The Danger of Doing What You Love
Why you should think twice about this age-old advice
When I left the NSA back in 2013, people thought I was crazy – not for starting a company, but for leaving behind security to do photo products.
Many of my peers were security people. Their entire identities were wrapped up in being hackers. They even dressed the part.
They loved their work so much that it made considering other career opportunities unthinkable.
It’s good to like your job, but too much emotional attachment can sabotage rational decision making.
Here are eight reasons why you should think twice before choosing a career based on your passion and be wary of those in your organization who do.
#1: Growth Comes from Failure, Not Love
Working on something you love is rewarding, but you may not learn much.
When I look back at all the things I had to do in my career, the ones that most made me a better person were those where I had to overcome tremendous anxiety and difficulty.
I had no initial passion for hiring, and nobody enjoys having to fire underperforming employees. But, in seeing the negative impact that bad hiring decisions had on my friends and colleagues, I found motivation to overcome my fears and get a lot better at building cohesive, high-performing teams.
If you only focus on things you love, life and all of its rewarding challenges will pass you by.
#2: Love Lets You Work Inefficiently
It is important to find satisfaction in your work, which is essential for motivation.
However, it is also important to work toward a goal and reach that goal so that you can produce something of value for other people.
When motivation comes from loving what you’re doing rather than being done with it, it’s easy to get carried away and spend way more time than you should.
I have worked with software engineers who struggle to complete tasks on time because they simply enjoy the process too much and over-perfect their work.
Those who take pride in their work but see coding as a means to an end are better engineers.
#3: No One Loves Grunt Work
Regardless of what you pursue, success requires grunt work that no one enjoys. You may have to deal with office politics, clean toilets, or do odd jobs to make ends meet in order to achieve your goals.
The problem is, if you’re only in it for love, then you might have a hard time finding motivation for the unglamorous but essential tasks.
I have worked with passion-driven people who didn’t want to do things like writing automated tests, even though those tasks were essential for long-term success.
#4: You May Need to Kill the Sacred Cow
When you love something, you have an emotional attachment that goes beyond achieving an end result and may transcend practicality.
In a real-world organization, resource constraints force you to compromise. If you are too attached to your work, you may have a hard time stopping when it’s time to be done.
I have seen this take many forms, from reluctance to raise prices on customers because you feel like one of them, to not wanting to ship software until it’s perfect or not cutting a marginal feature because you like it yourself.
Change and loss aversion are already tough pills to swallow. Love makes it even harder.
#5: Opportunities Get You There Faster
If I had prioritized my passion (computer science research) right after finishing school, I’d have missed all the opportunities to learn, grow, and step outside my comfort zone at a fast-paced start-up. I also wouldn’t have the built relationships, skills, and financial resources to do whatever I wanted next.
Doing what you love instead of following the best opportunity is like putting “shortest route” into your GPS instead of following the highway. Good opportunities will take you anywhere you ultimately want to go much faster, especially earlier in your career.
#6: Love is Fleeting
Another hazard of doing what you love is that love can fade over time.
It’s always exciting to explore a new area and encounter fresh ideas on a daily basis. During this honeymoon period, positive emotions flourish.
Once you’ve walked every path, however, things start to get dull. You become aware of the roadblocks that hinder progress, and realize that other people have already thought of all your good ideas.
If love was your main motivation and that love goes away, you have nothing left.
I have worked with people who started out with a lot of excitement, but lost interest after 3-6 months. True success takes years of dedication, and relying on love alone probably won’t be enough.
#7: Doing What You’re Good at Is Better for Others
Unless you’re a rare person whose talent and passion align perfectly, following your passion instead of your talent takes an economic toll on society.
If you are a brilliant accountant but pursue medicine because you like to help people, then another less talented person (who might be better at medicine) will have to do the accounting anyway, making everyone less well off.
#8: Love Is Hard to Quit
People who choose the path that they’re on out of love have a strong desire to stay on that path. While perseverance is admirable, sometimes you need to quit.
After I sold my last company, things went south quickly. It was a bad environment and a lot of people left within a few months, myself included.
However, a lot of people stuck around because they loved photography, were photographers themselves, and cared deeply about customers.
These people put up with poor treatment out of passion for photography, which made the problem worse because managers took advantage of the fact that they’d stay regardless of the circumstances.
Being detached enough to walk away from your work is important to avoid getting stuck in a place that no longer offers good opportunities.
How I Chose My Career
After selling my last company, I was lucky enough to have the freedom to do what I wanted next. This was incredibly fortunate, but it also made the decision difficult.
The Love Option: Education
I am passionate about education. Looking back at my own experience, I see a lot of slow growth and missed opportunities.
I have young children who will face these same difficulties soon.
I believe society could be a lot better if the education system empowered everyone to reach their full potential. Now is also the time for disruption due to worldwide internet connectivity.
And yet, actually starting a school or education platform is fraught with problems.
I don’t know that much about education since I’ve spent my career building software. While it’s easy to see problems with the education system, I probably take for granted a lot of things that it does well, all of which I’d have to learn.
Educators also face many challenges working with kids and parents – dealing with harassment and bullying, managing parents with unreasonable expectations, etc.
Then there’s the matter of financing. Students most in need of education have no money. I have no experience with non-profit fundraising, but I imagine it is much harder than raising venture capital, which is already a challenge.
The Opportunity Option: Software Engineering Analytics
On the other hand, taking an objective look at the intersection of my skills, experience, and opportunities clearly pointed in one direction: software engineering analytics.
I have been building software professionally for 20 years and managing engineers for 10. I have already gone through the Dunning-Kruger cycle of initial overconfidence followed by disillusionment and developing true expertise.
I enjoy teaching, but am probably much better at building software at this point.
The time is also right with engineering analytics due to the confluence of new technology like AI and large data platforms with the growing desire to improve productivity. There is no established leader, which leaves an opening for a new company to win the market.
While engineering analytics won’t directly give my children a head start in life like education would, I have seen the pain that bad management inflicts on people. If I can help millions of software engineers feel less stress and have more time to spend with their children, then that is probably the best thing I can do for the world, and the right decision for me.