“Follow your passion” is branding. Ownership is the truth.
Let me give you the straight answer up front: “follow your passion” is one of the most expensive pieces of advice you can take. It sounds generous. It’s actually a trap. It teaches you to wait, for the right feeling, the right title, the right moment when the work finally inspires you. And while you wait, the people who just got to work pass you.
I didn’t learn this in a seminar. I learned it across three jobs that had almost nothing in common on paper.
I was a Navy Corpsman. Then I spent years as an invisible architect, building systems that drove millions in revenue for brands that never put my name on the work. Now I own Grinder Gym in San Diego, which is my lab, my proving ground, and most days my humbling. None of those three chapters were photogenic. None of them trended. And every one of them was purpose, not because I felt inspired, but because I’d taken ownership of something that mattered whether I felt like it or not.
That’s the whole distinction. Passion is optics. Purpose is ownership.
Separate your identity from your title
Here’s where most people get stuck. They tie their identity to where they show up and what it’s called. Corpsman. Consultant. Owner. Founder. They think the title is the thing.
It isn’t. Your identity doesn’t live in the title on the door. It lives in how you carry the work behind that door.
As a Corpsman, nobody was watching whether I restocked a kit correctly or double-checked a chart at 3 a.m. As the invisible architect, nobody outside a small room knew which systems were mine. The brand got the headline. I got the work. For a long stretch I thought that was a problem, that being uncredited meant I was somehow behind. I wanted my name on it.
I had that backwards. The fact that no one was watching is exactly what made it real. When the credit isn’t there to chase, the only reason left to do it well is that you decided it would be done well. That’s identity. That’s ownership. The title was just the room I happened to be standing in.
And once you separate the two, something quietly freeing happens. You stop auditing every task to see whether it “feels right” before you’ll commit to it. The work doesn’t have to inspire you for it to matter. You’re not measuring meaning by mood anymore. You’re measuring it by whether you owned it.
The dull work is doing something to you
I want to push this further, because the comfortable version of this idea stops too early.
Routine work builds resilience. Dull tasks train consistency. And the job that feels beneath you, the one you think you’ve outgrown, is quietly building the humility you’re going to need at the next level, before you get there.
I watch this at the gym constantly. People want the program that feels exciting. They want the new lift, the new split, the thing that photographs well. What actually moves them is the boring middle: the same warm-up, the same accessory work, the same unglamorous reps logged on a Tuesday when nobody’s around and nothing feels special. The work that doesn’t inspire them is the work that’s changing them. They just can’t see it yet because it’s happening underneath.
Careers are no different. The stretch where you’re doing the unsexy operational work, reconciling the thing, fixing the process nobody thanks you for, handling the task you’re technically too senior for, that’s not wasted time. That’s the foundation pour. You don’t get to skip it. You can resent it, or you can recognize it for what it is.
So here’s the line I keep coming back to: stop waiting for your work to inspire you. Show up and inspire the work.
That’s the reversal. Inspiration isn’t the fuel you need before you start. It’s the residue you leave behind when you show up anyway.
You’re not behind. You’re building deep.
If there’s one feeling I’d take off your back, it’s the feeling of being behind.
Real purpose doesn’t always look pretty. It’s not photogenic. And it rarely trends. So if you measure yourself against the visible stuff, the announcements, the launches, the highlight reels, you’ll always feel a step late. But you’re comparing the wrong things. You’re comparing your foundation to someone else’s facade.
Everything visible stands on something invisible that had to exist first. The systems I built that nobody credited are the reason brands grew. The years I spent uncredited are the reason I can run a gym now and actually know what I’m doing. The unglamorous chapters weren’t the detour. They were the foundation that every visible thing later stood on.
That’s what “building deep” means. It’s the invisible, uncredited groundwork that has to be poured before anything can rise off it. You’re not falling behind. You’re going down before you go up. And down is where the load-bearing happens.
Navy Corpsman. Invisible architect. Gym owner. Three rooms, one through-line, none of it was passion as performance, and all of it was purpose as responsibility. I didn’t follow a feeling into any of those rooms. I took ownership of what was in front of me and let the work shape me on the way through.
So don’t go looking for the work that inspires you. That’s a search that never ends, because the feeling keeps moving. Go take ownership of work that matters, carry it well when no one’s watching, and let the dull middle build the version of you the next level is going to require.
The credit is optional. The ownership isn’t.
I live my truth and I make myself useful.