Tag: Passion

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake bitter bread

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bread bakery

“…Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”

– Kahlil Gibran, (1883-1931) from The Prophet – “On Work”

Sources: Bakery Image – The Girl on the Moon; Quote – katsandogz

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Do what you love. Wrong!

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skills-cal-newport

When I read the title of this book, my head snapped back.  I believe that “doing what you love” (or pursuing your passion) leads to you being effective and satisfied in your job and leading a satisfying life.  Newport suggests that “following your passion is terrible advice” and that “skills trump passion in the quest for work you love.” I’ve bought the book and I’m starting to dig in.

Amazon’s book summary states that “Newport debunks the long-held belief that “follow your passion” is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed-preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping…Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.”

There is a worthy start-of-the-week message in the excerpts from 800ceoread’s book review:

Continue reading “Do what you love. Wrong!” →

Be Passionate…

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My Score: 7.5* out of 10. (7 + 0.5)

passionate people

*Operating at obsessive level for several categories should be worth 1.5 points. 🙂 🙂

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Why you will fail to have a great career…

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Larry Smith is a professor of economics at University of Waterloo. He coaches his students to find the careers that they will truly love. The most notable start-up he advised in its infancy is Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry. (No commentary please from the audience on how his advise is working for RIM now…Smile)

While I didn’t find any earthshattering revelations here, I did find Smith to be an engaging and inspirational storyteller in his presentation of the excuses we invent in failing to pursue our passions – – excuses including:

  • “There are no more great jobs, all the good jobs are disappearing”
  • “Great careers are a matter of luck”
  • “People who have great careers are geniuses, special one-of-kind”
  • “In 1950’s, competency would land you a good job. Today, not so much given how competitive it is…”
  • “I would do this (pursue my passion) but I’m not weird or obsessive…there is a fine line between great, weird and madness…and this is why normal people don’t have great careers”
  • “If you work hard, you can have a good career. But you need to work really really hard to have a great career and you are not prepared to sacrifice _____ (family, children, friends, etc.)
  • “I value my relationships more than my accomplishments. I will not sacrifice them in pursuit of my passion or a great career.”

Continue reading “Why you will fail to have a great career…” →

Two rules for success…

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This short clip was shared with me by my Brother. (Thank you!)
I believe Mr. Jobs is squarely on point.

“People say you have to have a lot of passion for what you’re doing and it’s totally true.  And the reason is because it’s so hard that if you don’t, any rational person would give up.  It’s really hard.  And you have to do it over a sustained period of time.  So if you don’t love it, if you’re not having fun doing it, you don’t really love it, you’re going to give up.  And that’s what happens to most people, actually.”
– Steve Jobs, 1955-2011