22 March, 2017
Media Lecture – 4
In this week’s lecture, we talked about ‘How Do We Learn To Become Media Practitioners?’ and watched a talk of Cal Newport, which is links to this week’s reading: The Clarity of the Craftsman.
From the reading, there are two different approaches to thinking about work: the craftsman mindset and the passion mindset. The craftsman mindset is focus on what value you are producing in your job; however, the passion mindset is focus on what value your job offers you. Actually, most people adopt the passion mindset, but the author argues that the craftsman mindset is the foundation for creating work you love.
The sentence that makes me impressed is: ‘Be so good they cannot ignore you’. This sentence appears both in the talk video and the reading.
Newport uses the example of Steve Jobs to claim his argument. ‘You’ve got to find what you love… If you have not found it yet, keep looking and do not settle.’ said by Steve Jobs. In other words, it means follow your passion. I exactly agree with this argument, because follow your passion presupposes that if you really like something and they match that to your job, you will then from then on out have a sort of long-term engaging and meaningful career. For myself, I like baking,but I could not do it at the beginning. I failed many time when I baked cakes and cookies for the first time, even made my friend stomachache because of the bad handmade food. However, I never give up, instead studying how to bake delicious and tasty for a long time. Fortunately, I have done this purpose successfully after many times of practice. Based on this point, I even learned how to cook Chinese food and Western food by myself later. Thus, follow your passion presupposes that you have a pre-existing passion that you can identify and follow, this passion would give you directions.
However, Newport does not agree with this argument and he consists ‘telling a young person to follow their passion reduces the probability they will end up.’ Also, he uses the example of Steve Jobs.
Anyway, there are two points that must be correct: ‘Be so good they cannot ignore you’ and ‘Go Deep’. For the first one, if you did success in a job or work or certain area, you will have more confidence to do it better, which means you will have more passion and work harder in order to achieve better. Moreover, ‘go deep’ is exactly necessary. People need to focusing persistently and without distraction on a cognitively demanding and valuable task, so that they would be success possibly. In addition, ‘time-blocking’ was mentioned and linked to ‘deep work’. Making a schedule and follow it strictly is necessary and you will feel successful once you overcome difficulties. After a long period, it would be your routine and you will obey it regularly.
That’s all ideas I can come up with within 15 mins… I could not catch all ideas in Newport’s talk because it does not have subtitle,so it is hard for me to understand at all. However, I will listen to it again after the lecture.