Focus with dedication and perseverance in achieving the excellencedeveloping a capacity or skill that is superior to that of others or that is very difficult to match, is more effective in achieving the professional success than chasing a dream, vocation or personal passion, according to a specialist, who defends some ideas against the grain of others theories current.
Numerous books have been published, many conferences have been given and innumerable courses and training have been given with proposals to achieve the professional success and work, but the American educator, researcher and disseminator Cal Newport has a different point of view on this topic, which always arouses great interest in those who aspire to progress in their job.
Recommendations
Newport offers a series of recommendations to “reconcile ourselves with our job and reach the work happiness”, but it proposes to achieve that objective through another path, starting from an approach that differs from conventional and trite ideas, moving away from many repeated stereotypes.
- This specialist presents ideas that seem to go against the grain of the habitual thinking and of common sense.
Still, “they are based on research and reality, rather than relying on meaningless platitudes about how to invest in yourself to stand out from the crowd,” he explains. Reid Hoffmanco-founder of LinkedIn, referring to job and Newport concepts.
“The belief has been established that we all have a hidden passiona vocation that governs our professional path and that must lead us towards the work happiness. But, the reality is that there are more and more people who are dissatisfied, frustrated and dissatisfied” in the workplace, he points out. Cal Newport.
Newport He is a professor of Computer Science at the Georgetown University (USA), author of internationally best-selling books on the intersection of technology, job and culture, and “the search for depth in an increasingly distracted world”, topics on which he also writes and publishes essays on his blog, Study Hacks.
After passing time with all kinds of experts who enjoy their job Genuinely, Newport maintains that “the key to professional satisfaction It does not lie in finding a supposed hidden passionbut in the sustained effort and in the continuous development of our skills and talents.”
- “The essential thing is not what we do for a living, but how we do it: the true vocation is forged with time”, he emphasizes.
People motivation
In 2010 Newport was obsessed with answering a question: why do some people they finish loving what they do, while many others are not able to achieve that goal?
That obsession led him to different people with different jobs.
By investigating their lives, Newport saw confirmation of an intuition that made time which he suspected was accurate: “when it comes to getting the job of your dreams, listen to the heart It’s not very useful advice. Furthermore, the advice to do what you are passionate about can even be dangerous.”
Thus, he realized that the conventional wisdom about the professional successbased on the idea of ’pursue your dreams’, presents serious defectsas he claims.
He maintains that this conventional approachcan make things worse for many people who embark on the search for exciting and dream careers, and that this way of thinking “can lead to changes in job “chronic and inextinguishable anguish when reality does not live up to what was dreamed,” he confirms.
Professional success
Newport addresses the professional success from another perspectivethat of “the importance of skills”, which is the common thread of his latest book, titled ‘do it so well that they can’t ignore you.’ This title is one of the essential rules to achieve success in any profession, as highlighted.
Based on his own experience and that of the people with whom he has spoken for his research, he has discovered that the path to happiness, at least as it relates to the way one makes a living, is more complicated than answering the classic questions of “what am I doing with my life?”
What do I dream about? eitherwhich are my passion or vocation?
It has also proven that, if one hopes to achieve a good job or make a great jobyou need to offer something that is scarce and valuable in exchange. “You have to be good at something, you have to do it very well,” so excellentas he points out.
Rule No. 1: try be more competent in what you do
Newport believes that when it comes to the workplace, the advice of “follow your passion”, may be a very popular motivational phrase, but it is actually terrible advice.
He points out that when you delve into the details of how the beginnings of some people who are usually considered passionate about their jobsuch as Steve Jobsthe matter becomes much more complex and nuances appear, which undermine the so-called hypothesis of ‘follow your passion‘.
In fact, “in the months prior to the start of his visionary company Apple, Steve Jobs “He didn’t seem too passionate about technology and entrepreneurship,” he explains.
Jobs “was a kind of conflictive young man who sought spiritual enlightenmentand he only got involved with electronics when it promised him a economic return fast,” according to Newport.
“If Jobs had followed in his youth the advice of ‘follow your passion‘ that he gave in his talks when he was at the top of his career and was already a technology guru, and as a young man he would have dedicated himself to pursuing only the job that he loved, most likely he would have become a zen master” but not in the tycoon that it became, he points out.
For Newport, the passion for job is rare and “the happiest and most passionate employees are not those who pursue their dreams until these dreams lead to a job, but those who have dedicated enough time to become very competent in what they do.”
“After years of experiencea person can become one of the best at what they are doing, which helps them develop a feeling of effectiveness and also allows you to establish stronger bonds with your colleagues and see how your job It helps others,” he points out.
Rule 2: do it so well that they can’t ignore you
To achieve success and satisfaction labor, Newport considers it more important to develop our own skills and talents than to follow our passions and dreams.
He points out that, when thinking about the jobmany people adopt the perspective of passion, focused on “the value that our jobbut the true basis for practicing a profession that we love lies in adopting a perspective focused on “the value that produces” our job.
In that sense, a piece of advice that the renowned American actor and comedian Steve Martingives to aspiring actors.
“No one listens to my advice, because it’s not the answer they want to hear, but I always tell them: Be as good as you are. do it so wellthat they can’t ignore you. If you think about being really good, people will end up coming to you,” he says.
One of the professionals who lives according to the approach of Steve Martin and whom Newport also cites in his book, is the American guitarist Jordan Tice.
This artist “loves to spend hours and hours every day, week after week, searching for a new way to play, out of the belief that it will add something to his music.” important to the song he is writing,” according to comment.
“When an expert, such as Jordan Ticeexhibits his enormous skill in public, his job It seems so natural that one is tempted to attribute it to some special talent or skill that one was born with, but what determines its excellence is the accumulation of deliberate practiceagain and again, as scientific research has discovered.”
Tice applies “the perspective of the artisan, who focuses on what one can contribute to the world through their job”, explains the author, recommending applying this vision.
He adds that “the law of supply and demand of economic theory teaches that, if you want somewhat scarce and valuable, in exchange it must also be offered somewhat scarce and valuable. Therefore, if you want a job great, you will have to give something of great value in exchange, that is, being very competent in some area. Those skills can be considered as a ‘labor capital‘”.
“The perspective of the craftsman, with his relentless focus on ‘do it so well that they can’t ignore you’, is a strategy which is well suited to the acquisition of that labor capital”, in Newport’s opinion.
This expert identifies only three circumstances who advise against applying the ‘perspective of the artisan’:
- A job offer few opportunities to stand out by developing rare and valuable skills that make us competent in an area.
- Focus on something useless or harmful to the world.
- It forces us to work with people who reject us.
