Dear class of 2014, No it’s not your parents. No it’s not a good paying career not is it a $150,000 college degree. It’s that little voice in the back of your head telling you to go for that corner coffee store dream you’ve been dreaming to own. It’s that desire to be the next Steve Jobs creating the next big thing. It’s called Passion. Everyone has it. Chase that and not the dollar signs. The Dollar signs come afterwards I promise. This is a bad advice. Now that graduation is done, your 4 years of undergrad is over. Now what? Don’t get me wrong I am huge at following my passions. However, that thought simply matured into a reality. So let this not discourage you. Read on. First, do you really know what your passion is?  A lot of people don’t, and it set them back seven months.  We assume that we really know what our passions are upfront. Can you tell me just by thinking about it? The way it really works is that you have to get good at something, then you become passionate about it. I’ve asked a few people who love what they do for a living, I found that in most cases their passion developed slowly, often over unexpected and complicated paths. It’s rare, for example, to find someone who loves their career before they’ve become very good at it — expertise generates many different engaging traits, such as respect, impact, autonomy — and the process of becoming good can be frustrating and take years. Second, it may not be realistic to follow your passion. We tend to not consider the barriers.  Like,  what if your passion won’t pay? Or what if you don’t actually want to turn your hobby or passion into a full-time career? Or what if your passion leads you down a road that means you’ll actually make less of an impact? Two reasons people keep trying to follow their passion There are a couple of reasons people still think following a passion is the golden career ticket, even when it’s getting them nowhere. One reason is that we hear this advice everywhere! We’re told this is the way that people succeed. “Just follow your passion and the dollars will follow, I said. But here’s the real truth :  Our culture celebrates dreamers who stick with it and overcome all odds. But that’s…

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