Video URL: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/videos/2105/Do-What-You-Love
Transcript
I met Francis Ford Coppola last year; we were both in the same speaking calendar in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And
Coppola said this thing, it's kind of obvious but he said, "Look, this is really simple. Do what you love not because you just want
to be self interested." He says, "Do it because you'll be better at it." He says, "I love wine and so I have a winery and I think it's
pretty good. I love food and so I have a restaurant business and I have a pasta business." He's starting a resort apparently in
South America and he says he uses all of those just to generate cash so he can finance his own movies. And so, pretty
obvious but I hadn't thought of it in those terms. Do what you love because you'll be better. You'll be willing to put in the extra
time, the extra mental energy because you love it. It's been several years ago I saw Jim Collins speak. Everybody read any of
his books? He wrote two great books. Oh, a lot of people.
So "Built to Last" and then "Good to Great". And it's several years ago and he used no slides of any kind. He was drawing
circles in the air like this but there was something he said that has stuck with me, I remember it was like it was yesterday. And
at first it seemed he was talking about companies. But as he got into it, it really seemed like he was talking to us each as
individuals. And he said, "Try to think of what you should do next." He says, "Think about these three circles. The first circle is
what are you good at?" He says by the time you reach a certain age most people have a sense of what they're good at. He
says, "But watch out for this circle because in this circle lives the curse of competence." Just because you're good at
something doesn't mean you should do it. He says, "If you look around your school or your office, you might discover you're the
fastest person you ever met on the keyboard." He says, "Does that mean you should be a data entry operator? Probably not."
He said he was really good at math and everybody said to him, "Jim, you should be a math major." And so he listened to that
advice and he got to school and he continued to be good at math but he ran into people living in the second circle. And the
second circle is "What are you born to do?" When are you the happiest? When are you in a state of flow and he said he met
people, I think it was mostly guys.
He met people who were never happier than when they were solving equations and doing proofs. And he said, "I realized
that good as I was at math, this was not my true calling." And so he thought about those two circles. Then he thought about this
third one. He says, "Don't over emphasize this one but you got to think about it." Which is, "What will people pay you to do?"
Because he said, "They say do what you love and the money will follow." He says it's not literally true. He says his favorite
thing is to listen to Brahms symphonies. He says, "There are Brahms symphonies I've listened to a hundred times and I have
yet to find anybody who'll pay me a nickel to listen Brahms symphonies." So he says, "Think about this intersection. Think
Stanford eCorner
Do What You Love
Tom Kelley, IDEO
November 12, 2008
You won't just be happier when you follow your
passionate career path; you'll be better at it.
IDEO's General Manager Tom Kelley quotes
author Jim Collins who identifies a Venn diagram
in every career path - the overlapping
intersection of what you're good at, what you're
born to do, what people will pay you to do, and
finding a happy group of co-workers with whom
to work. In the pursuit of self-discovery, Kelley
suggests keeping a laboratory notebook tracking
the happiest moments in life to discover our own
true passions.
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/ page 1
