The Rules of Success – Part II
A while back I wrote a blog post on Steve Jobs’ explanation of the rules of success, in essence do what you are passionate about. However, more recently I watched a video of Ben Horowitz, the famous Silicon Valley investor who has backed many highly successful tech businesses including – Facebook, Skype, Box, Groupon and Pinterest – his assertion is in actual fact don’t follow what you are passionate about.
This video was of a commencement speech Horowitz gave at Columbia University to the 2015 graduating class.
This may seem contradictory, considering it is the polar opposite of what Jobs was so eloquently saying in his thesis. To give you full context here are the main points of the video:
- Passions are hard to prioritise – Are you more passionate about maths, or engineering? History, or literature? “On the other hand, what are you good at? That’s a much easier thing to figure out,” he said.
- Passions change – “What you’re passionate about at 21 is not necessarily what you’re going to be passionate about at 40.”
- You may not be good at it – “Has anybody ever watched American Idol?” he asked. “Just because you love singing doesn’t mean you should be a professional singer.”
- It’s self-centered – He explained that over time, people learn that what they take out of the world is much less important than what they leave behind.
His advice? “Find that thing you’re great at. Put that into the world. Contribute to others. Help the world be better.”
Invest 16:58 minutes to watch the video – It’s What your Can Contribute
In contemplating Steve Jobs views and consequently Horowitz it’s pretty easy to consider them as contradictory. It really seems to me that Horowitz neatly expanded on what Jobs was saying implicitly. As a consequence it brings more gravity to the whole concept – passionate contributors are the people on the planet who make all the difference.
Research the word passion – it’s history is from the Latin word passionem which means suffering or enduring. If you do the same for the word Contribution – it’s history lies in the concept of sacrifice. Conceptually passion and contribution are very similar – contribution is a more targeted results oriented version of passion and they both mean what are you prepared to endure for your passion such that you are giving, not taking.
I simply don’t believe you can disconnect the two concepts. If you are not great at something, you cannot be passionate about it, if you are not passionate you cannot be great. Steve Jobs is the embodiment of passionate contribution. Assess the core characteristics of all highly successful people – they are passionate contributors.
What are the rules of success? Very simply, what are you truly great at and are you truly passionate about it?
