• Cal Newport, 2012, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’ in So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work, NY Business Plus, ch.4.

The Clarity of the Craftsman…

How do I think about the work and the things I want to achieve? What is my general mindset when approaching creative tasks?

“The craftsman mindset” Newport describes as “a focus on what value you’re producing in your job”

“The passion mindset” he describes as “a focus on what value for job offers you.

Is this not based on one fundamental world wide spiritual principal, think not what you can take from life but what you can pack into the stream of it? A mindset of, what can I give back to the world rather than, how will I take the most to benefit myself? In the taking mindset, I believe I shut myself off from a lot of options and fail to see all kinds of possibilities and opportunities. Because in my mind, I know what’s best for me and I know where I want to go. But when I open my mind to what I can contribute, I’m not in a self serving or self seeking mindset so my periphery is wider. I can see and am receptive to all kinds of opportunities. I can experience life in a fair greater capacity to anything I could possibly imagine. “A life beyond my wildest dreams”…is a horribly overused phrase, however it means that things are possible that are greater than anything that we could dream up ourselves. As long as we are open to receive and consistently thinking of others.

This reading is also commenting on the level of dedication and attention to detail that comes with mastering a certain skill. It’s saying that, in the dedication and passion to practicing the craft, the skill that becomes developed (that combined with talent and ability), means that the level of skill is so high that people “can’t afford to not have you” (in the words of Larry Moss, a world renown acting coach who talks about topic a lot). Don’t waste your time worrying about the role you didn’t get, spend all that time on your craft, you then become so good, they can’t ignore you.