How To Create Your Passion
- ARTICLES |
Our most dangerous ideas are the ones we "know" so deeply that we forget to question them. We constantly kill ideas that have the potential to be great by worshipping them in their current form. Our blind faith in "following one's passion" as sound career advice is one such idea.
Working right trumps finding the right work.
I have had a fishy feeling about the swaths of unhappy people running around yelling about following your passion and money and infinite happiness will find you. At a certain point I began to believe them and I also began to trumpet the same bull shit to people desperate for exhilarating advice on how to live the good life.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
The only sustained passions I have ever had are ones that I developed. I was drawn to day trading because it resembled a computer game and when I got good I could make a bunch of money - it became a passion. I had a job in internet marketing and the harder I tried to become a master the more I liked it until one day I looked at my computer screen and realized I had become passionate about it. I used to play semi-professional paintball with Will and found myself, after six months or so of training hard, to be truly passionate about the sport. I began writing years ago because I had some ideas I needed to tell more people than I could talk to - now you and I get to share in this particular passion.
While these passions developed there were a million other things that I thought I was passionate about. I day dreamed about them then started them and then stopped caring.
When we put our earnest effort into something we're respecting it and what we respect we love.
Newport's message may sound negative at first but once understood it's inspiring. There are swaths of coaches and advice-yellers telling people the only reason they are in a 9-5 job that they don't like is their lack of courage. Because, essentially, they're being pussies. A lot of this advice comes from people trying to get paid for no other reason than being excited about that message. Finally someone has come along and told them to shut the **** up.
Do not feel scared if you don't have some great passion tugging at you.
Our society has lied about the importance of pre-existing passion and made us all doubt any job that isn't in line with some mystical force that we may not see.
If you have passion in life and you can see a career path that lets you tap into it then, by all means, attack! But don't tell others they need your life.
If you don't feel a clear passion in your life then work to become as good as you can be in the thing you're doing. And don't listen to anybody yelling at you for not conforming to their 'non-conformist' ideals.
So Good They Can't Ignore You is broken down into four sections:
1. The myth of pre-existing passion
2. The importance of skill
3. The importance of control
4. The importance of mission
The rest of this blog article will summarize these sections. After you're done reading this blog you need to go to Amazon and buy this book - even if what is here doesn't resonate with you. Cal provides an inspiring alternative to the helpless reliance on an unfelt passion many experience. Remember, this book is not about killing passion - it's about how to be passionate that is true and sustainable throughout your life!
Rule #1: Don't Follow Your Passion
We like to hold onto the stories of people who knew exactly what they wanted their whole lives and held onto that passion even though we know it's so rare. We look around and see a vast majority of people who didn't have one single passion identified their entire lives. Just because that's right for somebody doesn't mean it's right for you. When you stop worrying about what your passion is then it's much more likely to surface.
Rule #2: Be So Good They Can't Ignore You (Or, the Importance of Skill)
There are Three Disqualifiers for Applying the Craftsman Mindset:
1. The job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable.
2. The job focuses on something you think is useless or even actively bad for the world.
3. The job forces you to work with people you really dislike.
There are Five Habits of a Craftsman:
1. Decide What Capital Market You're In. Winner-take-all versus auction. A winner-take-all market is one where you have one skill that you must master.
2. Identify Your Capital Type. This is an automatic answer if you are in a winner-take-all market like writing - your capital is your writing!
3. Define "Good". Without a clear goal (or, definition of what "good" means) then it is nearly impossible to sustain deliberate practice.
4. Stretch and Destroy. It's difficult to maintain deliberate practice because it's "often the opposite of enjoyable."
5. Be Patient. It's hard and takes a while. Be deliberate, be diligent, and trust that you're hard work will be worth something.
Rule #3: Turn Down a Promotion (Or, the Importance of Control)
When you get enough career capital to take control you will also be hitting the point where your boss never wants you to leave. They and those around you will pressure you into staying or moving into a situation that may have less control but more pay.
Rule #4: Think Small, Act Big (Or, the Importance of Mission)
This switches the order most of us like to attack the idea of a mission. We feel we must first have a mission to energize our work. Newport's finding liberates us from this perceived need and shows us that most of the time people find their missions when they have already become skilled in their field.
For a mission-driven project to succeed, it should be remarkable in two different ways.
First, it must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to others.
Second, it must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking.
For more details just click > how to be passionate
Working right trumps finding the right work.
I have had a fishy feeling about the swaths of unhappy people running around yelling about following your passion and money and infinite happiness will find you. At a certain point I began to believe them and I also began to trumpet the same bull shit to people desperate for exhilarating advice on how to live the good life.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
The only sustained passions I have ever had are ones that I developed. I was drawn to day trading because it resembled a computer game and when I got good I could make a bunch of money - it became a passion. I had a job in internet marketing and the harder I tried to become a master the more I liked it until one day I looked at my computer screen and realized I had become passionate about it. I used to play semi-professional paintball with Will and found myself, after six months or so of training hard, to be truly passionate about the sport. I began writing years ago because I had some ideas I needed to tell more people than I could talk to - now you and I get to share in this particular passion.
While these passions developed there were a million other things that I thought I was passionate about. I day dreamed about them then started them and then stopped caring.
When we put our earnest effort into something we're respecting it and what we respect we love.
Newport's message may sound negative at first but once understood it's inspiring. There are swaths of coaches and advice-yellers telling people the only reason they are in a 9-5 job that they don't like is their lack of courage. Because, essentially, they're being pussies. A lot of this advice comes from people trying to get paid for no other reason than being excited about that message. Finally someone has come along and told them to shut the **** up.
Do not feel scared if you don't have some great passion tugging at you.
Our society has lied about the importance of pre-existing passion and made us all doubt any job that isn't in line with some mystical force that we may not see.
If you have passion in life and you can see a career path that lets you tap into it then, by all means, attack! But don't tell others they need your life.
If you don't feel a clear passion in your life then work to become as good as you can be in the thing you're doing. And don't listen to anybody yelling at you for not conforming to their 'non-conformist' ideals.
So Good They Can't Ignore You is broken down into four sections:
1. The myth of pre-existing passion
2. The importance of skill
3. The importance of control
4. The importance of mission
The rest of this blog article will summarize these sections. After you're done reading this blog you need to go to Amazon and buy this book - even if what is here doesn't resonate with you. Cal provides an inspiring alternative to the helpless reliance on an unfelt passion many experience. Remember, this book is not about killing passion - it's about how to be passionate that is true and sustainable throughout your life!
Rule #1: Don't Follow Your Passion
We like to hold onto the stories of people who knew exactly what they wanted their whole lives and held onto that passion even though we know it's so rare. We look around and see a vast majority of people who didn't have one single passion identified their entire lives. Just because that's right for somebody doesn't mean it's right for you. When you stop worrying about what your passion is then it's much more likely to surface.
Rule #2: Be So Good They Can't Ignore You (Or, the Importance of Skill)
There are Three Disqualifiers for Applying the Craftsman Mindset:
1. The job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable.
2. The job focuses on something you think is useless or even actively bad for the world.
3. The job forces you to work with people you really dislike.
There are Five Habits of a Craftsman:
1. Decide What Capital Market You're In. Winner-take-all versus auction. A winner-take-all market is one where you have one skill that you must master.
2. Identify Your Capital Type. This is an automatic answer if you are in a winner-take-all market like writing - your capital is your writing!
3. Define "Good". Without a clear goal (or, definition of what "good" means) then it is nearly impossible to sustain deliberate practice.
4. Stretch and Destroy. It's difficult to maintain deliberate practice because it's "often the opposite of enjoyable."
5. Be Patient. It's hard and takes a while. Be deliberate, be diligent, and trust that you're hard work will be worth something.
Rule #3: Turn Down a Promotion (Or, the Importance of Control)
When you get enough career capital to take control you will also be hitting the point where your boss never wants you to leave. They and those around you will pressure you into staying or moving into a situation that may have less control but more pay.
Rule #4: Think Small, Act Big (Or, the Importance of Mission)
This switches the order most of us like to attack the idea of a mission. We feel we must first have a mission to energize our work. Newport's finding liberates us from this perceived need and shows us that most of the time people find their missions when they have already become skilled in their field.
For a mission-driven project to succeed, it should be remarkable in two different ways.
First, it must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to others.
Second, it must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking.
For more details just click > how to be passionate