Happy Monday, Gravy Babies.

I’ll start today’s letter with a question I like to ask just about every friend, family member, or gym bro when I’m looking to avoid small talk (always):

What is passion?

Specifically, what does that word mean to you, and are you following yours?

I grew up absurdly biased by the demographic I’m surrounded by.

You can’t order a six-dollar cold brew in Los Angeles without overhearing a guy talk about his screenplay.

This past week I was at a coffee shop and a man pulled out a no-joke, typewriter. 

It made the textbook ding every time he hit return. 

If there were an Academy Award for Performative Man, this guy was Philip Seymour Hoffman. Mad respect for leaning into the bit.

It’s baked into LA culture that we’re all “following our passion.”

If you’re a barista, you’re an actor waiting for your big break.
If you’re a marketing manager at a kefir company, you came to LA to get a billboard on Sunset Boulevard but somehow ended up trying to make probiotics sexy.

Often, when this conversation comes up, when I ask friends or family about what “following their passion” actually means, they’ll tell me something specific.

“I love reading, so I got into publishing.”
“I love horror films, so I became a script supervisor.”

It sounds logical, but there’s a kind of guesswork to monetizing your passion.
To what extent does that passion even play a role in your actual day-to-day?

I got city boy brain, but it’s not just LA. “Passion” has become a full-blown marketing word! 

• Use of the word passion in job ads jumped from 2 percent in 2007 to 16 percent in 2019 (Harvard / Burning Glass Technologies).

• Only 13 percent of Americans say they’re passionate about their jobs (Deloitte).

• Roughly 88 percent of professional actors make less than $1,000 a year from acting (SAG-AFTRA).

• Across all industries, about 1 in 5 people describe themselves as very passionate about their work (CareerVision).

We’ve commodified passion.
As if the word wasn’t confusing enough, now it’s a keyword.
Companies advertise it, creators monetize it, and the rest of us wonder why we feel so detached doing the thing we once loved

I think about this a lot when I hear the phrase “follow your passion.” Because what most people actually mean is “turn the thing you love into your income.”

But if passion were a formula, it’d probably look something like this:

Passion = 10 percent the thing you love + 90 percent logistics.

The 10 percent is the spark, the part that got you into it in the first place.
The 90 percent is emails, edits, invoices, calls, waiting for feedback, and trying to remember which thumbnail font still feels cinematic.

• Creative professionals spend less than 25 percent of their working hours on creative tasks. The rest goes to administration, communication, and project management (Adobe Workfront Report 2023).

• Independent filmmakers spend about one hour planning for every 15 minutes of actual shooting (Sundance Institute Survey).

Even the creative job is mostly setup.
The “doing” part is smaller than we think.
Passion sounds romantic until you do the math.

And even if you do manage to turn your passion into your job, odds are you’ll find yourself doing less of what you love than ever before.

And here’s my least favorite part of this whole life-as passion cosplay we do…

How do you hate your job while still loving the craft?

• In a 2021 LinkedIn survey, over 70 percent of creative professionals said they’ve considered leaving their industry due to burnout or “loss of joy.”

• Nearly 60 percent of full-time content creators report “feeling detached from their original creative purpose” after monetization (ConvertKit 2022 Creator Report).

• Among professional athletes, retirement studies show roughly half experience “identity loss” or “post-career resentment” toward the sport they once loved (American College of Sports Medicine Review).
  When the craft becomes the paycheck, the relationship changes.
  We start resenting the system that monetized our joy.

When the craft becomes the paycheck, the relationship changes.
We start resenting the system that monetized our joy.

The Pro bodybuilder still trains, but spends the rest of his life trash-talking the industry that made him famous.
He loves the movement. He just hates the machine.

I don’t want to be one of those guys.
I use the gym as an analogy for a lot of things. 
I spend a lot of time there, what do you expect!? 
But I also think it’s the purest example in my life that stays uncontaminated. Immune from the passion paradox.

There have been nudges from gym bros and friends asking, “Hey, you ever think about becoming a coach?”

People see my enthusiasm for fitness as a vehicle for capital gains. And I get it. It’s logical. Turn what you love into something that pays. But that’s exactly what scares me.

Despite the temptation, I’ve made a promise to keep the gym sacred.
A place that’s hard for its own sake.
A place untouched by algorithms, clients, or metrics.

It’s not a side hustle. It’s a ritual.

I train for the same reason I started, to do something difficult for no other reward than the feeling of doing it.

Maybe that’s what real passion looks like.
Not something you chase or sell, but something you protect.
A small, stubborn slice of the day that belongs entirely to you.
Because once you sell it, you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to buy it back.

🍔 Burgers and Therapy

You ever go to dinner with friends or family really wanting something on the menu, maybe it’s the burger, and someone orders it before you? 

Suddenly you feel this internal box check: “Damn, now I can’t get the burger.”

Maybe it’s a psychological impulse, a loss of individuality. “This person is the burger. I am not the burger.”

Culturally, a lot of us grew up in an environment that valued uniqueness.
“You got the burger? I don’t want to copy you.”

Group meals are a story we tell.
A table, a tableau if you will, of narrative balance. Two burgers is like DiCaprio and De Niro in the same film. Who do we think we are, Scorsese?

Bottom line:
If you derive your selfhood from entrée choices, you need therapy. But I’m between health insurance plans, so here’s a recipe instead.

🍳 Macro-Friendly Bro Burgers

Makes: 4 burgers
Macros per burger: ~300 calories / 35 g protein / 12 g fat / 10 g carbs

Ingredients
- 1 lb 93/7 ground beef
- 4 Kraft Singles
- 4 keto buns

Aioli
- 6 tbsp light mayo
- 3 tbsp 0% FAGE Greek yogurt
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 tsp MSG
- 3 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp white vinegar or citric acid
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp sugar-free ketchup
- 1 tbsp hot sauce (I like Zab’s)
- ⅛ tsp sweetener (I use stevia)

Toppings
- Thin-sliced onion
- Pickles

Directions
I like my electric griddle for this. Hot surface, lots of room to cook meat and toast buns at the same time. Makes me feel like a line cook, my real calling.

Whatever you do, get your pan or grill hot. Aim for medium-ish on the patties. The meat is lean, so we don’t have fat to save us from hockey puck hell.

Upon the first flip, throw your cheese on to melt. These are done as soon as the cheese hits gooey status.

Layering matters (and I have dedicated my life to this research):
Toasted bun → generous aioli → thin onion slice (acts as a burger-juice barrier) → patty + cheese → more aioli → pickles.
Least slippage, best tongue-to-flavor contact ratio.

This is a simple recipe, but it’s a collision of temperatures, pH balances, textures, and smells. Timing is everything. No distraction. Game face on.

The real reason I’m committing this to digital ink is my new affection for keto bread products.

I swore off these things for years. One gram of carbs for an entire bun? No way that ends well. But here we are. While I can’t guarantee a smooth digestive outcome (four of these and you’ll understand why there’s no such thing as a free lunch), these buns are shockingly solid.

Some clock in at a quarter of the calories of the real thing. I’ll take that trade. More calories saved means more aioli and a Creami or two for dessert.

📚 Things Worth Your Time

🎯 Learn, Laugh, Relax Mike Israetel
Concept from Mike Israetel’s latest video. Think social media is toxic? You’re probably right, but it’s mostly catering to our base instincts. The algorithm is just doing its job. If you want to curate a slightly more positive environment and stop lightning-bolting your brain chemistry every time you open the app, try this:
Ditch the porn, politics, and rage bait. Instead, follow accounts that make you learn, laugh, or relax. Some solid tips in this video. 

🧠 The Curse of Competence Modern Wisdom
An insight from Modern Wisdom. Chris Williamson talks about this in his interview with creator Angelo Summers. The idea is simple: if you’re naturally good at things, achievement becomes your baseline. No celebration, no satisfaction, just expectation.
Chances are, if you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you lean toward hyper-optimization. Keep an eye on that instinct. It’s exhausting. I’m still trying to figure this one out myself, but know you’re not alone. 

🪫 Cable Organization Amazon
There’s nothing uglier than a rat’s nest of cables and USB bricks. I’ve been ignoring one on the dresser that’s been haunting me for months. Finally fixed it with a cable management box disguised to look like books. It’s simple, sleek, and Erica-approved. Our dresser looks like civilized adults live here again.

🔜 Coming Soon

Out Now – Sunday Gravy School: Birthdays Ruined You (IG)
Been thinking a lot about why people seem to hate their birthdays. Had a conversation with Erica a while ago about how she’s kind of terrible at asking for what she wants. She’s working on it. Early in our relationship, we made a tradition of choosing a birthday spot with zero debate. No compromises. If it’s a hell yes for her, it’s a hell yes for me.
Ruthless selflessness can be a superpower when it’s used with intention. My guess is most of us had that skill broken early in childhood.

10/29 – It Started at a Carnival (IG)
Two of my favorite things, clichés and cigars, in perfect harmony. When I found out the origins of the phrase “close but no cigar,” I had to tell everyone. It’s too good not to share.

10/31 – Burgers and Therapy (IG)
As discussed in this week’s newsletter, there seems to be a mass psychosis with ordering food at restaurants. You want the burger? Just get the burger. I’m trying to solve the important problems in life, one food-related therapy session at a time.

✌ Until Next Time

Protect your passion. Eat your burger. Live a lot.
DMs always open.