"If you're going to be at a job environment, you should love it. You shouldn't do it just for money. You should do it because you love it. And the money comes naturally"
About this Quote
Fields is selling more than cookies here; she’s selling a moral permission slip for ambition. The line reads like feel-good career advice, but its real power is how it launders risk and labor through the language of love. “You should love it” frames work not as a contract but as a relationship, implying that dissatisfaction is a personal failing, not a structural condition. It’s a neat rhetorical move for an entrepreneur whose own origin myth (scrappy founder, passion-driven brand) depends on turning toil into romance.
The money “comes naturally” is the soft-focus ending that makes the whole thing go down easy. It’s not a guarantee so much as a cultural story Americans desperately want to believe: that the market is an honest judge of sincerity. If you’re pure of heart, the paycheck will follow. That idea flatters both the striver and the system. It tells workers their best strategy is to internalize the job, to make identity do what bargaining power can’t. It tells capitalism it’s meritocratic without having to prove it.
In context, Fields represents a specific late-20th-century business ethos: personal branding as virtue, optimism as strategy, “passion” as a competitive advantage. For founders, loving the work can be a real fuel; for employees, it can become a trap, a way to normalize underpaying and overextending. The intent is aspirational, even generous. The subtext is sharper: devotion is the entry fee, and the reward is promised just vaguely enough to feel like destiny.
The money “comes naturally” is the soft-focus ending that makes the whole thing go down easy. It’s not a guarantee so much as a cultural story Americans desperately want to believe: that the market is an honest judge of sincerity. If you’re pure of heart, the paycheck will follow. That idea flatters both the striver and the system. It tells workers their best strategy is to internalize the job, to make identity do what bargaining power can’t. It tells capitalism it’s meritocratic without having to prove it.
In context, Fields represents a specific late-20th-century business ethos: personal branding as virtue, optimism as strategy, “passion” as a competitive advantage. For founders, loving the work can be a real fuel; for employees, it can become a trap, a way to normalize underpaying and overextending. The intent is aspirational, even generous. The subtext is sharper: devotion is the entry fee, and the reward is promised just vaguely enough to feel like destiny.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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