Sunday, 3 May 2020

‘Don’t follow your passion; rather, let it follow you’

Little Literary Nuggets – 2
Cal Newport | So Good They Can’t Ignore You

Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, in his inspirational autobiography titled, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791), discusses in great detail on his work ethics and career choices!

Although theirs was a family of dyers and smiths, Benjamin Franklin (Benji) decided to step off their family occupation and instead tried his luck on other trades as well! And as for his choice of profession, Benji confesses in his Autobiography that, he got his calling for his profession thanks to his great love for reading.

It’s no wonder then that, your reading helps you test your call and prove your intuition right!

You might want to read our past post on Benji here!

Now to the book of the day –

Well, Cal Newport is one author who promptly comes to mind every time we have a discussion on digital declutter ain’t it?

Who can forget his axiomatic statement –

If I want to add meaning to my life
I need to subtract the clutter!              

Well, Cal has also written a wonderful career-strategy book titled, So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, in the year 2012.


Through this wonderful book Newport gives us an answer to the quite intriguing question, “How do people end up loving what they do?”

To this end, Cal lands up in unexpected places, to better nuance his understanding of skill!
Like for example, he’s spent quality time with professional musicians, screenwriters, hotshot professors etc, to find out how they approach their work, and to ‘pick apart what matters and what doesn’t when building a compelling career’.

This, his out-of-the-box thinking brings out a startling finding of sorts!

‘To follow your passion’, or ‘Do what you love’, is bad advice, says Cal!

Rather, Cal advocates the importance of ability!

Says Cal –

The things that make a great job great, I discovered, are rare and valuable. If you want them in your working life, you need something rare and valuable to offer in return. In other words, you need to be good at something before you can expect a good job, he quips!

In other words, ‘Don’t follow your passion; rather, let it follow you, he says.

Cal has divided this compact book of his, into four beautiful little rules, albeit iconoclastic in its import!

And they beautifully address his main argument to a tee!

That’s Cal’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You for you! :-)

So tempted to give y’all a few lovely quotes from the book that I found so enriching –

If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (“what can the world offer me?”) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (“what can I offer the world?”).

The happiest, most passionate employees are not those who followed their passion into a position, but instead those who have been around long enough to become good at what they do. On reflection, this makes sense.

If you have many years’ experience, then you’ve had time to get better at what you do and develop a feeling of efficacy. It also gives you time to develop strong relationships with your coworkers and to see many examples of your work benefiting others.

This is what you should experience in your own pursuit of “good.” If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re probably stuck at an “acceptable level.”

Enough motivation to start reading Cal, ain’t it?

So yup! Why wait? Do buy for yourself a copy of the book right away! E-versions [including kindle reads] are available aplenty across major e-platforms!

Remember? Benji got himself his vocation because of his love of reading!

And here’s wishing y’all happy reading!

image: mediumdotcom

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