Follow your passion, really?

A man climbs a mountain to ask the wise Guru one deep question.

“Where are my sunglasses? It’s bright up here.”

The Guru says, “On your head.”

The man thanks him and starts to leave.

“Wait,” says the Guru, “That’s it? One question?”

“Yep,” the man says. “Thanks.”

The Guru, baffled: “I haven’t had a visitor in 15 years!”

The man shrugs, “Oh… you haven’t heard of Google, TikTok, or YouTube, huh?”

We’re living in the age of instant gurus. Open TikTok or YouTube, and you’ll find a flood of twenty-somethings doling out life advice with the confidence of seasoned sages. They wear the title “life coach” or “business mentor” like a badge, despite barely having enough mileage in life to fill a CV.

It makes me wonder: how do you teach people how to climb a mountain when you’ve barely stepped out of the driveway?

The latest trend? Online courses on “how to succeed in life” are packaged with flashy thumbnails, recycled quotes and a lot of confidence but little experience. And yes, they’re selling.

Here’s a word of caution: Don’t take advice from someone who’s only ever watched the game from the bleachers. And don’t let someone coach you on business when they’ve never made payroll, missed a quota or wrestled with real-world setbacks. As the old saying goes, never take sailing tips from someone who’s never been through a storm. Look for mentors who carry scars, not scripts. Real wisdom is forged through time, trials and experience – not just trending audio clips and ring lights.

Let’s discuss one of the most overused and overly romanticized career advice ever invented: “Follow your passion.” Like an excellent quote printed on a coffee mug. But billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who likely sips his coffee while closing multi-million-dollar deals, isn’t buying it. He calls it nonsense.

Cuban doesn’t just dismiss the phrase as fluff; he calls it misleading. And frankly, he echoes what I’ve been telling thousands of participants at my Level Up Leadership seminars.

Here’s Cuban’s mic-drop moment: “Don’t follow your passion. Follow your effort.” Passion might start the engine, but effort is what keeps you moving forward. He says if you want to know what you’re meant to do, stop asking, “What excites me?” and ask, “Where do I spend my time and effort?” I agree.

Passion is great for Instagram bios, but effort is what builds something. While passion posts selfies, effort rolls up its sleeves and gets to work.

Take leadership, for example. Passion might get you to the front of the room, but effort keeps you there when the PowerPoint crashes, the numbers miss target, and the team’s morale needs CPR.

Passion loves a highlight reel. Effort lives in the bloopers.

Owning a professional NBA basketball franchise, Cuban compares this to sports. You don’t become a great player by “feeling passionate” about throwing. You get good by throwing the ball a thousand times, adjusting your grip, reading the defense, and staying late at practice. In other words: REPETITIONS or REPS!

In leadership, the reps look like this:

Taking that difficult conversation instead of avoiding it.

Studying the numbers instead of guessing your way through the meeting.

Reading the room, not just the agenda.

When hiring or promoting, we tend to lean toward the charismatic, the enthusiastic, the ones who look the part. But charisma fades when challenges arise. Passion is loud in interviews, but effort shows up in performance reviews.

The better metric is: Who consistently shows up? Who grinds, grows, and learns even when no one’s watching? That’s the person you invest in – or better yet, be that person.

The same applies to life. I’ve seen people “follow their passion” straight into credit card debt and disappointment because they mistook enthusiasm for a strategy.

The advice and observations are not just personal wisdom; they are a leadership lens. Here’s Mark Cuban says, “When you put in enough time, you get good at it. And when you get really good at something, you tend to enjoy it a lot more.”

People often say I’m passionate about speaking and training, which may be true. But here’s the real story: I’ve poured years of effort into the craft, and that’s why I enjoy what I do.

Passion is excellent for getting started. But effort is what gets you somewhere – maybe even somewhere great.

So now, before you quit your job because you “lost your passion,” ask yourself: “Did the fire fade, or did the effort stop?”

As Cuban wisely said, you can’t always control talent, timing, or luck, but you can maintain effort. Now go put in the reps. Your future self is counting on you.

(Join Francis Kong on his official YouTube and podcast platform, Kongversations with Francis, where meaningful conversations inspire purposeful living. You can also listen to Inspiring Excellence, now available on Spotify, Apple, Google, and all major podcast streaming platforms.)