Last week I came across a cleverly timed and provocative article, What’s Love Got to Do With it? in the magazine Inc., by Jason Fried. Fried is the founder of project management app Basecamp and argues in his article that love and passion for one’s work are overrated for finding success. He points to his own work and shows how “frustration or even hate” with the powers that be actually were the founding force for both Basecamp and Audiofile, and how he doesn’t really have a passion for either, rather saw a large need and therefore pursued it and found success. He argues that many entrepreneurs do exactly the same.
From my perspective, love actually has everything to do with success. Granted, when it comes to the conventional definitions of love, referring to the pleasure we derive from something, and of success, referring to profit and financial growth, then I agree that you don’t have to love what you do in order to make a lot of money doing it.
However, if we consider the ultimate definition of love referring to our wish for the well-being of others and a definition of success that goes beyond financial status, which most people I know (entrepreneurs included) adhere to, then love has everything to do with success.
We can have more money in our bank accounts than we ever imagined but without working with the intention of increasing the well-being of others, an inner sense of well-being will continue to elude us. How can we be satisfied with the world we leave for our children and grandchildren without doing our work with this sort of love?
Jason Fried, will you be my Valentine?