Should we find work in passion or passion at work ?
My biggest passion in life is sports. I am a terrible player though. Bad at pretty much every sport and I have tried many. Inspite of my poor sporting skills, I have a fanatic interest in many sports. Including the likes of NBA, Baseball, American Football, Cycling etc.
My interest isn’t just limited to what happens on the field. I have an equal if not greater interest in everything which happens off the field as well. The characters, the histories, data and analytics, coaching and strategy the legends and rituals of the sport, the social and cultural role of sports, different countries and their sporting traditions and origins, etc etc.
I have read more than 400 books on sports. This post summaries some of my favourite sports books.
As a result, I always wanted a job in sports. I wasn’t sure what but something. In my head I was following the credo of “following my passion”. I was certain that a job in sports would make me very very happy and satisfied.
I wrote one paper on sports in college to embellish my resume. There was a sports management company which was supposed to come down for placements and I was hoping to join them. Unfortunately, they never came.
Later, after having read a lot of books ( up in college, very few sports books were available ), I started blogging about sports. I think I did reasonably well. Had a decent following. I contributed to some publications. I also continued trying to find a job in sports. I had an interview opportunity at a sportswear brand where I royally screwed. I connected with a couple of senior people in the sports business but couldn’t get anything concrete.
I wasn’t very satisfied with whatever work I was doing. I was reasonably successful professionally but it wasn’t fulfilling. This also influenced my decision to join CaratLane around the same time. I hoped a start-up would be more interesting than my previous job at DuPont. But in my mind, the answer to my need for fulfilment lay in sports. Because after all, I was already passionate about sports. If I got a job in sports, I have would have a job, I would be passionate about.
I got a chance to write full time. But it was largely match reports etc. It would pay but it wasn’t the kind of writing I did. So I let go.
I kept trying but slowly I got more and more involved in CaratLane.
Then something magical happened. I started to really really enjoy what I was doing at CaratLane.
Over a period of time, I ended up playing many roles for which I had no expereince or qualification. Things that I had never ever tried earlier. I found great joy in building things. I got deep satisfaction from the big and small milestones we had in the CaratLane journey.
I learnt new things about myself and developed some capabilities along the way. I was a major introvert all my life but I could sell without any inhibitions whatsoever. I learnt that I was the ultimate GENERALIST and solving complex problems with my generalist hat on was something I could do reasonably well. I found that consumer behaviour, psychology and anthropology was just as interesting as sports. To my great surprise I discovered that being creative was different from being good at art and I did have a tiny creative bone in my body. ( Not trying to brag :-). Just trying to be specific in what discovering myself meant for me )
All my life, I was trying to find work in my area of passion.
Then I found passion in the work I was doing.
I think I learnt two important lessons along the way. One, there is a lot about ourself that we don’t know. In large part, because of the limited exposure kids of my generation had growing up. This limits our world view. We operate with a fixed mindset and assume we are limited by our natural abilities. We think we only do certain things well. Growing up, my favourite subjects were English , Maths and History. I studied maths and statistics at ISI Kolkata and finance at IIM Lucknow. I was terrible at it. I nearly failed. I finally realised I wasn’t meant to work in finance or analytics. By getting to try things out in start-ups, by reading a lot, by talking to lots of people and by not bothering whether I will make a fool of myself trying something new, I learnt new things about myself. You can too.
Secondly, following your passion might not be best idea at the beginning of your work life. Thanks to our limited world view, we have a small set of passion based work possibilities. Our passions might not have clear cut opportunities to make a living or even build something. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have passion in your work. You just need to expand your world view. Build some new capabilities. This will allow you to discover new strengths and interests. Eventually you are quite likely to find work which you will be passionate about.
All the best to everyone out there who is seeking passion in their work.
