Thoughts That Came Up Horse Riding Pongo
I rode a horse named Pongo the other day. I’ve always loved horses since childhood. They’re one of my favorite animals. And I just happen to love Dalmations, so obviously when I saw this horse, I’m like look man, can we ride that one today?
Straight up “YES” from her.
The woman who owns him was my coach for the day, and she owns the whole operation. While we talked, I found out she’d done business. Marketing. A handful of other careers across her life. But running underneath all of it, the entire time, was one constant: horses.
She started riding at six years old. Racing. Horse sports of every kind. Then she went and did the corporate thing — business, marketing, the respectable path, and and she hated it. Instead of sticking with it, she looked at what was already in front of her. She was already doing what she loved. She already had clients. So she made a decision most people never make.
She just did it.
The Advice Everyone Gives
I commended her for it, because the advice she ignored is everywhere. Don’t mix business and passion. Don’t monetize what you love. Keep your joy separate from your income or you’ll ruin both.
A friend from college once flipped that on me at a business event. He asked me directly: why aren’t you monetizing your passion?
I’ve turned that question over for years, and here’s where I’ve landed. The standard advice is the antithesis of what life should be about. If you’re going to spend your days earning a living, it should come through something you genuinely enjoy, not something you tolerate.
And many people tolerate…a lot throughout their life, never taking enough action to change toleration into liberation and joy.
The Detour Argument
Some people will push back. Use the thing you don’t enjoy to earn more money, so you can eventually fund the thing you do enjoy.
Look at that logic closely. You’re using one thing to get back to the thing you already love. A detour to arrive where you’re already standing.
What if there’s a way to skip the detour entirely, or do both?
The Waiting Problem
Think about the people you actually know. How many of them enjoy their work? How many wake up excited about what they’re building? How many have a healthy, inspiring relationship with their employer: real fulfillment, not just a paycheck they’re reeling in so they can do what they actually want a decade from now? Or three?
This is the Die With Zero argument. Bill Perkins makes the case that life is meant to be lived in the present, not deferred to some imaginary future window.
People wait until their sixties, seventies, eighties to travel the world and start the bucket list.
Good for them for doing it at all, but why did they wait so long?
How did they even know they’d make it that far?
Nobody promised you the later you’re saving everything for.
The Woman Who Tried Both
That’s why my this woman stuck with me. She didn’t guess. She tried both paths. The corporate route and the passion route; she has actual data on each, and she chose the horses.
Most people never run that experiment. They accept the advice, take the safe job, and file the passion under someday.
Meanwhile, she’s buying horses, competing, and running a successful business doing the thing that required a leap of faith with asymmetric upside.
So here’s my question:
What are you sacrificing for something you don’t even love?
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