{"id":804,"date":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=804"},"modified":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:42:12","slug":"nyu-stern-professor-suzy-welch-says-the-career-aspiration-to-follow-your-passion-is-dumb-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=804","title":{"rendered":"NYU Stern professor Suzy Welch says the career aspiration to follow your passion is \u2018dumb advice\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\u201cThe very worst career advice my students get all the time, and I certainly got, was to do what you\u2019re passionate about,\u201d Welch said in a recent interview with the <em>Wall Street Journal. <\/em>\u201cWhat dumb, dumb advice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=802\">\u2018I paid the price\u2019: Workers share their Scott Pelley moments of boss talkback \u2014 and what it cost them<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s natural for workers to want to buy into their career fantasies\u2014and there are a litany of success stories of people who have done it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>But the management professor argues that there are too many stipulations at play for some aspirations to hold up in the real world. In some cases, people simply aren\u2019t built for the careers they yearn to follow; without the right talent or temperament to make it in the industry, it\u2019s hard to turn a passion into a full-time career.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hate it because you have to be good at it also. You have to be good at it, otherwise it should be a hobby,\u201d Welch continued. \u201cThere\u2019s also your emotional wiring. Some jobs require different kinds of personalities. Your personality is actually how the world experiences you. And the sooner you face into that, and know how the world experiences you, the better.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Welch reveals the type of students who launch successfully\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>Throughout Welch\u2019s decades-long career as a journalist, professor, and public speaker, she\u2019s developed a keen eye for the tell-tale signs of success and failure. She even recognizes the same patterns in her business students at NYU; those who lean into their skills and align their jobs with their authentic selves will make it out the other side.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people who launch have got a couple different things going on,\u201d Welch said in the <em>WSJ <\/em>interview. \u201cThey know themselves well. They are trying to do work that\u2019s at the intersection of their values and their aptitudes and their interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The students who perform well after graduating are also willing to take bigger swings, even with failure on the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe ones who launch well have a higher appetite for risk, and they have more comfort with failure,\u201d Welch added. \u201cThe young people [who] start out and say, \u2018I\u2019m going to swing big now before I have the mortgage,\u2019 are the ones that tend to keep on picking themselves up, and then people start to bet on them.\u201d Welch admitted that taking bold risks is \u201cscary advice,\u201d but it\u2019s a character trait that could result in bigger long-term returns.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>She said the graduates who fall short follow career paths that don\u2019t align with their true strengths: \u201cThey\u2019re doing it because it looks good, or their parents told them to do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=800\">A flesh-eating fly just crossed into Texas. The last time it did, it took 30 years to stop<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>The leaders who agree that following your passion is bad advice<\/h2>\n<p>Welch isn\u2019t the only one pushing back against the notion that passions can always lead to viable careers. Oscar-winning actress Reese Witherspoon doesn\u2019t sugarcoat when it comes to giving professional advice: Talent is more important than dreams. The <em>Legally Blonde <\/em>star says it\u2019s on workers to figure out which skills match their aspirations and go after the job that fits the bill.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cThis is very, very important. You don\u2019t chase your dreams, you chase your talents. Everybody has dreams,\u201d Witherspoon said in an Instagram reel posted earlier this year. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re gonna be that thing. You are supposed to do what you\u2019re talented at.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Longtime <em>Shark Tank<\/em> panelist Robert Herjavec also learned from his former costar, billionaire investor Mark Cuban, that life doesn\u2019t care about your passion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Instead of chasing a career daydream, the entrepreneur advises professionals to pour all their energy into one thing they can\u2019t get enough of. It\u2019s a lesson he learned early in his career, and warns others of when charting the rest of their professional lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t care that you love golf or basketball or AI or cyber\u2014I don\u2019t give a shit about any of that. What I want to know is, what are you obsessed with?\u201d Herjavec told <em>Fortune<\/em> last year. \u201cPassion is easy, because passion is a wish, but obsession is an action. Passion doesn\u2019t demand anything of you. Obsession requires everything of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Plus, as professionals grapple with an uncertain economy, the notion itself might not be achievable. The American Dream is fast fading for most workers: Hiring has stalled; living costs are skyrocketing; and wages are stagnating. However, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla believes that AI could change that. He predicts that any and all career aspirations\u2014regardless of financial viability or stability\u2014will be on the table once the tech reaches its full potential.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFifteen years from now, you will say\u2014what is bad advice today or used to be \u2026 \u2018Follow your passion,\u2019\u201d Khosla said on <em>Fortune<\/em>\u2019s <em>Titans and Disruptors of Industry<\/em> podcast earlier this year. \u201c\u2018Follow your passion\u2019 comes second to surviving. I think that surviving part will go away, and you\u2019ll tell every 5-year-old kid, \u2018Follow your passion.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=798\">The \u2018soccer\u2019 vs. \u2018football\u2019 war has a 160-Year history \u2014 and your snobbish friends are wrong about which one is right<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Suzy Welch, author and NYU Stern School of Business professor, says without the right talent or attitude, it\u2019s hard to turn a passion into a career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>NYU Stern professor Suzy Welch says the career aspiration to follow your passion is \u2018dumb advice\u2019 - 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