FOLLOW YOUR PASSION & THE MONEY WILL COME – RIGHT?

Article #14

**MINUTES of a MONDAY is a reader-supported publication. if you enjoy this article, why not consider becoming a subscriber? You don’t have to pay to stay. Enjoy! Niall**

*************************************************************************************************************

“How does it feel, how does it feel? To be on your own, with no direction home. Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.” Bob Dylan – Like a Rolling Stone

Sandals in the Rain

It was late 2003. A drizzly Autumnal mid-week morning on Dublin’s Grafton Street. Delivery trucks scattered up and down the place and people on their way to and fro.

What in God’s name I was doing on Grafton Street as opposed to being in work escapes me. I remember cursing myself for being the only gobshite short of an umbrella. I was heading towards Stephen’s Green, coming up on Bewley’s on my right when I spot a guy, in jeans, a navy blazer and leather sandals.

And I’m thinking: “Who the fuck wears leather sandals in this weather?”

And then I realise, I actually know that guy. So, I divert course and doorstep him.

Me: Howya Hugh.

Hugh: Ah…howya.

I’m looking at him like a chihuahua. He hasn’t a rashers who I am.

Me: Niall

Still nothing.

Me: Remember, the Dead Sea?

Jesus, surely…

Hugh: Oh yeah.

I’m still not convinced. Either is he.

I was a tad gutted. My conversation with Hugh had been rummaging around my head for months. I felt we had connected on some deep and meaningful level. But then again, at twenty-four, I attached far too much meaning to any sort of deep and meaningful, even if it wasn’t that deep or meaningful.

Hugh had bailed me out you see. More than that in fact. He had saved me from a diplomatic incident which would have resulted in me being shipped back to Ireland having disgraced the nation.

Earlier that year I was attending the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea in Jordan. Not as an envoy of any importance mind you, but a bag carrier. Chief bag carrier for a Government Secretary General, Brendan Tuohy. He was shepherding a Government minister, who was leading an Irish delegation down there. A right cabal of latchikos if memory serves. Bucks selling everything from software to cattle to military grade telecoms gear. You name it.

I had travelled over in the Government jet. As my parents said when I told them, they paid tax all their lives so someone in the family was due a spin in it.

Three days in and I’m knackered. Tuohy networks like a man on deathrow, granted an extra week and has more leads lined up than a matchmaker on Valentines weekend. I’ve never seen the likes of him since – the man pressed more flesh than a door handle. I’m holding jackets and bags one minute, scribbling meeting notes the next, you name it. I hadn’t a clue what I was doing. I had that feeling of excitement, fatigue and dread all at once. All day, every day.

One of the highlights on the itinerary was dinner with the King of Jordan. Now, when I say dinner, I don’t mean a nice four ball, in a nice swanky restaurant somewhere. There’s like a couple of hundred people dining on this swanky veranda overlooking the Dead Sea at dusk. Pure James Bond stuff.

The place is buzzing and the Irish Ambassador for that part of the world approaches me. He’s an imposing figure who cuts a dash. A bit like a tall, sleek and silver-haired Terry Wogan who speaks like a well-heeled Bond villain.

Ambassador: Niall, you might hand me the passes like a good man and I’ll accompany the Minister to our table.

Now, did you ever get that sharp, insane rush when you think, for a split second, you’ve lost your phone?

Well take that exact feeling and put it on steroids. And that’s how I felt.

Ambassador: You have the passes to allow us to get through security don’t you Niall?

My eyes dart over his left shoulder. There are two burly security guards with earpieces, who look like they came straight from a UFC cage. And there’s the Minister, and a couple of other bucks from the delegation, standing around like spare pricks at a whore’s wedding. Not ideal.

So, I say the first thing any sensible civil servant does when asked a question to which they don’t know the answer to: I lie.

Me: Oh sure, yeah, Ambassador. Just a second now.

And I turn and start walking, the folders in my hand nearly falling to the ground, such was the amount of sweat secreting from the palms of my hands.

Then, a tap on my shoulder.

Ambassador: Niall, I just want remind you I’m standing here with a Government Minister. So, let me impress the following upon you young man: If you don’t come back with a fistful of passes in five minutes, you will be going back to the oul sod down the back of a decrepit fucking cargo plane full of stuffed toys from Taiwan. You understand?

I think I nodded. I can’t remember exactly. It still traumatises me now to think about it.

But I remember just fine, turning around and walking back through the throngs of people on that veranda, bleary eyed and hearing the voice of my mother in my head: “Jaysus Niall what have you done?”

I wandered for what seemed like an eternity, afraid to look back over my shoulder. I thought, maybe I could make a dash for it, Thelma and Louise style.

Another tap on the shoulder. And I’m thinking, this is it. Game over.

I turn. But it’s not the Ambassador. It’s Hugh.

Hugh: Here…

He hands me an envelope. My shaking hands open it and I peer inside. A scatter of VIP passes for dinner with the King.

Me: Where the fu…?

Hugh: I caught the tail end of your chat with yer man. So, I asked one of the waitresses for a few passes. Lovely girl.

Me: Jesus…thank you so….

Hugh: Only one catch. One of those is for me.

And with that, I make a beeline for the Ambassador. He greets me like a long lost son when he sees the envelope, and they descend down the steps, Hugh in tow.

Back on Grafton Street, Hugh manages to place me.

Hugh: Oh yeah, the King of Jordan dinner.

Me: I remember what you told me later that night.

Hugh: And what was that?

Me: You said don’t follow the money. Find the thing and the money will come.

Hugh: Did I?

Me: Ah… yeah.

He smiles. Takes one last look at me and says:

Hugh: Yeah, that was probably the wine. Anyway, the best of luck with the thing.

And with that he saunters down Grafton Street. Hands in his pockets, putting one sandal in front of the other. He reminded me of that scene in Shawshank Redemption, when Red watches Andy walk away from him through the yard. Like he was walking to his own tune, with some sort of protective cloak around him.

For some reason, that’s how I remember him. It wasn’t the deep and meaningful re-union I had hoped for. But then again, life never is like the bloody movies is it?

A Job, a Career and a Calling

A 1997 Yale University paper had an interesting way of looking at work, exploring the distinction between a job, a career and a calling. A job, according to the researchers, is a way to pay the bills. A career is a path toward increasingly better work. While a calling is work that’s an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.

At the turn of the century, as I was about to enter the working world, there is only one thing that I could honestly say was an important part of my identity: hurling. What I needed was a job that would pay reasonably well and where I could be out the gap at five so I could go training.

Finding ‘the thing’ was the last thing on my mind.

And winning a senior hurling championship with my newfound club, St. Vincent’s, was the only thing that got me out of bed in the morning.

After my adventures carrying Brendan Tuohy’s leather briefcase, I sat the civil service exams. Turns out, the powers that be decided my exploits on the Dead Sea was to be the extent of my national service. Maybe the Ambassador got to them first.

For the next five years, I would work as a management consultant, a full-time kids GAA coach, and a computer science lecturer. I even recall, one Friday afternoon, considering becoming an accountant, but a buddy managed to talk me out of it over a pint. He happened to be an account.

By Christmas 2007 I had enough. Still reeling after a second County senior hurling final defeat two months earlier, I did what any career conscious sensible twenty-seven-year-old would do - bought a round the world ticket. When everyone else was eyeing the turkey leftovers, myself and one of the best blow-in’s ever to blow into St. Vincent’s, Ballygunners’ Gary Cullinan, set off on a three-month adventure.

My father was curious as to the motive of the trip:

Dad: So what are you looking for out of it?

Me: A bit of adventure.

Dad: Right.

Me: And I’m hoping to find meself.

Dad: (beat) And who do you think you’ll be when ya get back?

On my return, I was skint and the only thing I was hoping to find was a job.

‘The thing’ just didn’t come into it.

Brass Balls: They say it takes brass balls to sell real estate

The Career

That was mid-2008 and to put it mildly, the oul Celtic Tiger wasn’t doing much purrin’. So I dusted down my CV. Back then, you could still get pretty creative with a CV and get away with it – your digital footprint didn’t haunt you as much. So I sprayed and prayed.

I remember meeting a guy I worked with in the civil service and informing him of my job hunt. He said something to me which I have never forgotten: “the way the economy is going, careers will choose people, not the other way around.”

And I remember being slightly terrified by that. I thought the whole idea of a third level education – apart from it being free and the grants – was that it gave you choice and agency. Now this buck was telling me all that was out the window.

In Mid-December, EirGrid gave me a job. My mother taught I had won the lotto. A permanent, pensionable, respectable job.

I had started the year on the Khaosan Road and would end it on Shelbourne Road. World’s apart in more ways than one.

One of the long standers in there told me I was now: “On the pigs back. You won’t be a millionaire, but you won’t be a pauper either.”

I always like the idea of being a millionaire. But, the well-trodden road ahead appeared laced with safety, comfort and mortgage approval.

It seems like a respectable career had finally found me.

The Turn

And two weeks into that shiny new career my brother died.

My brother’s death changed everything. That’s what death does. Even if I couldn’t grasp that at the time. One of the happiest periods of his young life was the time he spent in Salamanca. He studied there as part of an exchange, organised through the course he as doing at college.

So in the summer of 2012, still laden with grief, I took two weeks leave and off I went to retrace his footsteps. I had a handful of photographs of him in various places and tracked down the location of each one. It was almost as if I was chasing a ghost. I stood in front of the red doors of the new cathedral in Salamanca and held the photo of a shy, curious young man in his mid twenties standing in the exact same spot. A young man on the cusp of his life and sheeplishly grinning at the camera in a t-shirt a least two sizes too big for him.

They say the camera never lies. I see his vulnerability stare back at me, frozen in time and blissfully unaware he won’t see another decade. I clutch the photo and look around to see if I’ll catch a glimpse of him maybe. Maybe he’ll surprise me, give me a sign of his presence through the veil. But alas, it’s just me and a gazillion tourists trying to get as much in before the mid-afternoon heat hits.

Fast forward three months and I’m standing in a room in Dublin for my first formal acting class.

And I could feel something shift. A kind of a feeling, a knowing that comes from the subconscious. Free of the inner critic and practical mind.

My thirty-fifth year on the planet, and I think I’ve found the thing.

There was only one question: If you follow your passion, or the thing, will the money actually come?

The Passion of Steve Jobs

You might have seen Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford graduation address. That speech is probably largely responsible for those ubiquitous “Do what you love” signs that those hustlers in WeWork were forever sticking in front of your face in neon (always in neon). Along with “Be kind” it always seemed to me to be a little authoritarian. More of a demand than a suggestion.

Anway, Jobs offered the following advice to the class of ’05: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it, keeping looking and don’t settle.”

In his book Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward Jeffrey S. Young takes the Hollywood out of Job’s journey.

He argues if you had met Job’s in the early 70’s you would have met a guy who just moved back in with his parents and working a night shift job at Atari, before taking himself off travelling through India in search of spiritual enlightenment. He would later go onto train at the Los Altos Zen center in Los Angeles as well work at a local All-One commune.

Young offered the picture of a young man following anything but a clear, linear passion. He suggested a young man seeking enlightenment and only dabbling in electronics when he needed the cash.

When Jobs pitched the idea of designing computer circuit boards to his friend, Steve Wozniak, the plan was to make the boards for $25 dollars apiece and flip them for $50, to local hobbyists and wireheads. Both Wozniak and Jobs were in full-time employment and hadn’t a notion of quitting their jobs. This venture was nothing more than, in the immortal words of Del Boy, a tidy little earner.

Job’s swanned in barefoot, into a Mountain View computer store run by a guy called Paul Terrell, trying to flogg the circuit boards. Terrel wasn’t buying. What Terrel was actually in the market for was fully assembled computers. He was willing to pony up $500 for each and wanted delivery as soon as. And like any good entrepreneur, Jobs said “no problem”. And just like that, Apple computers was born.

Young makes a key point here: “Their plans [Wozniak and Jobs] were circumspect and small-time. They weren’t dreaming of taking over the world.”

If Job’s had followed his own “never settle” advice that Stanford 2005 address might never have happened. Apple wasn’t born out of an unyielding passion. Apple was born out of that eclectic mix of right guy, right idea, right time.

And Job’s passion for that idea eventually took that company to a whole new stratosphere.

Walk the Walk

Lunchtime on a Wednesday afternoon in early October 2015. I walk out of the Ofgem building in Millbank, beside Westminster for the last time.

Since I arrived in the city in January 2014, everything I did was tailored toward acting.

I took a job in Ofgem, the UK energy regulator, because it was very convenient for two reasons. Firstly, I knew I could get out the door every day at five o’clock. And secondly, Westminster was on the Jubilee line, which also happened to be the same line that took me to my evening acting classes twice a week. And when I wasn’t in an acting class, I was trying to get into any theatre company that would take me to get some precious stage time.

In my first year in London my days consisted of: being in the office for nineish, gym at lunch and either an acting class, or rehearsal for a play after work. Get home at eleven and wash and repeat week in, week out. Ofgem had a decent canteen as well, so I didn’t have to cook and could take food with me on the go.

The money was shite, but then again, nobody joins an energy regulator because they’re trying to fund la vida loca do they?

But sixteen months into that job I was getting restless. So much so, I struggled to get into the office before ten most mornings. A fact not lost on my line manager.

Something had to give.

I’d been reading a lot of David Mamet around that time. One of my favourite movies is Glengarry Glen Ross.

It’s got a stellar cast. And some to die for dialogue from Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin and the cameo of all cameos from Alec “coffee is for closers” Baldwin. They say during production, even those actors not performing that day, came in anyway just to watch the rest of the actors do their thing.

Bless me Father: My second stage play in London

Anyway, so I’m in acting classes, doing plays and reading whatever acting books I can get my hands on. One of which was True and False by Mamet and these lines hit me like a runaway train: “It is not childish to live with uncertainty, to devote oneself to a craft, rather than a career, to an idea rather than an institution.”

I can remember those lines sitting on the jubilee line on my way to work. On my way to a place that looked, walked and talked like an institution.

Two months later I quit my second job in 18 months and the last full-time job I ever had.

That Christmas, my father picks me up from the bus in Galway and we’re driving home, on the road somewhere between Oranmore and Clarinbridge. There can be silences between grown men and their fathers. I wasn’t purposely avoiding conversation, just not encouraging it either.

Dad: You gave up the job didn’t ya?

Me: Wha?

Dad: You can’t cod the oul lad, Niallo.

Me: (beat) Yeah, I did.

Dad: Thought so.

Me: How the fu-

Dad: Say nothin’ to your mother, she’ll only worry.

There was no turning back. I’d burned the boats. Over a decade after meeting Hugh and his sandals on Grafton street, I’d found the thing. I was two feet firmly on the road less travelled. Going all in. And trusting that providence would kick in, fortune would favour me and the money would come.

The Money

Almost a decade on from 2015, I can safely say this: providence did kick-in, I have been very fortunate and the money has not come.

Well, a certain amount of money has come, but not in any quantities or frequency worth talking about.

As the old song goes, two out of three ain’t bad.

But two out of three don’t pay the rent honey.

I’ve been straight up before about why making a living as an actor is almost impossible. However, looking back I was enamoured by the idea of the big gesture. That it was all or nothing baby. And with hindsight, I think I can understand the reason why: death.

The idea of being half in, half out was alien to me. I had always been in search of something that would help me make sense of the loss of those I loved. Something that would give my life some purpose and meaning, as opposed to thinking a life’s accomplishment starts and finishes with a job title, a mortgage and as much stuff as you can accumulate.

When I walked into an acting class in Dublin I discovered something and I was fucked if I was going to let that go.

I supppose you could call that passion.

In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You Cal Newport makes the case that not only is passion rare, it’s also dangerous. He cites Steve Jobs as a classic case of a compelling career that has a complex and nuanced origin and rejects the simple idea that all you have to do is find your passion and follow it.

Newport suggests: “the passion hypothesis convinces people that somewhere there’s a magic “right job” waiting for them, and that when they find it, they’ll immediately recognise that is the work they were meant to do… the passion hypothesis is not just wrong, it’s also dangerous. Telling someone to follow their passion is not just an act of innocent optimism, but potentially the foundation for a career riddled with confusion and angst.”

When I burned the boats yet again in 2015, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I wasn’t reading practical self-help books by a computer scientist called Cal Newport. I was reading all or nothing books by a contrarian creative called David Mamet.

Acting, like any game, is littered with hobbyists. Well-meaning people who approach an intangible craft with the mindset and habits of a hobbyist, yet expect the exceptional results of a craftsman.

I meet them all the time. Actors and comedians who complain about not “being able to get in the room.” As if “the industry” or someone, somewhere owed them something. I mean, how dare the world be indifferent to their monumental talent man.

In the first few blissful, innocently optimistic years of starting up, I was definitely guilty of that mindset too. It’s easy to slip into.

Yet, while miles apart in terms of their chosen fields, there’s a direct link to Mamet’s and Newport’s approach.

They’re both talking about the same thing: becoming a master craftsman. Mamet talked about dedicating oneself to a craft, rather than a career. Newport refines that same idea, adding that by becoming a craftsman, you develop rare and valuable skills that you can offer as your career capital. That craftsman’s mindset is a strategy perfectly suited for acquiring career capital. And more importantly the craftsman’s mindset has a relentless focus on what you produce. Yep, good old fashioned getting sh*t done comrade. The responsibility for that cannot be outsourced to anyone else – not an agent, not an audience, nobody.

The entertainment game is a winner takes it all game. You either get the part or you don’t. Your script is good enough to get picked up or it’s not. There is no ovation for second place kido.

Anyone can get lucky once or twice. But to build a compelling career over time, it requires craft. And craft takes time.

Newport closes out his book referring to a guy he interviewed called Thomas. A guy who left his banking job to become a monk as he was convinced that was his true calling. Sitting across from Newport in a coffee shop a few years later, having hung up his robe and returned to his banking job, Newport noticed a shift in perspective for Thomas: “Working right trumps finding the right work. He didn’t need to have a perfect job to find occupational happiness – he needed instead a better approach to the work already available to him.”

The Road

When I think back on that rainy day on Grafton Street, I smile.

I smile at my naivety and chuckle at Hugh’s words and his swagger, oblivious to the elements falling from above.

I never saw him again after that.

Years later, when I learned of his sudden death I was saddened. His life spanned just short of a half a century. His ideas had helped transform Dublin from a run-down kip to something more akin to a cultural capital.

Not only that, he saved a wet round the years young buck from the West of Ireland, from going under at the Dead Sea.

And beyond the sea, his words, his lofty idea, had a ripple effect that endures still.

So, I’ll just keep going and focus on working right on the craft of storytelling - what other option is there?

And see where that long and winding road takes me.

And surely then, the money will come.

Right?