NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s best career advice: “Passion isn’t enough, you’ve got to endure.”
I believe "Follow your passion” is the most overhyped career advice on earth
If someone’s telling you to “just follow your passion,” they’re probably already living in abundance!
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
Passion usually follows mastery, not the other way around.
Get good first. Then the prestige, pay, confidence, and interesting problems make you… passionate.
A better playbook that I followed:
Pick something you can be great at. One clear lane, real demand.
Go deep for a decade. Reps > inspiration. Grit beats vibes.
Measure progress, not feelings. Hard day ≠ wrong path.
Work is hard, expect injustice, friction, and boredom.
Earn the right to edit. Mastery buys you optionality: interesting projects, better teams, better life.
Early on, balance is a tradeoff. Most meaningful careers require a season of asymmetric effort.
Later, mastery lets you buy back balance, time, control, boundaries.
Do your passions on weekends
Don’t ask: “Do I love this today?”
Ask: “Can I become great at this, and is it worth being great at?”
That’s how you build a career you’re proud of and yes, one you might just become passionate about.
What do you think?
We've all heard the old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none." But have you heard the full quote? "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."
I've found that being a generalist with wide-ranging interests is a real asset and incredibly valuable, especially in our rapidly changing world. The greatest generalists were the Renaissance polymaths like Leonardo Da Vinci. They made groundbreaking contributions precisely because of their curiosity about multiple disciplines. Yet, the idea that being a "generalist" is somehow anti-specialization has taken root, especially in corporate settings.
The reality is that our professional journeys are rarely linear. In machine learning, there's a concept of exploration vs. exploitation that's relevant here. Exploration means trying out new solutions, and gathering more information about something unknown. Exploitation means using the knowledge you've already gained to maximize your current rewards or performance. The most effective approach cycles between the two modes.
This concept applies to why being multi-passionate and deliberately cultivating a generalist mindset can enhance leadership:
* Adaptable: Diverse interests make you an adaptable, shape-shifting leader, deftly navigating challenges.
* Innovative: Engaging in multiple disciplines fosters cross-pollination of ideas and sparks creativity.
* Visionary: A wide range of experiences sharpens strategic perspectives & foresight, and improves decision-making.
Take Ginni Rometty, former CEO of IBM, whose diverse career within IBM spanned engineering, sales, marketing, and strategy. This versatility allowed her to drive major transformation initiatives by combining technical expertise with insights from non-technical roles.
Specializations have a shockingly short half-life these days, especially in technology and AI fields where knowledge can become obsolete within 1-2 years. Continuously expanding your cognitive toolkit through exploration becomes crucial for long-term relevance.
To be clear, this is not about being a wandering generalist but integrating varied skills while building core competencies. This versatility is a powerful asset in leadership.
Embrace your inner generalist, and say yes to exploration! This mindset fuels lifelong, multi-modal learning and innovative problem-solving. Oftentimes, you'll outshine the masters of one.
#creativity#innovation#mindset#leadership#skills#culture
After ten years of studying early-stage founders, the single rarest success trait we saw wasn’t genius or vision: it was pathological determination. Not the “I work hard” kind, but rather the “I will never stop, even if it makes no rational sense” kind.
At Episode 1, we’ve started thinking about how we can turn determination into a datapoint by analysing a dozen resilience signals. Across hundreds of founders, we’ve begun tagging for “persistence proxies”: a desperate desire to prove someone/something wrong, multiple previous failed ventures, early-life adversity, irrational optimism when everything around you is crumbling.
Our early findings show that founders with a high determination index were significantly more likely to build bigger companies. Determination wasn’t correlated with confidence. In fact, the most determined founders often expressed more self-doubt than the average cohort. It wasn’t bravado that carried them through, it was an obsessive refusal to lose.
Most people overestimate what brilliance can do and underestimate what obsession can survive. When meeting companies, stop asking “How smart are they?” and start asking “How hard are they to kill?”
Multiple versions of yourself getting you down?
Can’t niche, won't niche?
Is it pure indecision
Fear, laziness
Lack of knowledge?
Or
Are you a multi-potentialite, multi-passionate
Polymath or Renaissance person
With interests and expertise in more than one field?
Maybe you are if you recognise these:
🤩 Super Powers
Variety of skills and interests
Ability to synthesise and clarify complexity
Capacity to relate to many different people, languages and ways of thinking
Facility to grow organically and embrace serendipity
But also at least a couple of these…
🦶🏽 Achilles heels
Difficulty focusing on one thing
Resistance to following a single process
Struggle to define a niche
Challenges in facilitating linear growth
Past, present and future:
Hunter gathers had to be good at lots of things to stay alive
The post-industrial path to prosperity was traditionally via specialisation
21st century - distinctions are breaking down, a range of skills is desirable
What being a multi-potentialite looks like for me:
✨ I have a portfolio approach to work and life:
- Writing and illustrating: on LI, Substack and Medium, planning a book
- Consulting: private clients, corporate training, 1-1 mentoring and coaching
- Teaching English as a Foreign Language
- Production: working with my husband, a broadcast journalist
✨ I love consultancy and project work - because each one is different
✨ I know my values - Connection, Learning, Creativity, Variety, Environment
✨ I create a long-term vision and adventurous path to reach it
✨ I focus on my areas of expertise/passions
Change Management, Culture, Creativity and Sustainability.
It is fun and suits me
But it’s also a daily challenge!
❓ What about you?
Does this feel familiar?
What’s your approach?
In the startup world, we often glamourise the ‘hustle’...
When it can permanently damage your health, business and relationships.
I strongly believe in the merits of hard work and creating your own luck.
Even the media promotes a culture of working until you drop.
‘Only rest can wait when you retire.’
And like the workaholics we are, we flash it like a badge of honor.
But there’s a dark side:
🚫 Burn out
🚫 Struggles with mental health issues
🚫 Sacrificing personal relationships.
I've been there myself. So have many of my fellow founders.
I worked until I physically couldn’t and ignored everything else.
❌ I started going down a spiral of terrible decisions.
❌ Health and family relationships started to suffer.
❌ Due to exhaustion, my productivity dropped.
❌ I lacked sleep and exercise.
It wasn't until my missus intervened and gave me a reality check that I realised something had to change.
I was working hard, but not working smart.
Working this way meant diminishing returns.
Remember, as a leader, to be responsible to your team, you need to stay sharp.
This means prioritising self-care and balance. This means getting some sleep.
I'm also grateful for my co-founder and team who support me and pick up the slack when needed.
❇️ The point is, rest is not a luxury but a necessity.
We see it with high-performing individuals around us:
-- Carousell’s co-founder recently stepped down to explore other pursuits.
-- Rachel from Love Bonito handed CEO reigns to a trusted person.
There’s no shame in sharing the load with others or taking a break.
With rest and help, in fact you get much further.
You and your employees are not machines.
Everyone has unique working styles and motivations. There’s no one yard stick.
Hustling is not a sprint or a marathon.
It’s more like interval training.
There are times to push hard and sprint, but there are also times to rest and recharge.
Find your support system.
Work with other people.
Be kind to yourself.
Run your own race, at your own pace.
Do all of these and watch how you can go faster and further.
What’s your experience with the ‘hustle’?
Entrepreneurship isn’t just a job—it’s a lifestyle.
But here’s the thing: when your work consumes everything, it starts to take everything from you.
If you’re burnt out but feel like you can’t stop, it’s not just “how it is.”
It’s a signal that something’s gotta give.
As founders, we juggle a million things.
Boundaries blur.
Rest feels like a distant dream.
And yet, we tell ourselves we don’t have a choice.
But here’s the truth:
Without boundaries, burnout isn’t just likely. It’s guaranteed.
So how do you keep building without breaking yourself in the process?
Here are five practical ways to set boundaries without slowing down your momentum:
1. Focus on Results, Not Hours
↳ You don’t get extra credit for burning the midnight oil.
↳ Prioritize what truly moves the needle—delegate or ditch the rest.
↳ Working smarter always beats working longer.
2. Time is Your Greatest Asset
↳ Schedule personal time like it’s your most important meeting—because it is.
↳ Learn to say “no” more often.
↳ Every “yes” has a cost; make sure it’s worth paying.
3. Unplug with Intention
↳ Take real breaks. Not “scroll on your phone” breaks—actual disconnects.
↳ Even one unplugged evening can reset your mind.
↳ Clarity comes when you step back, not when you push harder.
4. Build Your Circle
↳ Surround yourself with founders who get it.
↳ Share openly—it’s not weakness, it’s how we grow.
↳ No great business was ever built in isolation.
5. Set the Standard
↳ Your team watches you. If you don’t have boundaries, neither will they.
↳ Be vocal about protecting well-being.
↳ Show that success isn’t about sacrifice; it’s about sustainability.
👉 Founders, remember this: You are your business’s most valuable asset. Protecting yourself is not selfish—it’s essential.
If you crash, what happens to the dream you’re building?
P.S. Know a fellow founder who needs to hear this today? Share it with them.
➡️ Follow Eric Feng (CSP) - Global Speaker if you are also a founder.
Why “Follow Your Passion” Is Incomplete Advice
Passion makes you accelerate. Capacity keeps you alive. I learned that distinction slowly. When you care deeply about the work, it is easy to believe passion will carry you through anything. You assume the energy will always show up. You assume the stress is manageable. You assume the pace is sustainable because you want it to be. Passion becomes the explanation for why you keep going and the justification for why you never stop.
The Hidden Cost
What I did not see was how quietly passion can drain you. When you love what you do, you stop noticing the cost. You normalize the long hours. You convince yourself you can handle the pressure. You take pride in being the person who always delivers. People praise your output, and you start believing that speed is strength rather than a warning sign.
Distorted Capacity
The real danger is how passion distorts your sense of capacity. You say yes because you want to help. You take on more because you can. You push through because you always have. Before you realize it, you are running on fumes and calling it commitment. You are exhausted but still accelerating because slowing down feels like letting people down.
Small Warnings
What finally caught my attention was not a dramatic collapse. It was the small shifts. The irritability. The shrinking patience. The sense that everything required more effort than it should. Passion did not disappear. It just stopped being enough to carry the weight I kept adding to it.
Sustainable Passion
Passion needs structure if it is going to last. It needs rest, recovery, and people who will tell you the truth when you are pushing too hard. It needs a version of you that understands capacity is not a limitation. It is the foundation that keeps your passion from consuming you.
The Leader’s Role
Leaders can protect passionate people by watching for overload, not just underperformance. They can normalize recovery instead of rewarding self‑sacrifice. They can distribute hard work instead of funneling it to the same reliable few. They can ask real questions about wellbeing and listen to the answers. Most of all, they can remind high performers that sustainability is part of the job.
Following your passion is not the problem. Forgetting to protect yourself while doing it is.
Gone are the days of a linear career path.
Not long ago, the idea of a successful career followed a simple formula:
Choose a study field > land a job > climb the ladder > retire.
But today, career paths are anything but linear.
More professionals are weaving between industries, blending their passions and redefining success.
I went from climbing the corporate ladder as an Accountant, to taking a leap into tech and creativity — aligning my career with my passions and purpose.
At school, I gravitated towards structure and logic, which led me to study accounting. It seemed like a practical and stable choice — one that promised job security and a clear trajectory.
But at the same time, I craved the creativity I found through studying art, IT and photography. So I decided to pursue a double degree in business and design.
While studying at uni I kickstarted my career at an accounting firm, getting a head start in the corporate world.
Meanwhile on the design side, a Fine Arts assignment led me to launch my photography side hustle.
I soon found myself fitting creativity into the margins of my finance career and defying the belief that Accountants couldn’t be creative.
I knew I had more to give beyond a traditional corporate career, but I wasn’t sure how to blend my skills and passions in a way that felt authentic.
Then came the opportunity to work at Canva. This was one of those sliding doors moments.
I found my sweet spot at a company that is values-driven and where I could contribute to doing good in the world, while seamlessly merging my analytical and creative skillsets.
The transition from corporate to tech was huge, but it unlocked a whole new level of growth.
I now apply my financial expertise while being surrounded by creativity, innovation and a culture that encourages out-of-the-box thinking.
If you’re feeling stuck or considering a career pivot, here is some advice:
— Your passions matter.
If you feel pulled in multiple directions, explore your intuition. Unexpected opportunities may follow.
— Skills are transferable.
The analytical thinking I developed in public practice helped me thrive in tech, just as my creative background has shaped my approach to problem-solving.
— Side hustles can open doors.
My photography business isn’t just a creative outlet — it has built entrepreneurial skills, connections, and confidence.
— Growth happens outside your comfort zone.
The world of tech was unknown, but taking the leap led to profound learning and career development.
— You don’t have to have it all figured out.
Each challenge offers learning and adds to your story. You know I love a unique personal brand!
Your career doesn’t have to fit into a box — there’s value in taking the unconventional path.
If you’re currently navigating a career change or thinking about one, I’d love to hear your story and help unblock your next step.
Photo taken on my third day at Canva — which seems like a lifetime ago!
Feeling unfulfilled at work.
But quitting isn't an option?
You're not alone.
Gallup reports that nearly 80% of employees worldwide are disengaged or actively disengaged at work.
The common response is to assume “𝘮𝘺 𝘫𝘰𝘣 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨.”
But here’s the science-backed truth:
Fulfillment isn’t something you 𝘨𝘦𝘵 from your job.
It’s something you 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦.
When work feels meaningless, our brains look for escape.
That’s when distraction creeps in: scrolling, inbox refreshes, busywork.
But avoiding discomfort only deepens the cycle of frustration.
The shift comes when you ask a different question:
❌ Not “𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘪𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘫𝘰𝘣 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦?”
✅ But “𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘺 𝘫𝘰𝘣?”
👉 Here are 9 practical ways to start:
1. Propose a project that excites you
2. Timebox deep work on meaningful tasks
3. Turn a routine task into a game
4. Zoom out to see how your role impacts the wider organization
5. Block weekly “thinking time"
6. Volunteer for a cross-team project
7. Reframe one boring task around your values
8. Build fulfillment outside work (hobby, volunteering, side project)
9. Run a weekly energy audit: what drained you vs. what fueled you
The goal isn’t to make every task your passion.
It’s to create small shifts - inside and outside of work - that align your actions with your values.
⚡️If you found this useful, download my 1-page guide on “How to find fulfillment at work” here: https://lnkd.in/ehvdikW9
The #1 skill of being a successful entrepreneur is pure resilience.
I’ve led three startups, and each time it has felt like climbing a mountain.
Some days, the summit is clear, and you want to break open a picnic basket.
On others, storms obscure the path, and I feel so defeated that I lose sight of the top.
In moments like this, I reflect on three things:
1️⃣ Do I care about what I'm climbing for? Passion for the mission of my work fuels my perseverance, turning daunting challenges into worthy pursuits.
2️⃣ Who am I climbing with? Surrounding myself with a strong and collaborative team makes even the darkest days manageable. Together, we can weather any storm and celebrate every sunny day.
3️⃣ I remember that we make progress one step at a time. Even on the stormiest days, I know sunny days are ahead. (And I try not to stop for too long a picnic on the sunny days either.)
As founders, we’re going to get knocked down over and over again. The real path to winning is dusting ourselves off and moving forward.
By embracing resilience, leaning on our teammates, and staying committed to our journey, we can persist on the steepest climbs.
Fellow entrepreneurs: Tell me what’s a setback you’ve bounced back from 👇🏼
#entrepreneurship#leadership
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