I recently read a post by someone I admire (I’m even a paying subscriber), where he declared that “following your passion” is the worst career advice he’s ever received. He went on to say that pursuing happiness isn’t a noble life purpose—in fact, it’s selfish—and that the real goal is to be useful.

At face value, the advice to pursue usefulness seems sensible. I also agree with his later admonishment to create more than you consume. But it was so hard to hear the worthwhile bits of advice through the patriarchal, capitalist conditioning that had the mic.

The idea that what makes you happy—what lights you up—is somehow less noble than what you produce is the kind of programming that’s kept generations of us chasing approval instead of alignment. Accolades instead of inner contentment.

We’ve been taught to measure our worth by our usefulness. I had a come-to-Jesus moment with myself two years ago when I definitively planted a flag stating that my being matters more than my output.

AKA, a successful day isn’t measured by whether or not someone has found me useful.

What if the thing that lights you up is exactly what the world needs more of?

Perhaps the author was just speaking to the specialists of the world.

Because here’s what I know to be true for multipassionates:

Chasing your passion isn’t selfish. It’s essential.

For those of us whose brains light up like a Christmas tree at every new idea, curiosity is more than just a hobby. It’s the signal that tells us we’re alive. And designing a business that honors that has a ripple effect that, wouldn’t you know it, benefits the lives of others.

Kinda like being useful. ¹

Following what feels good often makes you the most useful.

When you start with the “What makes me come alive?” question, you don’t automatically turn into a lazy socialite who “buys dumb stuff to impress people,” as the author suggests. You become someone with fire in their belly.

Someone who shows up more fully, creates more unabashedly and connects more deeply.

And yes—someone who ends up being profoundly useful to others in the process.

But here’s the twist: That usefulness is a byproduct.

It’s not the point.

The point is joy. Fulfillment. Self-trust.

It’s being more YOU than you’ve ever been.

Experience = Creation

The author goes on to say that chasing purpose leads a person to have experiences, and experiences are just a form of consumption.

This was a big record scratch moment for me.

His POV is that consumption is to be frowned upon, while creating is the golden ticket to a meaningful life. But he equates experiences to consumption.

I disagree, hard.

I CREATE experiences all the time, every day. Friday night, I curated a delightful Summer Solstice party by intentionally combining people who would be into that sort of thing with a seasonal and magickally-inspired menu. They brought the karaoke. Everyone played a role in a highly successful and pleasurable evening. That was an act of creation.

But, fine, let’s argue that experiences do = consumption.

Experiences are how we learn what matters to us. They’re not consumption for consumption’s sake—they’re data. Lived, embodied, felt-in-your-bones data.²

For multipassionates especially, following the spark of an experience is often the only way to find the thing worth building. We don’t get clarity in a vacuum. We get it by living.

It’s silly to make that wrong.

Passion isn’t a trap—it’s a compass.

Is it possible to mistake a passing infatuation for a passion? Sure. But that’s not a reason to stop following yours.

That’s a reason to build discernment.

That’s exactly what you learn inside Dream Job Academy. It’s not about “following your bliss” so you can become some vapid materialist. It’s about how to strategically explore what lights you up so you can build something aligned, sustainable and profitable from that place.³

You don’t have to choose between being useful and being lit up. You just have to stop believing that the two are at odds.

When passion and usefulness are made to compete, we all lose.

To treat passion as frivolous and usefulness as superior is to fundamentally misunderstand how creativity actually works.

Creation without connection to your inner world is just basic vanilla output. It’s got as much soul as a short story penned by ChatGPT. And output without joy? That’s the fast track to burnout.

I do agree with the author that creating something is powerful. It changes you. It teaches you to have grit.

But if the spark that fuels the creation—your curiosity, your lived experience, your delight—is dismissed as selfish or shallow, we risk building lives that look good on paper but feel as empty as promises from your ex.

So no shade, Tim—but on this one, I’ve got to disagree.

Passion isn’t a detour. It’s the most direct route to the kind of freedom we both say we want.

What’s your take? Has following what lights you up made you more useful—or more YOU? Let’s talk.

This post was originally published on Substack.