We often hear the advice that if you follow your passion, you won’t have to work a single day in your life.
However, if you ask students or those entering the world of work, their passions (Cricket, Songs, Acting, Traveling) are not what the organizations want or pay for!
If you follow your passion and intend to follow it, life can be very frustrating. This is particularly true in a world that values salary, prestige, and status. For example: if you think you are passionate about teaching (which is low paying) and currently working in corporate (which is high paying!). You will be frustrated. I see this in talking about careers every day.
Cal Newport, in his best-seller book, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love” calls this the passion hypothesis.
(Passion Hypothesis: Following your passion in pursuing a job and career).
The book recommends discarding this passion mindset.
The book recommends pursuing a craftsman mindset.
What is a craftsman mindset?
Craftsmen develop a skill that is valuable in the world of work. Rare and valuable skill.
If you are good at such valuable skill. You develop a career capital.
Then use this career capital to negotiate or gain the desired work conditions.
Cal advises using “deliberate practice” to keep working on the rare and valuable skill.
The competency approach suggests a similar approach.
Identify the competencies that are valued in the particular job role and develop them.
Making it easy to gain the required job, promotion, autonomy, and returns.
This sounds logical and seems pragmatic (useful).
However, the book doesn’t tell what to do with the passion that one has.
The book also falls short of showing the challenges of such an approach. Life can feel hollow without passion.
Can one develop interest and expertise in such a rare and valuable skill (competency)?
For instance if one has a passion for Cricket, can he or she develop competencies required for Golf, because that has better returns?
Another example: if someone enjoys or loves engineering drawing (as in Civil Engineering), will he or she be able to develop rare and valuable skills (competencies) in statistics required in data-science or analytics jobs?
Unfortunately, career challenges are not as easy as ABC!
It is a complex area with several factors pushing and pulling one in various directions.
But these complexities are for career coaches and researchers, for others, the book is a good read and has acquired a best-seller tag.
