> it’s because you’re either very lucky (and congrats to you) or you’re very passionate.
It's never because you're very passionate. Passion has basically no correlation with financial success. Millions of passionate artists, musicians, writers, and all of them broke as can be, most working shit jobs to pay the bills wishing they could just be passionate and make money from that. Passion is bullshit.
The real path to financial success is a combination of: being born to parents with the means and motivation to see you well education; being born lucky enough to be a little bit clever; being lucky to pick a career that makes a lot of money, often only by ignoring idiots who say 'follow your passion; putting in a lot of hard work to get good at something that is in-demand.
Or the usual answer: just being born wealthy and wouldn't-you-know-it you wound up wealthy too.
> Passion has basically no correlation with financial success.
Have you got any evidence for this? I would expect that passion correlates with hard work, and hard work seems to be necessary for success. I agree that many artists are passionate, but surely people can also be passionate about doing things like writing software or other activities that are valued highly in the market.
We live in a culture that wishes passion lead to success. It's what we're taught as children here. It's what we want to be true.
And yet I find no strong evidence anywhere supporting the assertion that it does; just people claiming that it's up to those who doubt to disprove it.
Passion is a fairy tale adults tell each other because it's nicer than the reality that dumb luck and being born wealthy are the only real chances we have.
And those who were lucky or born on third base love to tell everyone it was because they were just so darned passionate.
A simple "no" would have been fine.... So, no strong evidence anywhere, huh? I'm gonna set myself a five-minute timer. "Passion" isn't well defined, so I'll look broadly. And I'll look for correlations rather than causation: it's hard to imagine a natural experiment that increased someone's passion. Let's hit G Scholar and search "passion and achievement".
> The present paper reports two studies designed to test the Dualistic Model of Passion with regard to performance attainment in two fields of expertise. Results from both studies supported the Passion Model. Harmonious passion was shown to be a positive source of activity investment in that it directly predicted deliberate practice (Study 1) and positively predicted mastery goals which in turn positively predicted deliberate practice (Study 2). In turn, deliberate practice had a direct positive impact on performance attainment.
> The major purpose of this study was to test the hypothesized paths from dualistic passions through achievement goals to subjective vitality and performance in sports. 645 high school athletes participated. The proposed structural equation model, with relationships between dualistic passions and subjective vitality and sports performance mediated by achievement goals, fit the data well, especially for mastery-approach and performance-approach goals.
Probably best because of its wide scope and broad sample:
> In three large-scale datasets representing adolescents from 59 societies across the globe, we find evidence of a systematic cultural variation in the relationship between passion and achievement. In individualistic societies, passion better predicts achievement and explains more variance in achievement outcomes. In collectivistic societies, passion still positively predicts achievement, but it is a much less powerful predictor.
This took me 3 minutes. I don't claim these studies are the last word on the subject. I just wish people were a bit more curious - passionate even - about checking their own beliefs.
It's never because you're very passionate. Passion has basically no correlation with financial success. Millions of passionate artists, musicians, writers, and all of them broke as can be, most working shit jobs to pay the bills wishing they could just be passionate and make money from that. Passion is bullshit.
The real path to financial success is a combination of: being born to parents with the means and motivation to see you well education; being born lucky enough to be a little bit clever; being lucky to pick a career that makes a lot of money, often only by ignoring idiots who say 'follow your passion; putting in a lot of hard work to get good at something that is in-demand.
Or the usual answer: just being born wealthy and wouldn't-you-know-it you wound up wealthy too.