How do you choose a career path? You shouldn’t decide it first based on what you are good at. You should decide based on what matches your values (assuming, of course, that your values are in line with correct principles). Sometimes, you may find yourself doing something you are good at but which doesn’t fit with your values. In that case, get off that path.

Peter Drucker nails this, with an excellent example, in his classic article “Managing Oneself“:

What one does well — even very well and successfully — may not fit with one’s value system. In that case, the work may not appear to be worth devoting one’s life to (or even a substantial portion thereof).

If I may, allow me to interject a personal note. Many years ago, I too had to decide between my values and what I was doing successfully. I was doing very well as a young investment banker in London in the mid-1930’s, and the work clearly fit my strengths. Yet I did not see myself making a contribution as an asset manager. People, I realized, were what I valued, and I saw no point in being the richest man in the cemetery.

I had no money and no other job prospects.

Despite the continuing Depression, I quit–and it was the right thing to do. Values, in other words, are and should be the ultimate test.

And, note this as well on how knowing your values (and having them right) can be even more fundamental to success than hard work:

Successful careers are not planned.

They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person — hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre — into an outstanding performer.

My other post for The Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics this month. In it, I once again take issue with the increasingly common view that “follow your passion” is bad advice.

The most important point in the post is that we need to recognize that our passions are actually activities, not abstract generalizations. Recognizing that point alone will bring amazing clarity to all of your career decisions.

Here’s the start:

We often hear the advice “follow your passion” or “do what you love and the money will follow.” Is that good advice?

A few business thinkers have recently been saying that it is not. Even the author of the popular Dilbert comic, Scott Adams, was recently interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, where he argued that “follow your passion” is bad advice.

Adams gives an example from when he worked as a commercial lender. The person who came in and said, “I want to open a sporting goods store because I really like watching sports on television,” was not the kind of guy who tended to be a good investment. Hence, “following your passion,” he argues, is not usually good advice.

But what’s the real problem here? I would argue that following your passion is, in fact, good advice—as long as you understand what that actually means.

Read the whole thing.

My guest post at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics blog.

I would also encourage you to check out their blog in general. It is truly fantastic — and especially the last few days have some interesting posts.

Well said by Brad Lomenick in his book The Catalyst Leader: 8 Essentials for Becoming a Change Maker:

The next generation of Christian influencers is passionate about finding and pursuing their divine purposes. They don’t want to work thirty or forty years in a job that fails to fulfill their deepest longings. Instead, this generation wants to find career paths that utilize both their talents and their passions. They are locating and living their callings, and we’re all better for it.

Amen. Don’t settle for forty years in a job that doesn’t call on the best of you. Find something that calls on your strengths and passion, and do it with all your heart.

I see that Cal Newport has a new book out where he argues that following your passion is actually bad advice.

I like Cal Newport and have been very helped by the things he has to say, such as his excellent article getting creative things done. But I think this is, unfortunately, a case of overstating a point in a way that renders it inaccurate.

For example, if “follow your passion” is bad advice, then does that mean “don’t follow your passion” is good advice? Should we do what we hate instead?

Newport argues that what we should do is cultivate skill, and we typically come to love those things we become good at. I think there’s a lot to that (though it’s not everything, and isn’t always the case).

But what I disagree with is why Newport feels like he has to “debunk” the notion that we should follow our passion. I doubt that most people who say “follow your passion” mean that in an unqualified sense. The right way to understand passion as it relates to our careers is as follows.

1. Passion truly is critical. You should follow your passion — but…

2. Passion is one of three things you need to consider. You don’t consider passion alone. Instead, you consider (1) what you are passion about, (2) what you can be excellent at and (3) what meets a real need in the world. Your greatest career effectiveness (and, likely, calling from God) is at the intersection of those three things.

3. To speak in terms of “don’t follow your passion” or “the notion that we should follow our passion is a cliche, and it’s bad advice” is to give a hugely incomplete picture of things because it can mistakenly lead people to overlook the critical place that passion does play (understood as I describe in point 2). It would be much better to say “passion is not enough,” or something like that.

4. Newport is right that passion is not always first. But sometimes it is. Let’s not discourage those people who do have a clear passion by telling them that following their passion is bad advice.

5. The best way to find your passion and gifts is to act. Years ago spiritual gifts tests were common. Rick Warren said when he took one back in the day, he only had one gift: martyrdom. Another guy who went around mooching off of others all day turned out to have the gift of “poverty” — which turned out only to reinforce him in his crazy efforts! In contrast, the way to find out what you are good at and love to do is not to take a test or just think to yourself “this is my passion,” but to do stuff. Then you find out what you love and are excellent at (and what is actually serving people), and build on that.

If that is Newport’s point, that’s great. But then his book would have been much more helpful, I think, if the big idea being used to promote it was “passion is not enough,” rather than trying to make the bold (and wrong) statement that the advice to “follow your passion” is wrong.

I’m all for bold statements, and calling attention to counterintuitive things. The trick, though, is that you have to be right in the statements you make. It’s great to say something unexpected, but that unexpected statement has to remain true once the person has understood the subject more deeply.

In this case, I think that those who have said “follow your passion” are being misrepresented.

However, with this clarified, Newport’s book is certainly worth checking out and I sure will be helpful on many, many fronts. I applaud Newport in the very helpful work that he does. I just think that this particular (very big) portion of his book and its lead marketing themes could have been recast in a much more helpful light.