You'll know you love the work when you keep doing it after it stops making sense.
When no one's watching.
When it doesn't pay.
When your friends think you're wasting your time.
That's not hustle.
That's not performance.
That's proof.
Proof you're building something real.
Not chasing dopamine.
Not performing for an audience that doesn't exist yet.
Most people quit the second it gets hard.
The second it stops feeling good.
The second the likes dry up or the money doesn't come.
But the work that matters?
To stay cold.
To stay broke.
To stay misunderstood.
Cole Schafer put it like this:
"When we think of passion, we think of love. But passion is something far more beautiful than love. Passion is loving something so deeply that you're willing to endure a tremendous amount of suffering in the name of that something."
Mickey Smith did that.
Frozen to his core.
Nearly drowned.
Broken bones.
Lost friends.
Made a film no one asked for.
It launched his career.
Now he shoots for the biggest brands in the world.
That's the test.
Not whether you love it when it's working.
Whether you love it when it's not.
FYI: It was this film ↓