Passions cost money!

Monday, January 20, 2014 Francisco Carneiro 1 Comments

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From Scott Adams,

But the most dangerous case of all is when successful people directly give advice. For example, you often hear them say that you should "follow your passion." That sounds perfectly reasonable the first time you hear it. Passion will presumably give you high energy, high resistance to rejection and high determination. Passionate people are more persuasive, too. Those are all good things, right?

Here's the counterargument: When I was a commercial loan officer for a large bank, my boss taught us that you should never make a loan to someone who is following his passion. For example, you don't want to give money to a sports enthusiast who is starting a sports store to pursue his passion for all things sporty. That guy is a bad bet, passion and all. He's in business for the wrong reason.

My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over 30 years, said that the best loan customer is someone who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet. Maybe the loan customer wants to start a dry-cleaning store or invest in a fast-food franchise—boring stuff. That's the person you bet on. You want the grinder, not the guy who loves his job.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579121813075903866

I totally agree with this advice, people who follow their passion normally have a decent product/idea but go bankrupt!

My job is to help rich people to make money with money! I have made many mistakes but the ones that are recurrent are when i invest with a manager that has written a book, that has some kind of strategy that they follow like a religion, etc... These normally cost me money! They are stubborn and they don't change exactly because they are following some higher religion.

The ones that are flexible & pragmatic are the ones who change, who adapt and prosper. These have no passion besides surviving. Surviving is a big goal.