Follow your passion or not?

ByJowi Witt

Hey Reader,

The advice to follow your passion has been talked about for many years.
Recently, everybody started to talk about Ikigai.
It’s a Japanese concept with four sections.
The idea is to help you narrow down what you should do.

It evaluates whether you’re good at it,
whether others demand it,
the market,
and whether you have passion for it.

All good things.

There is one challenge though.
On paper, it makes everything sound good.

When I started out, I talked about fatherhood—because it’s what I’ve known.
I had an issue in mind that I wanted to solve:
I wanted to help dads spend more quality time with their kids.

The issue looked clear.
Everybody that I shared it with loved it.

I wrote my thesis on the matter.
I got some praise with it.

When I started to test the idea, the feedback was different.
​Dads got the program and gave it to their wives—to do with the kids in the afternoon.

The real issue wasn’t a lack of options to spend quality time.
​The actual issue was that dads didn’t have enough time with their family.

Only through taking action and talking to my dream clients,
I found out what the real issue was.

Now came a deciding question:

Do I leave my program behind,
or do I keep the program but work with dads differently?

Now comes the question of passion.

I’m passionate about dads.
I’m passionate about my program.
But passion by itself isn’t the only factor.

Your passion doesn’t do much if you’re not finding action.

So then ask:
​Where’s the pain? Where’s the action?

Don’t just follow your passion.
​Follow the trail of transformation.

​

Keep chopping Wood!

Your Jowi

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