Passion Plus Effort = Sweet-Spot

Recently, Mark Cuban wrote a post entitled Don't Follow You Passion, Follow Your Effort. In it he argues that people should not follow their passion, but rather follow their effort. He argues that the harder you work, the better you become at something and the more passionate you become about it. Interestingly, Cuban's advice to "Follow Your Effort" is a half-truth. It is a half-truth in the same way that "Follow Your Passion" is a half-truth. As with most things, reality is somewhere in the middle.

• Passion Without Effort is Just a Dream... We all know the guy who never gets off his backside and had the idea for E-Bay before E-bay! Just pursuing your passion/talent without realising the effort it takes to excel is just as likely to lead to failure. 

• Effort Without Passion is Drudgery... We all know some really hard working people who are excellent at their work, and yet at the same time really hate what they do for a living. For some its not by choice, sometimes you've got to do, what you've got to do. But this does not necessarily lead to passion developing. 

Within the Lean Startup framework, vision is equally as important as the everyday effort and tedium of innovation accounting (http://ow.ly/a9snD). Effort is applied in the service of vision. Furthermore, it is not just random effort, it is deliberate effort directed at validated learning. Otherwise people are just "busy doing nothing". Startups are hard work, and the only thing to keep you going when you are in the trough of sorrow, is commitment to your passion/vision, and a validated sense that you are on the right path. People also need to know that just because you are pursuing your passion does not mean that you don't have to work hard. If you think talent is enough, just check out Malcolm Gladwell's 10, 000 hour rule. Not many of us get the opportunity to pursue our passion and make money at the same time. But when we do, and we apply ourselves with deliberate effort, then we have found that sweet-spot!