The reading this week presented a way to positively focus on ‘work’ in order to maintain a sense of focus and drive. Cal Newport describes this methodology as the craftsman mindset as opposed to the passion mindset. With the help of some anecdotal evidence (bluegrass musician Jordan Tice), Newport argues that focusing on one’s craft/strengths first and honing in on the skills you have to offer the world is more important than seeing what the world has to offer you. To paraphrase, it is an approach reliant upon being/becoming so good that employers can not ignore.
It is proactive in principle, but only to the extent of personalised practice. I do agree that in the creative industries, people will always find the best and cheapest routes to complete a task. But my issue here, and I stress I am playing devil’s advocate, is with Jordan’s likely representation covering all other bases besides the actual writing/performance aspect. The article mentions that Jordan was born into a musical family. From this I can only assume that contacts had been established previously allowing him more time to spend honing in on his craft, and in actual fact concurrently conforming to the passion mindset of seeing what the world has to offer him.
With more people taking the approach of cutting out the middle man in the creative industries, I believe a well rounded balance between spending time with the craftsman mindset and spending time with the passion mindset is appropriate. To refer back to a previous post of mine about my future endeavours, I would love the ability to spend time moulding my craft (music, multimedia) with the funding coming from an unrelated source of work.
– Gabe