Finding Your Calling: Work to Your Advantage💡

Why “follow your passion” isn’t always the best advice

At some point, every one of us asks the big questions: Who am I? and Why am I here?
Our identity shapes how we see the world — and what we do gives meaning to our human experience.

You’ve probably heard stories of people travelling the world to “find themselves.” And while change can reveal new sides of who we are, true discovery doesn’t happen somewhere out there; it starts within.

Now, enough philosophy. Let’s get practical.

Today, I want to focus on that second question: Why am I here?
People often say you find your life’s work by “following your passion.” It sounds inspiring — but passion alone doesn’t always pay the bills.

I love football — or at least I did before having four knee operations. But as passionate as I am, it would be foolish to expect a call-up to play for Manchester United ⚽.

That’s why I think it’s smarter to follow your comparative advantage instead.
It’s an idea from economics that makes a lot of sense in real life: you don’t need to be the best in the world — just focus on what you can do better or more efficiently than others, given your unique mix of skills, experiences, and circumstances.

Take Bill Gates, for example. His parents were well-connected and supportive — his father was a lawyer, and his mother sat on several corporate and university boards. Through one of those roles, she crossed paths with IBM’s leadership — a connection that later helped Microsoft land a breakthrough deal 💻.

But Gates’ biggest advantage came much earlier.
He attended a private school in Seattle that, unusually for the late 1960s, had access to a computer. He wrote his first program at age 13 — years before most students in the U.S., never mind the world, had even seen one. That early exposure gave him a massive head start in understanding technology, long before personal computers became mainstream.

Still, advantage alone doesn’t guarantee success. Plenty of students could have had similar opportunities — but Gates applied himself. He spent countless hours learning to code, testing ideas, and building projects when most teenagers were doing anything but. His story shows that advantage opens the door — but effort is what gets you through it.

We all have certain advantages, even if they look different.
Some are physical — it helps to be tall if you want to play in the NBA 🏀, or to have endurance if you want to run marathons. Others are environmental: access to information others don’t have, a skill that comes naturally, a supportive network, or simply being in the right place at the right time.

Whatever form it takes, your advantage could be related to the very thing you’re called to offer the world 🌍.
Our passions often grow from the things we’re already good at.
So if you’re searching for your calling, start there — with your strengths, opportunities, and the circumstances that give you an edge.

Your calling isn’t just about what you love — it’s about what you’re built for. 💭