How following your passion is the worse thing you can do instead should you craft your skill 'Be so good they cant ignore you' and don’t obsess over discovering your calling but instead master rare and valuable skills and then with these skills you can act on life changing mission.
Throughout my career I have endlessly questioned is this my passion what is my calling how do I find it as I compare my mundane technology job to magical career as a writer or the many paths I constantly dream of. But in a recent book by Cal Newport he argues be careful of the trap follow your passion and looks at studies around if this is the right approach to look at our career and out life calling. Cal’s book statement of ‘ Be so good they cant ignore you’ was from Steve martin where he built a working life he loved without accepting failure. To constructs work you love first build career capital by mastering rare and valuable skills.
Cal also mentioned Steve jobs who in 2005 gave a graduation speech to a grad class and opened up with :
“You’ve got to find what you love. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet keep looking and don’t settle.” (Steve Jobs)
Just like a lot of the self help books I review on job matching and how to find my calling they all state a similar mantra follow your passion and the money will follow. But in Cal Newports book he provides opposing arguments to Steve jobs in fact he argues its terrible advice and uses Steve jobs evolution to Apple.
Steve jobs who before apple was not a tech visionary in fact he had long hair walked on bare feet and majored in History. After the first year he dropped out of school and slept in a local Krishan temple. He travelled to India and upon returning to LA he began training at a zen monastery. Once his return he also worked on a side project of a computer time sharing project.
During this time when he was conflicted with a spiritual path or back to an engineering role. He got his break during this time of internal conflict as he saw a gap in the tech market he created one of the first model kit computers. As a local hobby he sold the computer kit boards for $50 making 50% profit. His first break is when he arrived a Mountain view shop barefoot to offer to sell the computer kits to the owner Terrel who made a deal if he could get fully assembled computers he would pay $500 - which Steve jobs jumped at by using this capital raised this led to his start up for Apple.
So Steve jobs didn’t follow his passion of a zen master but his lucky break and hard work on side project led him on path to apple not a zen monk. I often have this constant conflict of my calling as a spiritual wellbeing expert to escape the city or reside in a job I struggle to love how do we find a balance or are we settling ?
Research by Wrzesniewski professor in behaviour at Yale University wanted to understand why some people enjoy their jobs as a calling and other have no passion in the same role. She surveyed a Clerical admin role and the strongest predictor where those with more experience enjoyed their job compared with novices - therefore those that had experience and where good at their job and had efficiency had passion.
A recent TED talk ‘On the surprising science of motivation by D Pink looked at human motivation based on the Self determination theory. From a psychology point of view the motivation in workplace is based on three factors:
1. Autonomy-Feeling you have control of your day and your actions are considered important
2. Competence – The feeling that you are good at what you do
3. Relatedness -The feeling of connection to others in the workplace which you will enjoy more being at work
Therefore in relation to Wrzesniewski study with experience your good a what you do which results on you get a sense of accomplishment and you get rewarded which then generates happiness as you have more control on your responsibilities.Therefore throughout the books the statement ‘working right trumps finding the right job’
Rule 1 : Follow your passion is bad advice but seek opportunities to master rare skills that would result in rewards. To constructs work you love first build a career capital by mastering rare and valuable skills.
Rule 2: Be so good they cant ignore you which is based on the craftsman mindset which gets you to focus on what value you are bringing to the world. Deliberate practice by building skills by ruthlessly stretching yourself beyond your comfort. If you reach an acceptable level and your not learning you may remain stuck. This comfort zone can be dangerous since as you plateau you become crippled in creativity and learning and even shaping a future career.
Therefore find ways to introduce practical strategies that will help you force yourself to engage in deliberate practice of self improvement and this should become a routine where you don’t revert into confirm zones .A good sample is Richard Feynman the Noble prize winner Physician in that he managed to move his IQ from normal to genius by his constant compulsion to learn new mathematical problems and resolve them and made sure he understood concepts bottom up – His amazing intellect was self taught not a gift but his dedication to apply himself. Techniques include an Hour tally sheet for deliberate practice or even create a bible of notes of learnt practice
Rule 3: Control over what you do and how you do it is powerful force for building remarkable career. Are people willing to pay for your skill or service and do you have enough career capital .
Rule 4:Career mission is an organisations purpose to working life its what leads people to becoming famouse. You need to scan for the next idea through brainstorming and exposure to new ideas.
A Pyramid of 3 levels for your evolution for new ventures or ideas:
1. Top Level Tentative mission statement- a type of guideline of things you like to do also to do this you need some career capital.
2. Bottom Level background research-dedicate yourself to researching the area you are focused on and also exposing yourself to research related to your mission. Every week set a goal to expose yourself to a new insights to this area(read, talks , meeting others already working in it). This is also where you work on your research bible with notes and research on your new idea. Also dedicate one walk a day for brainstorming new ideas
3. Middle level exploratory projects-small iterations of the ideas deliverables to test your progress which allows you to get feedback. Keep a minimum of such as milestones to be completed in a month, is it a new feature or results and can you get feedback. I focus on just two or three milestones in each cycle and this can be tracked on your work breakdown chart by hours spent per week on planning. The value of this approach is the feedback at the end of each tasks should tell you if the idea is of value or a failure and this ensures you constantly evolve.
Another case study in the book was Thomas who believed key to happiness is follow your passion he moved from a hectic city job to a Zen monastery and immersed himself in study of Dharma lectures and zen living. But after this change he was still the same person as he arrived. He ended up returning to his banking job two years later but this time approached his working life with a new awareness.
His experience in the monastery had freed him from the escapist thoughts of fantasy jobs that dominated his thoughts. Instead he focused on tasks he was given and did them well. He no longer had comparison to his current job to a magical future occupation. With a new focus he was able to excel and get promoted within months moving from low paid data analyst to MD managing portfolio of 6 bln. He now enjoyed the challenge and gave him respect and autonomy.
Thomas did not match his work to his passion but instead did work well and managed to love what he did cause he was rewarded for he career capital and growth. Working right increases enjoyment in your working life rather than trying to find a passion. Don’t obsess over discovering your calling but instead master rare and valuable skills and then with these skills you can act on life changing mission. You can still venture on a new carear or idea but take a different apporach as stated.
So even if my calling is a new venture not related to my task the key to success and passion for it is using the tools in Carl book to reach your mission and succeed without blindly thinking it is your end result. Through perseverance, solid mission and strategy and small incremental tasks to test your hypotheses for a new venture or make what you do now the best you can like his title states be so good they cant ignore you. and you can love it.
Commentaires