss, and the difference between the two is given by teaching, by what you know, by the way you reason. Reason, critical thinking, indeed have an important native component, but without cultivating it with information, it remains only an instinct. Only with a clear analytical eye, based on information, will you be able to see opportunities and exploit them”he continues.
“Passion is not the starting point, it is the result”
For his part, Cosmin Răileanu, an entrepreneur, believes that the real problem with the myth of passion is its superficial approach. He detailed for “The Truth” how the value brought to the market generates, over time, the real motivation.
“I think the problem with the 'follow your passion' advice isn't that it's completely wrong, it's that it's superficially understood. In my case, I didn't start from passion. I graduated from a mechanical engineering college, with nothing to do with marketing or sales. However, my only 10 in college was in marketing, not because I had learned the theory, but because I was already working and the experience helped me understand things differently from the classes. This showed me something important: real competence comes from practice and contact with the market, not from what you think you like at first”, he claims.
Cosmin Răileanu believes that financial frustration appears precisely when the natural order is reversed: “In entrepreneurship, it wasn't passion that guided me, but the opportunity and the need in the market. Passion came along the way, when I started to see results, understand the game and get better. I think many people do the opposite: they look for passion before they become valuable to the market, and that's where financial frustration comes from. For me, financial success comes when you become very good in an area that matters to others. Passion is not the starting point, it's the result.”
