Imagine you‘ve agreed to speak to a group of business students but you can‘t think of a theme. Here‘s a guaranteed winner. Go with, "Follow your passions and do what you love!"
That‘s advice everyone loves to hear. You‘ll kill.
Yet you might also be wrong.
"Telling someone to follow their passion -- from an entrepreneur‘s point of view -- is disastrous," says Cal Newport, Georgetown University professor and author of So Good They Can‘t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Search For Work You Love. "That advice has probably resulted in more failed businesses than all the recessions combined... because that‘s not how the vast majority of people end up owning successful businesses.”
"Passion is not something you follow," he adds. "Passion is something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world."
According to Cal, here’s why.
Career Passions Are Rare
It‘s easy to confuse a hobby or interest for a profound passion that will result in career and business fulfillment. The reality is, that type of preexisting passion is rarely valuable.
Don‘t believe me? Think about something you‘re passionate about. Or something you were passionate about when you were in high school.
Then apply this test: Will people pay you for it?
"Money matters, at least in a relative sense," Newport says. "Money is a neutral indicator of value. Potential customers don‘t care about your passion. Potential customers care about giving up money." (That same logic, of course, also applies to potential employers.)
A passion people won‘t pay you for -- or won‘t pay you what you deem to be a sufficient income -- is hardly the basis for a career. It‘s a hobby. Of course you can still love your hobbies. Just love them in your spare time.
The key as an entrepreneur -- or as an employee -- is to identify a relevant passion.
Passion Takes Time
The "hobby" passion is much different from the kind of passion you hope to find in your business career.
"Producing something important, gaining respect for it, feeling a sense of control over your life, feeling a connection to other people -- that gives people a real sense of passion," Newport says.
Roughly speaking, work can be broken down into three categories: a job, a career, or a calling. A job pays the bills; a career is a path towards increasingly better work; a calling is work that is an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity. (Clearly most people want their work to be a calling.)
What is the strongest predictor of people seeing their work as a calling? The number of years spent on the job. The more experience you have, the more likely you are to love your work.
Why? The more experience you have the better your skills and the greater your satisfaction in having those skills.
The more experience you have the more you can see how your work has benefited others. Plus you‘ve had more time to develop strong professional and even personal relationships with some of your employees, vendors, and customers.
Where business success is concerned, passion is almost always the result of time and effort. It‘s not a prerequisite.
Passion Is a Side Effect of Mastery
“The myth of the virtuoso is also a problem," Newport says. "In the majority of cases people think of someone who became a virtuoso as having had unusual talent when they were very young."
Instead, most highly skilled people were exposed to something in a way that made it interesting. Take musicians. Something (a song, an instrument, a teacher, etc) initially inspired them. They started learning and then benefited from what Newport describes as a feedback effect.
"If you practice hard, soon you might find you‘re the best in your group of students," he says. "That‘s great feedback and it motivates you to keep practicing. Then you‘re one of the best in a larger group and that‘s motivating too. Practice and achievement is a gradual, self-reinforcing process."
If the work is interesting and you think there‘s a market -- meaning people will pay you for that work -- that‘s enough to get started. Then the work itself will give you the feedback you need.
Creating a viable product will motivate you to develop your skills so you can refine that product or create more products. Landing one customer will motivate you to develop more skills so you can land more customers. Gaining greater responsibility and authority will motivate you to develop more skills so you can keep climbing your ladder.
The satisfaction of achieving one level of success spurs you on to gain the skills to reach the next level, and the next, and the next.
And one day you wake up feeling incredibly fulfilled.
"The satisfaction of improving is deeply satisfying, as eons of craftspeople will attest," Newport says. "The process of becoming really good at something valuable is a fulfilling and satisfying process in itself... and is the foundation for a great entrepreneurial career."
Working Right Trumps Finding the Right Work
Want to love what you do? Pick something interesting. Pick something financially viable -- something people will pay you to do or provide.
Then work hard. Improve your skills, whether at managing, selling, creating, implementing -- whatever skills your profession requires. Use the satisfaction and fulfillment of small victories as motivation to keep working hard.
And as you build your business or career, stay focused on creating something that will eventually provide you with a sense of respect, autonomy, and impact.
"Don‘t focus on the value your work offers you," Newport says. "That‘s the passion mindset. Instead focus on the value you produce through your work: how your actions are important, how you‘re good at what you do, and how you‘re connected to other people."
When you do, the passion could follow -- and if you work hard enough, someday you could be so good that, as Cal says, they can‘t ignore you.
What do you think? Does a calling stem from passion… or can passion result from working hard to develop skill in something you were interested in but didn‘t know you would love?
想像一下你和一群商学院的学生交流却想不出一个好的主题。“跟着自己的感觉走，做你自己想做的事。”是一个万金油的句子。
这个建议大家都喜欢，但是它也可能是错的。
”告诉别人跟从他的感觉——从一个企业家的角度来看——无疑是个糟糕的建议。”卡尔，纽斯泊特如是说，她同时也是乔治城大学教授以及《无法被埋没的金子：专业技能而非工作热诚帮你找到心仪工作》的作者，“这个建议导致的结果可能比所有经济萧条带来的负面效应的总和还要严重。。。因为那并不是大多数人通向成功的法门。”
“真正的兴趣不是让你去跟从的，而是你付出艰苦努力的过程中，一路陪伴你走到享誉世界。”
据卡尔的说法，其中缘由很简单。纯粹的兴趣爱好和 所谓引导成功之路的志向很容易混淆，现实就是，一个人先天就有志向的凤毛麟角。
不相信我的话，就好好想想自己在高中时的志向或者对某物的执着。
那么问题来了：你这样做有钱挣吗？
“钱是万能的，至少从现实意义上来说是的。” 纽斯泊特表示，“金钱是价值的衡量尺度。那些潜在客户并不会注意你是否有激情，他们在乎的是钱。”（同样的逻辑关系适用于潜在雇员。）
光有兴趣的人是没办法支付生活成本的，只有足够的收入可以。兴趣本身无法成为职业生涯的基础。它就是爱好，当然了，你仍可以在闲暇时间去做你想做的事。
不管是企业家，还是普通职员，要明确的一点就是确定与自己相符的目标。
激情需要时间消化。
而对于嗜好的激情和你工作事业上所需的激情还是大有不同的。
人可以通过创业功绩赢得尊重，掌握生活，联结他人--那是真正的激情。
简而言之，工作可以分为三部分职业，职场，事业。职业是最基础的，用于日常开销。职场是上层构架，是开拓成功业绩的道路。事业是终极目标，是身份的重要标识，是人生的组成要素。（当然大多数人都希望能创业功绩，成就事业。）
如何能预测一个人是否能事业有成？长年累月的辛苦工作。工作积累下来的经验越多，你就越可能喜欢自己的工作。
这样的逻辑在于，你所积累的经验意味着你掌握更好的技巧，更好的技巧能让你在工作中产生优越感，满足感。
更多的经验意味着你能洞悉自己的职业是如何使他人获益的。同时可以进一步提升专业技巧，增进人际关系，如同事，上司，顾客。
事业有成不是先决条件，它是长期坚持，不懈努力的成果。
工作热情是职业精通的副产品
关于大师的传说众说纷纭。据新闻报道，大多数人认为能成为大师的人小时候都是神童
反倒是那些高级专业人才，他们是通过强迫自己对某事感兴趣而取得成就的。拿音乐家来说，一件小事（一首歌，一件乐器，一个老师等等）带领他们走上音乐道路。于是他们开始学习音乐，随后从中获益，这样的模式被称为反馈效应。
“只要你足够努力，不久你就会发现自己已经是班里的佼佼者了。”他说“那种满足感会驱动你继续前进，然后你就是年级第一了，如此反复。从练习到成功是一个渐进的，自我提升的过程。”
如果你工作足够吸引人并且有巨大市场潜力--意味着其中有利可图，至少你能从中找到工作。--工作就有薪水，吃喝不愁，接下来工作本身带来的满足感就是你所需要的。
创造有销路的产品能让你发展自身技巧，然后继续生产或者创造其他产品。搞定一个客户之后你就有动力提升自身技巧搞定其他客户。接下里取得信任和权威，就可以不停的往上爬。
成功所带来的满足感会鼓励你继续努力，获得一次接一次的成功。
然后你就顺理成章的实现自身价值了。
进步所带来的满足感是深入内心的。就像匠人的作品永世流传。精通某事本身不是最重要的，而其过程才是才是满足感的来源。而这正是一个伟大事业的基石。
正确的工作方式比找到一个好工作更重要
如何喜欢自己所从事的工作。挑一样自己喜欢的东西，一样有市场的东西，一样能提供给你薪水的东西。
Then work hard. Improve your skills, whether at managing, selling, creating, implementing -- whatever skills your profession requires. Use the satisfaction and fulfillment of small victories as motivation to keep working hard.然后努力工作，提升技巧，各方面所必需的技巧，管理，销售，创造，执行。累计每次的小成功来获得努力工作的动力。
And as you build your business or career, stay focused on creating something that will eventually provide you with a sense of respect, autonomy, and impact.在你工作和事业的中，找到具有足够冲击力的创举让你赢得尊重，然后往这个方向努力。
不要专注于工作能给你带来什么，而要专注于自己的工作表现，如何完善自己的职业能力，如何保持与他人的关系。这才是正确的心态。
先开始工作，后产生热情。只要你足够努力，精通此道。cal的意思是是金子总会发光的。
你的观点呢？工作源于激情，或者激情是在努力工作，提升技巧的过程中不知不觉中产生的。