Benjamin Todd
speaker
4,140 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2023
last heard 28 May
Benjamin Todd’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 2.
Appearances
Everyone wants to find a dream job that's enjoyable and meaningful, but what does that actually mean?
Some people imagine that the answer will come to them in a flash of insight, while others think that what matters is that their dream job is easy and well-paid.
At 80,000 Hours, we've reviewed three decades of research into what makes for a satisfying career, drawing on hundreds of studies, and didn't find much evidence for either conclusion.
Instead, we found five key ingredients of a dream job.
They don't include income, and nor are they as simple as following your passion.
Let's start with where we go wrong.
For most of history, people tended to do the same things as their parents.
Then the focus moved towards getting a stable job that would let you buy a house and a car.
But my generation grew up with different advice.
If you want a fulfilling career, follow your passion.
From around 2005, this became a defining focus of career advice.
The subtext is that finding a great career depends on identifying your greatest interest, your passion, and pursuing it full-time.
It's an attractive message.
Just commit to what you most enjoy and you'll have a fulfilling career.
And when we look at successful people, they are often passionate about what they do.
We're also fans of being passionate about your work.
As we'll discuss shortly, intrinsically motivating work makes people a lot happier than a fat paycheck.
However, there are three main ways that follow your passion can be misleading advice.
The first is that many people don't feel like they have a passion that could be relevant to their career.
Telling them to follow their passion at best doesn't get them anywhere, and at worst makes them feel inadequate and demotivated.
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