6 Women Entrepreneurs Who Debunked The Myth “Follow Your Passion”
Life is cruel, you have no choice but to play!
We’ve heard the advice, “just follow your passion” over and over to solve real life’s troubles. It never feels good, but we couldn’t figure out why.
If I did what I was excited about ten years ago today, I would have probably become an event planner. I didn’t have strong direction right after college, and partying was a hobby that I really enjoyed.
If we go back a little further, say 15 or 20 years ago, I would probably be in a girl-only rock band, showing off heavy makeups and jagged hairstyles.
To be fair, those two things still sound pretty good to me, but that’s not where my life has been, and for good reason.
As I gained experience, the things I got involved in and the things I liked changed a lot.
While I like to endorse any path to a meaningful career, the Passion Road doesn’t work for a lot of people and then they bow their heads and start doing something “practical,” which is code to gently kill me softly.
Passion is often the fuel to start new businesses, but not enough to sustain them.
Christopher McCandless, American Hiker, was bursting with passion as he made his way to wilderness. But it didn’t work, because passion is not enough.
The same is true of many potential writers, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, designers and business leaders. Just because you have a lot of enthusiasm for something doesn’t mean you’ll be successful at it.
Suppose you hire someone, do you prefer them to be highly skilled and experienced or do you prefer them to be passionate?
A young basketball player by the name of Lewis Alcindor Jr., who won three national championships with John Wooden at UCLA, used one word to describe his famous coach’s style: ‘Dispassionate.’ Meaning not passionate.
Wooden was not one to make bold speech or inspiration. He saw these extra emotions as a burden. Instead, his philosophy was to stay in control and do the work and never be “a slave to passion.”
Bobby Knight was passionate — and it was his passion that always got him into such unnecessary trouble.
But, there is a reason the ancients warned against passions. In fact, the Stoics believed that passions were a form of suffering. Lust, anger, obsession — these were traits to be avoided.
Since we only seem to hear about the passion of successful people, we forget that failures share the same trait. We only understand the consequences once we have looked at their track records.
I’m sure Napoleon was bursting with passion when he envisioned the invasion of Russia and ultimately only got out of it by limping back home with a fraction of the men he trusted so much.
In many other examples, we see the same mistakes: investing too much, investing too little, acting out of impatient, breaking things that required delicacy — not so much mischief as the intoxication of passion.
In life we will face complex problems. These problems require skill, patience and understanding.
In trying to resolve these problems, breathlessness and impetuousness and frenzy are poor substitutes for discipline, mastery, strength and purpose and persistence.
What we really need in our ascension is purpose and realism. Purpose, you could say, is like passion but with boundaries. Realism is detachment and perspective.
When we’re young, or when our vision is young, we feel so intense — passion like our hormones runs strongest in youth — that it seems wrong to take it slow.
It’s just our impatience. It is our inability to see that running out or blowing yourself up will not the journey any faster.
Why I think finding your passion is a myth
A common passion-based mantra is, “If you love what you do, you will never have to work a day of your life.”
This is simply not true; Whatever your career, there will be days when you don’t want to do it, or tasks you don’t like — you have no choice but to get it done.
I find this particular phrase harmful because it leads you to believe that if you ever felt like you were working, you missed your passion. And that if you don’t make your passion your career, you’re doing it wrong.
If I could climb the highest mountain I would climb to the top and say, “You Don’t Have To Find Your Passion To Build A Fulfilling Career!”
Oh wait? You don’t have to find your passion to do meaningful work? No. You Do Not!
In my quest to prove why following your purpose in life is so much better than passion.
I’ve found stories from 6 successful female entrepreneurs who have left their mark in the corporate world as a wonderful way to make a point that will hopefully influence history.
Anjali Agrawal
Anjali Agarwal decided to start her own company after 12 years in the business world by innovating the traditional Kota Doria fabric. Her company Kotadoriasilk has grown into a 4 core turnover company.
Her entrepreneurial journey began with a vision to empower women to sell from home and encourage artisans to work according to the new age demands of a young, experienced audience.
A software engineer by profession, Anjali Agrawal was part of the business world before starting her company, inspired by her love of wearing her favorite traditional Indian fabric Kota Doria.
After achieving good results in the business world, she felt she needed to do more for her soul.
She therefore decided to take the plunge with an initial investment of just $ 2500 in 2014.
Over time, her small home business grew more and more and within a year KDS launched their full-fledged e-commerce website due to increased demand.
According to Anjali,
“The trip was very rewarding, fulfilling my creative and intellectual needs and always motivated me to create more jobs”.
Anjali has worked hard enough to rise above all else to become an inspiration to many women and a beacon of hope for many women seeking independence.
Oprah Winfrey
Media mogul Oprah Gail Winfrey, popularly known as Oprah Winfrey, is a well-known American television host and philanthropist best known for her eponymous and award-winning show “The Oprah Winfrey Show”.
The show became the highest rated show of its kind in history and was syndicated nationally from 1986 to 2011.
“Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead.”
When I look at Oprah’s success, I have an important takeaway. Oprah worked hard. Let me explain how hard she worked.
I used to work in the entertainment industry so I kind of know what it takes to put on an hour of TV.
It takes a lot of work. Oprah was producing five shows a week. If you do five shows a week, that means you work seven days a week.
When the audience is watching the show it sounds easy, but it’s actually a tremendous amount of work putting it together.
So, in effect, Oprah worked seven days a week for twenty-five years. That’s the secret to her success … Oprah worked hard!
Marian Ilitch
She co-founded Little Caesar Enterprises Inc. with her husband Mike in 1959. Her financial expertise balanced his marketing acumen, and the two built a family of companies that made $ 2.4 billion last year.
She broke out on her own in 2005 when she became full owner of the MotorCity Casino Hotel.
Marian Ilitch has always worked hard, starting her first job when she was ten, filling salt and pepper shakers in her father’s restaurant.
Her hard work continued when she and her husband opened a lonely restaurant in Garden City, especially when she had to tell Mike Ilitch to stop hosting dinner parties.
Marian Ilitch’s knowledge of finance and business is the result of the discipline of taking the time to learn from those around him.
“There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t learned anything from anyone,” she said. ‘If they can do better than I can, I can learn something from them. That’s how I’ve always done it and started all over again. “
At the heart of her learning process, she says, is common sense. “Listening to common sense is something she has encouraged others to do in their careers.”
Another tip was to take on challenges and work hard.
Meg Whitman
Whitman headed major technology companies during his eventful 40-year career. She runs multi-billion dollar companies like eBay and Hewlett-Packard because they have undergone major changes and made billions in the process.
Whitman first wanted to be a doctor and went to Princeton University to study medicine.
However, she changed her major in economics after spending a summer selling ads for Princeton magazine. She later received an MBA from Harvard University.
She wasn’t afraid to move and change roles, nor to reinvent herself in a new industry that she had to learn over and over again.
Yet her most daring — and also her most successful — jump would come when she decided to use the web.
Whitman joined eBay in 1998 as President and CEO. At the time, what we know today as an e-commerce giant had only 30 employees and sales of $ 4 million dollars.
As she would put it,
“Business isn’t all about innovation — getting it right takes heart, mind, and vision.”
When she left eBay in 2008, just ten years later, she left behind a company with 15,000 employees and $ 8 billion in revenue.
Judy Faulkner
Judy Faulkner is more than three times the billionaire, currently ranked by Forbes as the third richest self-made businesswoman in the United States with a net worth of $ 5.5 billion.
She co-founded Epic nearly 40 years ago with $ 70,000 and a vision she has never given up.
Faulkner learned the basics of coding herself in just a week during her undergraduate years — and became a computer science professor.
She is a world class Vision Master, a Vision Grandmaster.
Faulkner also exercised the patience required to pass a Vision Masters. The biggest goals of the Vision Master are in the future.
“Time, patience, persistence — all are needed to make them come true.”
Disruption never comes as fast as the disruptor wants, so patience is a virtue of Vision Master.
Like Faulkner, rely on your logic. Stick to your unique vision even if you are seen as stubborn.
If you are a Vision Master or Vision Master in training, she is a role model to follow.
Doris Fisher
Doris Fisher, who was worth a breathtaking $ 2.7 billion, was named on Forbes magazine’s list of 100 Most Powerful Women.
Today, The Gap Inc. has five companies — Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Intermix and Athleta, and it is the largest specialty store in the United States.
The powerful couple revolutionized the specialty retail industry and have remained iconic. The race to the top was fast — in its second full year, the first Gap store had hit $ 2 million in sales!
After 5 years of selling Levi’s and LP records, Donald and Doris ditched Levi’s clothing as their own brand accounted for 45% of all sales made and showed the true quality of their own merchandise.
Speaking of her success, she said to aDresseD: “I did it because I worked hard.”
“Looking back on my childhood, I pushed myself to finish my education and graduate with honors. I have put the same energy into the construction of Gap.”
A woman running a successful retail business was pretty much unheard of when it launched in the late 1960s, but she didn’t give up!
Final thoughts
One study asked more than 500 students about their passions. Researchers found that while 84% of people identified a passion in their lives, the vast majority — 96% — of those passions were for hobbies such as dancing, hockey, and reading.
Only 4% of the identified passions were related to work or school.
In most cases it is not realistic to encourage people to pursue these hobby passions in their careers; only 0.02% of hockey players make it a viable career.
Most people don’t have a global passion that guides their careers. Telling the to “follow your passion” is cruel. They don’t know where to start, which can make people feel incomplete, ashamed, and even more confused before a well-meaningful advice reached them.
It is by no means easy, but nothing rewarding in life ever is! Dare to dream, think big, and no matter how many people tell you it’s not possible, do it! The person who believes in their goals achieves them!