Passion can awaken the effort. But the effort can also awaken passion, especially in entrepreneurs.
Steve Jobs apparently believed in finding your passion. As Jobs once said: «You have to find what you love. The only way to do a great job is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking.
Mark Cuban does not agree. As Cuban said: “One of the great lies of life is ‘follow your passions’. ‘Your passion continues’ is easily the worst advice you could give or receive«.
Who is right as you will see, both, especially when it comes to starting and building a business.
For Jobs, passion seems to be the first:
You have to have a lot of passion for what you do, and the reason is that it is so difficult that if you do not, any rational person would give up.
You have to do it (build a company) for a prolonged period of time. If you really do not love it, you will give up.
For Cuban, passion comes later:
Many people talk about passion, but that is not what you need to concentrate.
When you look where you spend your time, where you dedicate your effort, they tend to be the things you are good in. And if you spend enough time, you tend to be really good at that.
If you spend enough time and become really good, I will give you a small secret: nobody renounces anything in what is good, because it is fun to be good. It is fun to be one of the best. But to be one of the best, you have to strive.
So don’t follow your passions. Follow your effort.
However, in reality, their approaches are more similar than not.
Before founding Apple, Jobs was passionate about things like Eastern mysticism, calligraphy and dance. No technology.
Then, when Jobs associated with Woz to sell computer circuit plates kits to fans, the “business” was a secondary hustle. When local businessman Paul Terrell told Jobs that he would buy 50 computers completely assembled for $ 500 each, Jobs simply took the opportunity to earn even more money.
Jobs saw an opportunity, looked for her and, in the process, found the work of her life (business).
That is also what Cuban does. Take artificial intelligence and automatic learning. According to Cuban, «The first billionaires in the world will come from someone who dominates artificial intelligence and all its derivatives, and apply it in ways we never think ».
That is why he completed Amazon’s automatic learning tutorials. That is why time spent building their own neural networks. Therefore, at one point, he kept the book Machine Learning for Dummies in his bathroom.
“The more I understand artificial intelligence, the more I get excited,” Cuban said.
Neither Jobs nor Cuban waited to discover their passions.
Instead, they developed them.
This is how, according to a 2014 study published in Academy of Management Journal, the same process usually works for entrepreneurs.
While most people, and most theoretical frameworks assume that business passion drives business effort, research shows that the opposite is also true: business passion increases with effort.
The more work the entrepreneurs put in their new companies, the more enthusiastic they become about their businesses. As they gain impulse, they acquire skills and enjoy small successes, even if those “successes” only involve setting elements in their apparently endless lists of pending tasks, their passion grows.
So yes, passion can generate effort. But the effort can, in turn, awaken passion, passion that often leads to even greater effort. And greater passion. And more effort.
And one day you wake up and realize that you are doing what you love.
Although it did not start that way.
If you want to start a business but you have not found your “passion,” that’s fine. Find an opportunity. Find a hole. Find a way to satisfy a need or solve a problem, one that adjusts to a skill that has or is willing to strive to develop.
Then, strive to take that opportunity.
While others expect, you will be doing it. Learning. Growing. Acquire the skills, experience and knowledge necessary to build a successful business.
Because passion does not have to be discovered.
Passion can also be developed.
Science, as well as Jobs and Cuban, says so.
