Authors have also questioned the passion paradigm. More recently Carnegie Mellon computer scientist and bestselling author Cal Newport, made a similar argument to Ibarra's in his book, So Good They Can't Ignore You. He insists that you're receiving bad advice if someone tells you to follow your passion. And then instead, you should focus on developing rare and valuable skills that others are willing to pay for. Something he calls career capital. Rather than adopt a passion mindset and spending your time trying to find your one perfect career, he is convinced you should adopt what he terms a craftsman mindset. Where you focus your attention on developing new marketable skills that what he calls deliberative practice. He is specific about how he developed such a mindset himself, building his own career capital through deliberative practice and computer science. Such as by analyzing a particular algorithm by building a proof map, quizzing himself on tricky concepts, writing proof summaries, and ultimately proving a new resolve that gained him attention in his field early on. He presented his work at a top conference and landed a plum tenure track position at a prestigious research university. Now, when you hear me talk about Cal Newport and his success, do you think wow he must be smart or wow he must have worked really hard? Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, makes a distinction between a fixed mindset or the idea that one's skills such as general intelligence, ability to do math, or creativity, are pre-determined and unlikely to change much over time because they're rooted in innate ability. Or a growth mindset, which allows for the idea that people can always learn, grow, and become better. Most people's beliefs about themselves are a mix of the two. For instance, I always felt that I had the ability to learn advanced mathematical concepts if I ever had a mind to. Though I have not, but also have had the lifelong belief that I am hopeless at music and that any attempt to say learn an instrument would inevitably end in failure. Dweck's point is not that someone like me should set their sights on Carnegie Hall, but the chances are I could in fact learn sheet music and figure out for at least on the piano if I really set my mind to it. But it would certainly help if I both really wanted to do it and truly believed that I could. A growth mindset combined with an intrinsic drive to succeed in the task. It is also useful when facing something for which one does not automatically have a growth mindset, to look beyond the cultural script one might be facing for that endeavor. As Dweck points out in her book Mindset, and I quote, "More than half of our society belongs to a negatively stereotyped group. First you have all the women, then you have all the other groups that are not supposed to be good at something or other." Obviously, educators, employers, policymakers, and others with power and influence need to adopt a growth mindset when it comes to all of their constituents and have a responsibility to counter entrenched stereotypes. But ultimately, a growth mindset or a craftsman mindset begins with you. University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth takes a fresh look at these mindsets, by considering specifically the idea of grit or the ability to keep up momentum towards a goal. There are four psychological assets to have when it comes to grit. Interest or an intrinsic motivation for your project. Practice, the daily discipline of making headway and the growth mindset necessary to work toward continuous improvement and mastery. Purpose or the conviction that your efforts matter. And hope or the ability to push through our doubts and believe in our ability to succeed. Like Herminia Ibarra, Duckworth stresses that career interest must be discovered usually over a long period of time. And which one slowly discovers interests, spends time developing them and ultimately deepens them as one passion and skills unfold and developed. She applies to career choice, New York Times crossword puzzle writer William Schwartz's advice on how to solve the fruits of his labor. Begin with the answers your surest of and build from there. Don't be afraid to guess and don't be afraid to erase an answer that isn't working out. While I do think that these mindsets are incredibly important, so as a basic consideration of your existing skills and interests. With the next exercise, we're going to do a deep dive into the skills you possess.
