It took me 36 years to realize what I’ll tell you in 26 minutes…
In a Nutshell
Passion derives from the Latin "passio" meaning suffering—it's not endless joy in what you love, but loving a goal enough to endure the inevitable pain of pursuit, as even successful entrepreneurs spend 95% of time on unenjoyable tasks. All life paths carry fixed suffering (sleepless nights, status loss, uncertainty), so reframe it as a universal cost and choose the one with the biggest payoff, like financial freedom or family legacy, rather than chasing fleeting "passion windows" that fade via hedonic adaptation. Commit to persistence without knowing the outcome—success comes from refusing to stop, as every achiever endured the same grind, from sleeping on gym floors to rebuilding after failures.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
People want to follow their passion but don't know what it means. The root of 'passio' is Latin for suffering. It's not about doing what you love; it's finding something you love enough to suffer for. Pick something worth suffering for. The first usage of 'passion' was 'Passion of Christ,' Jesus Christ's crucifixion story. This has been bastardized into 'following your passion means doing what you love.'
A young man quit his job, went all in on entrepreneurship, but didn't like his life. He asked what to do. He quit thinking he was doing something wrong because he wasn't loving every second. Passion only exists in the vague, not the specific. Even starting a business around your passion, 95% of daily activities if successful will not be your passion. You'll have brief moments of it, if at all, and it changes.
Passion window is short-lived or only possible as an employee doing the same thing daily in a larger machine, or solopreneur not scaling. Not for business owners unless you love business ownership and are willing to suffer for it. Ultimate version: suffer long enough for true ownership where the business operates independently, giving all time back.
Run monthly meetings with 10 entrepreneurs, most expensive unscalable service for businesses around $10 million average. Love doing it, look forward to the days, but would hate doing it every day. Like a favorite pizza place loved once or twice a year; eating it every meal would make you dislike it. Doing the same loved thing all the time makes you stop loving it because it's no longer rare.
Misconception about following passion. 'Follow your passion' is politically correct and easy but not true. You're not going to have perfect sunshine perfectly dosed. Want moments, good days, not never-ending jolly work state—you'd adapt and get bored. Underline: using lack of passion as excuse to disguise inability to handle difficulty, repeatedly doing unenjoyable things for something meaningful.
10-stage roadmap from zero to $100 million+ that less than 1% of companies finish, done multiple times across software, physical products, service businesses, brick and mortar. Breaks down by 8 business functions, constraints/symptoms, steps to graduate. Free at acquisition.com/roadmap.
Unless very good at passion, must do less liked things to pay bills. As soon as good, demand outstrips time; 95% not the loved thing but support activities you may not love. 5% passion remains only if it doesn't change, which it will. Vast majority of life not doing passionate things; when you do, short-lived.
If video game gives max life, strength, money, good looks day one, game is easy and not fun—you wouldn't play. We know we must suffer; not about winning lottery. Ambition and passion signal willingness to suffer for something deemed important. Striving/suffering is essentially human.
Growing business painful; plateaued or decaying business painful. Entrepreneurship hard. Being employee, broke, rich—all hard. Married want single, single want married—suffering in every path.
Look at suffering and think something wrong, need change to stop suffering. But change causes suffering. Claiming problem with suffering creates more suffering, sacrifices goal. Success and failure on same path; failure is earlier exit. No matter path, hard—pick one that pays better. Suffering is fixed cost; secret is doing lots of things you don't want. Pick things that pay better.
Goal: reframe so bad things are good, not only experience good things. Like complaining about rain vs. seeing benefits of rain and sunshine. Change frame/perceptions, not conditions/reality.
Two rides cost $10: one you want, one you hate—pick loved one. Third: unbelievably loved ride, unsure if it finishes as wanted, still $10. Pick it. All life paths have same suffering amount—fixed cost. Suffer regret more on small goals, difficulty more on big, but same total. Fears of downside not true, just suffering. Aiming small still suffers—aim big.
Delaying pursuit waiting for passion is fool's errand. Find something people value, do it even if sucks. No greener grass—'greener on other side because fertilized with shit.' Chinese proverb: 'Everything must be hard before easy.' Be passionate about why and how you do it, not what. Why/how internal/persistent; what external/changes—treats/moments, not requirements.
Questioned working when no longer needing money. Self not goal; self-servingness satisfiable quickly. Why bigger than you, eternal. Victor Frankl: 'If man has big enough why, can overcome almost any how.' Rogan: man crawls through broken glass with smile for goal worth suffering for. Goal is passion, not path—if love goal enough, path stops mattering.
People go to war for freedom, duty, protecting loved ones—not loving journey but love enough to die. Love measured by what willing to give up. Man loving journey walks further than loving destination; man protecting family walks until other dies.
People shocked to pain threshold, tap out. Told loved ones shocked instead, threshold tripled per shock taken.
People say find passion to get through hard times—that's definition of passion (Latin: suffering/endurance). Passion of Christ = crucifixion. Things worth suffering for: financial setup for self/family, better neighborhood, kids' opportunities.
Want to make duty cool: man working rice paddy for who he does it for. Personal passion: helping men provide (provide/protect/procreate). Business tactics universal, but core for men. Many days don't enjoy downstream effects, but enjoy results. Spend time on books/content because deathbed matters more than wealth.
To influence more, need success/credibility—outcomes linked. Must succeed/learn to teach, carries through uncertainty/failures. Become passionate about work by what it gets you. Destination helps tolerate journey. Frodo passionate about quest—willing to die, give up home/friends/family.
Man must have quest, drive toward something. Society says monsters/dragons mean wrong path—no such path exists; even if, he'donistic adaptation makes it boring.
Love writing (10/10), lifting, eating/hanging out after with liked people—emotional highs. Tried all time: owned gym thinking it'd make happy—most miserable year of last 15. Habituate to good, still suffer bad.
Need unachievable goal to strive/fight, especially when don't want to. Men need permission to earn, strive, suffer, grow. Stretch between current self and required self is growth pain. Can't wish growth benefits without suffering cost. Growth as passion means willing to do miserable things.
If suffering for meaningful thing, nothing wrong—you're not on wrong path. People saying otherwise don't know or want to destroy you.
Took $42 million distributions before $46 million exit at 31. Could live on 5% yearly, don't live fancy. Active choice—year off miserable, no quest. In Mexico mansion by ocean, asked: what meaningful, moves to action, cause worth suffering for? Helping younger self—knew pain, others sowed doubt making path worse.
Last major life change: short improved well-being, return to baseline. Next change same. Steady state = existence, fixed $10 cost of living. Change reward/for whom.
Slept on turf gym floor getting rashes from sweat, under parking garage—cars driving over at night by partying college kids, no AC in California. Billing till 11pm, adrenaline/sweat sleep. Opened 4:15am for 5am session, 4-5 hours sleep for 6 months. Could sleep leaning against walls. Thought sleep-issue people not working hard enough (not true). Showered at LA Fitness without flip flops, got athlete's foot still dealing with. All stuff in car.
Quit white-collar job everyone knew had higher status. Went to prestigious college for that path, quit for gym/personal training (zero credibility, blue-collar). Lost status with girls/guys.
If going through hard time—sleepless nights, exhaustion, social peers ahead, sacrificing time/money/risk, unsure if works—every successful person shares path. Got through by committing to not stopping.
The only thing that got me through that period was committing to not stopping. I didn't know when or if I would succeed, but I knew I wouldn't stop, so I couldn't be called a failure. If I had to stop, I'd have to explain stopping, which meant other people's opinions still mattered. But if I kept going, I could always say, "I'm still doing it." As long as I had enough for food, which doesn't cost much, I was okay.
Encourage thinking out worst-case scenarios in specificity. As someone who slept in the car or on the floor, everything becomes steady state. I remember being broke with amazing memories, richer with amazing memories, terrible memories with more or less money. Money gives options but doesn't dramatically change subjective well-being, which is internal. Many know this but pursue money anyway.
I see a man's work as incredibly core to who we are—I can only speak from my experience. My grandfather, the person I was closest to, was an immigrant, one of nine born in Macedonia, the smartest sent to boarding school. He ran from the Nazis for multiple years during the Holocaust, then came to the US after World War II to start his practice. He had to retake all exams because European standardizations didn't matter in the US, in a language he didn't understand, and became successful. He had my mother, who had me.
He would say, > "You have two hands and one mind. That's it."
No matter the path, poverty is tough, growth is tough, risk is tough—everything sucks. I tweeted: > "Everything is hard and no one cares."
I make these videos despite personal costs—there are benefits too. In moments like almost crashing off a ramp or health scares (seeing a lump, fearing cancer, but it's not), I do a quick life check: do I need to change everything? For me, the work helps people and interests me, so I do it. Much of my day and prior life didn't include that.
I thought pursuing passion meant fitness because I liked working out with friends, a small slice of life. When I started a gym to the natural extreme, I'm back at the beginning with a gym to work out with people I like, but no gym business.
Suffering won't stop—we work thinking it will end, but it won't. Accept suffering as the toll on all paths, then pick where to go. That's worth fighting for.
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