Last week we introduced Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You, which makes the heretical-to-some claim that following your passion is actually a bad idea. Newport holds that DWYL (or “Do What You Love”) actually leads to overblown expectations and discontent. The alternative he proposes is the “craftsman mindset,” which focuses on mastering skills. Dismantling the passion mindset incensed and delighted readers in rather equal measure: many of you reached out to say that you found the new perspective empowering while others argued that the craftsman mindset would turn us all into cubicle zombies.
Blinkist’s mission is to bring together the key messages from nonfiction. So, we decided we’d take a look at what some of the world’s bestselling books have to say about the passion vs. mastery question with the aim of scouting out the optimal path to career contentment.
Pro Passion
The books that argue passion should come first are legion, and The Happiness Project is one of them. Its message is quite simple: following your passion makes you happy. Coming from a stable job in the legal field, the decision to turn over a new professional leaf as a writer was a huge step for the book’s author, Gretchen Rubin. Her risk paid off: now her passion — writing — is her career and was a huge step toward career contentment.
Of course, making your passion your career requires figuring out what that passion is. Luckily, there’s a telltale way to identify it. You’ve probably heard the term “flow” — that altered state of mind inhabited by musicians, writers, artists, and tinkerers of every stripe when they’re creating. When you’re doing something about which you are passionate, you’ll know intuitively because you’ll lose yourself and all sense of time in the doing. In Finding Your Element, Ken Robinson prescribes asking yourself what makes you feel this way and diving in to get to fulfillment. The Art of Nonconformity supports the same endeavor by suggesting that in freeing yourself and focusing your energies on your passion, you heighten your commitment to living a fulfilled life. For most people, fulfillment requires some degree of success, and in The New New Thing, Michael Lewis holds that passion is a prerequisite for it.
As you might have expected, getting to success isn’t for the faint of heart, and yet the one thing almost all successful people have in common is that at one point or another, they went against the grain and took the risk of following their passion to pursue new innovations. The $100 Startup points out that all around the world, more and more people are bucking the strictures of traditional employment to follow their passion and live a life of freedom and purpose.
Pro Craftsmanship
In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, the book that first launched our debate, Cal Newport proposes that rather than pursuing your inherent passion, you should learn to love what you do. By cultivating fulfillment in the process of acquiring a skill, he argues, you come naturally to a kind of passion borne of mastery and pride. Malcolm Gladwell’s classic Outliers nuances this notion with a timeframe, citing the need to put in a “critical minimum” of around 10,000 hours of practice (or craftsmanship) in order to achieve mastery.
Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success, supports the claim for a craftsman’s attitude by offering a closer look at childhood prodigies. As it turns out, prodigies tend to practice for what amounts to years before their talents bloom; the difference is that much of those 10,000 hours of practice occur in their youth. When the six-year-old Mozart toured Europe to display his piano skills, he had already undergone 3,500 hours of musical training, suggesting his skill was forged as much by practice as innate mastery. Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code provides further support for the idea of success springing from study, revealing that giftedness is actually dependent upon a mixture of deep practice, ignition, and master coaching.
Most critical to the success of the craftsmanship model, which depends so heavily on making a conscious choice to learn, improve, and cultivate a passion, is your attitude toward your own process. In her book, Mindset, Carol Dweck introduces the concept of the Growth and Fixed Mindset. People with Fixed Mindsets obstruct their own development by believing in innate talent and having a fear of failure. On the contrary, a Growth Mindset is one that values relentless practice to realize your full potential and attain mastery — which, in turn, will lead to passion for your trade.
A Fine Pair
Most nonfiction of the in-between camp resolves that it’s a blend of passion and patient craftsmanship that offers the surest path to fulfillment and success. In Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi proposes that success requires just such a balance. First, he explains, find your blue flame — the crossover between your passions and your abilities. Similarly, Robert Greene’s Mastery holds that passion is the first step, but the craftsmanship attitude is what will move you from enthusiast to master. Finally, Daniel Pink’s Drive identifies the pool of passion and mastery as the wellspring for the all-important inveterate urge to achieve perfection.
Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck argues that there are two kinds of successful people, some that stand out due to passion, and others due to qualities like smarts. Heart-dominant entrepreneurs are distinguished by their passion — in their cases, it’s personal drive and creativity that turns dreams into reality. Meanwhile, business people of the smarts type are rational and focused on economic- and market-related questions. Take, for example, Jeff Bezos: it wasn’t a passion for books that inspired him to found Amazon.com, but rather an analysis of online trading.
Both the passionate, heart-based path and the rational, study-based paths are valid ones toward contentment and success.
And the Winner Is…
Diehard DWYLers and those who advocate for craftsmanship would have you believe that the decision is really an either or, but as usual, it seems the truth lies somewhere in the middle. There’s no single right way to achieve your greatest degree of contentment and success. Instead, keep these lessons in mind:
- Ideally, you should end up doing something you’re passionate about and become a master in it.
- It is possible to first become a master about something and subsequently develop a passion through practice. After all, who knows if little Mozart actually enjoyed music before he began rigorous practice?
- Equally likely is first feeling passionate about an activity or trade, then, through practice and determination, becoming a master. Any writer will attest to this truth once they’ve gone back to take a look at their enthusiastic earlier writings.
If you’d like to make up your own mind, we’ve put together a collection of 10-minute summaries that cover all of the books mentioned in this article. Follow this link to read them all for free!
Hey! Liked what you learned? There’s a lot more! Come see what I’m working on at Blinkist, a reading app that gives you key insights from nonfiction books like this in 15 minutes or fewer ☺.
