Food for Thought: When Passion Isn’t Enough

Okay, so quick story—I was binge-watching Pesadelo na Cozinha the other night, which is basically Brazil’s Kitchen Nightmares, right? And there’s this moment in every single episode. Jacquin tastes the risotto, sets his fork down slowly, gives the owner that signature death glare, and says, “Falta paixão.” You’re missing passion

It sounds good on camera. Clean, quotable, dramatic. But honestly? It started bugging me. And let me tell you why.

(Photo credit: Renato Pizzutto)

Because no, passion isn’t what’s missing. Some of these restaurant owners do care; you can see it in the way they hustle, the way they talk about their food. They’re running on fumes, giving it everything they’ve got. The problem? They have no idea what they’re doing. No one ever showed them how to run a kitchen. Should they have learned before opening a restaurant? Yeah, definitely. But they didn’t. They went with heart. With gut instinct. And sometimes, that’s just not enough.

And then it hit me. This has been happening for years in many language schools across Brazil, and with private teachers too.

New teachers show up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. They love the subject, they care about their students, and they’re in it for all the right reasons. But the second things start to unravel, schools and trainers are quick to blame their attitude, their mindset, as if what they really needed was just another motivational mug.

Wrong. What they needed was TRAINING.

Because teaching—especially language teaching—is a high-skill job.

You’re scaffolding for the next activity while running the current one. You’re deciding when, how, and whether to give feedback on a mistake. You’re listening for emergent language and figuring out how to build on it without derailing the flow.

You’re helping a student rephrase something better, on the spot. You’re anticipating mistakes before they happen and already planning how to address them. You’re breaking down complex grammar into something that actually makes sense, without putting your students to sleep.

None of that comes from passion ALONE. That’s skill. That’s craft.

I get it. Passion feels big. It’s loud, but the real work of teaching is often quieter. More deliberate. Built in the margins: between classes, during prep time, in the small decisions you make when nobody’s watching.

That’s not something you’re born knowing. It’s something you earn.

Keep learning, keep growing—and thanks for letting me be part of your journey!