The most famous proponent of this, Steve Jobs, took calligraphy classes in college, went to India to ‘find himself’, worked in a video-game company, sold a computer that Woz designed, became CEO, got kicked out and started another hardware company that failed, came back to Apple and then changed all our lives with the iPhone. So what was his passion? Selling? Building great products? Design? Building great teams?
The man who kickstarted the mantra took decades to find his groove. He was insanely good at many things; the combination is what made him a force of nature. He spent his 20s and 30s exploring, pushing, constantly learning. Failing, becoming more self aware. Sharpening his toolkit.
So how do we find our passion? Here’s my take:
👉 Follow your ‘curiosity’ and follow your ‘flow’. Curiosity will help you learn more all the time (going broad), and ‘flow’ will help you optimise your energy (narrowing down). The idea is to not give up when you hit a wall, but to continue pushing, especially when you hit a wall. When you get exceptionally good at something, opportunity, praise, fame, money will all follow and it will eventually become your passion. Passion follows flow, not the other way around.
To understand ‘flow’, please read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66354.Flow
To learn more about this ‘craftsmanship’ approach to passion, please read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you
p.s It is also ok to change your passion in the long term. We can fall in love with multiple passions over the course of our long lives.