Buying a passion business vs. a "Good" ETA business?

I have a close mentor helping me navigate my business buying journey. He used to work in PE and his wife actually acquired a small retail company. A while back, during my first conversation with him, I was walking him through my business criteria: recurring revenue, low customer concentration, alignment with my skills, etc. (the goldilocks dream we all want). At the time I really thought I wanted to buy an HVAC company (no longer a focus for me). He very quickly cut me off and sternly offered the main criteria he said needs to exist: "make sure you are passionate about the business you buy". His rationale -- this is going to be your life, it's going to be hard, and you need the intrinsic desire to make the business succeed -- "without passion, this could be miserable when things get hard". He warned against letting the financial incentive be the dominate decision driver. This advice has weighed on me since that conversation, especially as I've evaluated deals that hit the "passion" trigger very differently... Deal A (Consumer Service Retail): The company had a service, a mission, and a customer that I loved - I knew how the business worked (retail background) and I was the customer that the business served. Unfortunately, the deal didn't work. Deal B (Home Service): The deal looked great on paper, but I could have cared less about the service being provided. Nothing about the business felt intuitive, though I have an operational background that could have fit. It looked like an great investment, but not something that I wanted to make one of the most serious commitments of my life to. Deal A created energy, excitement, reasons to ask "how would I solve this problem" vs. "how do I not screw this up", almost effortlessly brainstorming growth ideas -- this feeling is what I envision the freedom and independence that I saw my entrepreneurial parents have and the one I want for myself. My dilemma: all my passions exist cross industries that feel riskier on paper than a "traditional" ETA business -- outdoor sports & recreation, travel & adventure, wellness, pets. These aren't just fun hobbies for my wife and I - we literally moved across the country and designed our lifestyle around our passions. The problem is these businesses have discretionary demand, compressed margins, etc. Before I discovered ETA, I had always dreamed of having a business in one of these spaces, but the risk dynamics of buying a business in these areas with a big PG hanging over my head is definitely scarier than buying the typical ETA "boring" business. I know there are tradeoffs to consider and ways to look upstream in the value chain of these industries to find the businesses that support, service, supply these industries, but it gets nichey or large/consolidated fast (hard for a geographically focused search). This is where I'm stuck today: search for what I naturally care about vs. go for the safer ETA business that my skills align to? It's not like I wouldn't find ways to care for the latter, but it's an emotionally harder pill to swallow. Has anyone else navigated a similar dilemma? If so, what are strategies or learnings you've taken away from your experience? Or, how have you found passion in something unexpected?