Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to not discount that common graduation advice
Speaker 1: to follow your passion. In many cases, this can be
Speaker 1: a wise career move. We've recently emerged from graduation season.
Speaker 1: Commencement speakers everywhere urge the gown and mortarboard set to
Speaker 1: follow their passions. Other people give this as advice to
Speaker 1: a Few years ago, I helped design a survey for
Speaker 1: alarms approaching major reunions at my alma mater. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: that follow your passion chestnut was the most common advice
Speaker 1: people shared. It's easy to laugh at this cliche, but
Speaker 1: what I think is more interesting is the deeper reason
Speaker 1: why follow your passion might be smart. Some luck, like
Speaker 1: in the lottery, is random, but more commonly, success is
Speaker 1: a numbers game. This means it is closely connected with
Speaker 1: what we find intrinsically motivating for reasons related to how
Speaker 1: we spend our time. As I watch my kids grow,
Speaker 1: I have been fascinated by the various ways they choose
Speaker 1: to spend the hours that they aren't at school or activities.
Speaker 1: My eldest loves movies, but not just the plots. He
Speaker 1: has become a diligent student of box office Mojo, a
Speaker 1: website that posts daily revenue figures for major theater releases.
Speaker 1: He studies the patterns and trends. He doesn't always love
Speaker 1: his math homework, but he makes sure to tell me
Speaker 1: when a movie's gross drops by just fifty in its
Speaker 1: second weekend compared to an expected decline. My nine year
Speaker 1: old has no interest in box office projections, but he's
Speaker 1: spent hours constructing various cardboard contraptions from his Nintendo Labo kit.
Speaker 1: I have to her ring him to practice the piano,
Speaker 1: but he willingly built a cardboard piano, hooked it up
Speaker 1: to a switch, and played electronic tunes. I know I
Speaker 1: had my own obsessions as a child. My parents cleaned
Speaker 1: out their home in advance of a move to the
Speaker 1: East Coast, and my mother sent me one of my
Speaker 1: old notebooks from when I was ten. I had filled
Speaker 1: copious pages with a description of a stormy night. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a good description, but judging by length a loan,
Speaker 1: I was willing to spend hours writing something that wasn't
Speaker 1: for school. Now back to that numbers game. As I've
Speaker 1: interviewed people about their careers over the years. The theme
Speaker 1: of persistence keeps coming up. People try a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff a lot starting out. You don't know what will work,
Speaker 1: but it makes logical sense that activity generates feedback and
Speaker 1: other activity. You can pay attention to what works. You
Speaker 1: can do your best to season the opportunities that arise.
Speaker 1: I've seen this in my life. People sometimes ask me
Speaker 1: how I became a time management expert, putting that in quotes,
Speaker 1: this is not something you major in during college. And
Speaker 1: I did not think, Hey, I'd like to be a
Speaker 1: time management expert as I wrote that twelve page description
Speaker 1: of a rain storm. But I knew I loved writing,
Speaker 1: and I knew I was willing to write a lot
Speaker 1: about anything, articles, blog posts, books that never got published,
Speaker 1: books that got published but few people read. Incredibly problematic
Speaker 1: book proposals, followed by slightly less problematic book proposals, and then,
Speaker 1: in the fall of two thousand eight, an editor at
Speaker 1: Penguin read a book review I wrote and asked if
Speaker 1: I'd like to meet and discuss book ideas. My book
Speaker 1: proposal of the moment became the raw material for a
Speaker 1: book that came out called a hundred sixty eight hours.
Speaker 1: You have more time than you think. And there was
Speaker 1: nothing magical about that book review that my editor spotted.
Speaker 1: Versus hundreds of other articles I've written, no one has
Speaker 1: any idea what will work. You put a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff out into the universe. Knowing that fairy godmothers are lazy,
Speaker 1: you need to give them as many chances as possible
Speaker 1: to work their magic. Putting stuff out into the world
Speaker 1: sounds like a lot of work, and it is which
Speaker 1: brings us back to the topic of passion. People won't
Speaker 1: spend gobs of their own free time pursuing something they
Speaker 1: don't enjoy for its own sake. They'll spend some time, sure,
Speaker 1: but not the sheer volume of time necessary for luck
Speaker 1: to happen. So that's why I follow your passion can
Speaker 1: be wise advice, but it's not just wise advice for graduates. Now.
Speaker 1: I know that taking big risks can be harder when
Speaker 1: you're a grown up with kids and a mortgage and
Speaker 1: all that. Still, I think it behooves everyone to spend
Speaker 1: time thinking about what he or she finds intrinsically motivating.
Speaker 1: You don't have to quit your day job, but you
Speaker 1: can think about how you could spend more time practicing
Speaker 1: this craft. How can you start putting more stuff out
Speaker 1: into the universe. Talk to two people about your passion
Speaker 1: and nothing might happen. Talk to a hundred people and
Speaker 1: something will happen. We don't know what, but something. If
Speaker 1: you can then run with it, even as a hobby
Speaker 1: or side hustle, then that is the secret of success.
Speaker 1: So why not spend some time today thinking about what
Speaker 1: your passion might be. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod that's b the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com
Speaker 1: that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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