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?
你被邀请给商学院的学生做演讲，但还没想到主题，怎么办？这里有一个必胜法则：“跟着激情走，做你喜欢做的事！”
但捉刀人、演说家兼 Inc 杂志特约编辑 Jeff Haden引用 乔治城大学教授 Cal Newport 的说法称：
从创业者的角度来说，告诉某人要追随自己的激情是一场灾难。……因为绝大多数最终拥有成功企业的人都不是这么做的。
Cal 在自己的《好到他们无法忽视你：为什么在寻找热爱的工作时技能胜于激情》中说：
激情不是你追随的东西，而是当你努力工作、变得对世界有价值之后会追随你的东西
为什么？
职业热情罕有
大家很容易把兴趣爱好（hobby）跟能取得职业或商业成就的那种热爱（Passion）混淆。Cal 说，事实上，前面的那一种是很少有什么价值的。不信的话可以想想看你的那些兴趣爱好有没有人愿意付费给你。
钱是重要的，起码相对来说如此。金钱是价值的一个中立的指标。潜在客户并不关心你的激情，他们关心的是放弃金钱（同样地，潜在雇主也是这样）。因此别人不愿付钱，或者付你所认为的足够的钱给你的激情是很难成为职业基础的。那只是爱好。当然，你还是可以热爱你的爱好。但只是在业余的时间去热爱。
对于创业者或员工来说，关键是找到有意义的激情。
爱好需要时间
对“爱好”的热爱跟希望在创业 / 职业生涯中找到的那种热爱是很不一样的。
做出点重要的东西，从中收获尊重，以及对自己生活的控制感以及与他人的联系感，这才是热爱的真正意义。
工作（work）大致可分为三类：工作（job）、职业（career）、使命（calling）。工作为钱，职业是通向更好工作的路径，使命则是这样一种工作—它是你生活的重要部分，是你身份的关键组成。显然，大部分人都希望自己的工作（work）是第三种。
怎样才能看出一个人将自己的工作视为使命？看工作年限，经验越多，就越有可能爱上自己的工作。因为经验越多，技能就会越好，自己就会越满意。经验越多，你就会更多地看到自己的工作令他人受益，也有更多的时间与其他员工、供应商和客户建立更好的职业和个人关系。就商业成功而言，热爱几乎总是付出时间和精力的结果，而不是（成功的）前提条件。
热爱是精通的副作用
Cal 还指出，有关艺术大师的神话也是个问题。绝大部分人认为艺术大家在年轻的时候就拥有不同寻常的天分。
实际情况是大多数技艺精湛者都是通过某种有趣的方式接触到一样东西的。比方说音乐家可能是因为一首歌、一件乐器、一位老师而萌发了兴趣。然后开始练习接着又从所谓的反馈效应中受益。
Cal 说，刻苦练习成为一群学生中最好的一个后，这一地位会反过来激励你继续练习。然后又成为更大一群人中的最好，这又会成为一种激励。练习和成就是一个逐步自我强化的过程。（不过话说回来，最好的永远只有一个，不能成为最好的那些又会怎么想呢？又应该怎么去想呢。）
如果工作有趣且你又认为有市场—即意味着你的工作有人愿付钱，这就够了，可以开始了。工作本身会赋予你所需的反馈的。
而做出一个可行的产品将会激励你发展自己的技能，从而再优化这一产品，或者造出更多的产品。争取到一位客户会激励你发展更多技能以便争取到更多的客户。责任和权力越大会刺激你进一步提高技能以便继续往上爬。
对取得一定水平的成功感到满意会刺激你提升技能以达到新的水平，诸如此类，周而复始，直到有一天你一觉醒来，感觉无比满足。
对取得改善的满意会有一种很深的满足感，对某样有价值的事情变得非常擅长的过程本身就是一个自我充实和满足的过程……这是一段伟大的创业生涯的基础。
正确地工作胜过找到合适的工作
想要爱你所做？找一件有趣的事情。找一件能在经济上养活自己的事情—一件别人愿意为你所做或提供的东西付钱的事情。
然后努力工作。改进管理、销售、创造、实施等等职业所需的技能。用从小胜中获得的充实和满足感激励你努力工作不断向前。
一旦开启了你的企业或职业，要专注于创造某件最终可为你带来自尊、自主和影响的东西。
不要把注意力放在工作给你带来的价值上，那是一种爱好的心态。相反，应该专注于你通过工作创造的价值：你的行为有多重要，你如何擅长所做的事情，如何搞好与他人的关系这些事情上。
当你去做的时候，激情就会跟随—如果你的工作足够努力，有朝一日你就会好到他们无法忽视你。
做你所爱的前提是这种爱好能养活自己， 爱你所做是坚持和精通一门技能的结果。
你怎么看呢？是使命源于热爱，还是说热爱是努力工作发展某项感兴趣但不知道是否至爱的技能的结果？
