It takes skill to do what you love
There is a common perception that the key to success is to follow your passion. Most people believe that if you work at something you are passionate about, you will be happy and fulfilled. A popular saying sums it up: “Do something you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
There’s only one problem with this advice. It doesn’t work in real life. According to a well-publicized study by Carol Dweck and Greg Walton, two psychology professors at Stanford University, “follow your passion” is actually terrible advice. When people say they want to follow their passion about something, whether it’s a hobby or a job, most of the time they do so because they like doing it, not because they are good at it.
Finding or developing passions
This kind of thinking follows a mindset that says passions are “found” rather than “developed.” The problem is that found passions generally have no “stickiness.” At the first sign of struggle or failure, people tend to abandon their passion.
Developing a passion for something takes a different path. It doesn’t follow an emotional desire or gut feeling. Passion that sticks follows effort, and it takes time to develop. But as you put in the time and the effort to get good at something, guess what happens? You are less likely to quit and more likely to become passionate about what you are good at.
Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Shark Tank star, had several passions growing up, but he didn’t follow any of them because he wasn’t any good at any of the things he was passionate about. Instead, Cuban pursued what he was good at, and he worked hard to get better.
“If you put in enough time, and you get really good,” says Cuban, “I will give you a little secret: Nobody quits anything they are good at because it’s fun to be good. It’s fun to be one of the best.”
Fellow billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates embraces this advice. When he dropped out of Harvard University because he was passionate about developing software, he invested the time required to develop his skill. In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell estimates that Gates put in 10,000 hours of writing software before he attempted to start a company.
In my profession of writing and publishing, I see this principle lived out over and over again. At any given moment, tens of thousands of people have a passion to write a book—a novel, a memoir, or the ever-popular children’s book. But rare is the person who has the desire to put in the time and effort to develop the skills needed to become a good writer. That’s why only a small fraction of aspiring writers ever get published.
By comparison, bestselling author Mark Batterson put in the time and effort to gain the skill he needed to write. Speaking at a conference produced by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA), the organization I lead, Batterson said he spent two years reading hundreds of books before even attempting to write his first book. Through his reading, practice, and study, Batterson developed the skill to be a good writer and, consequently, a bestselling author. And now he is passionate about writing and the power of books to change lives.
Different paths to a skillful life
It isn’t a bad thing to have a passion about something. Indeed, it’s an admirable quality and necessary if you want to build a career doing something you love. But you will never have an enduring passion to do something until you first acquire the skill needed to become good at it. If you become “one of the best” (to quote Mark Cuban), you can almost be assured that your passion will follow.
There are different ways to acquire skill. The most common way is to put in a lot of time. This is the path suggested by Malcolm Gladwell. Whether you are in business or the arts (or a combination of both), staying at something for a sustained period of time will develop skill. I have been involved in different aspects of the Christian book profession for my entire working life—first as a bookseller, then as a writer and publisher, and now as the president of ECPA. Because of the time I have put in and the experiences I have had over an extended period of time, I have developed certain skills related to book selling, writing and publishing.
Initially I wasn’t particularly passionate about books, but as I began my career as a retail seller of Christian books, I began to see the effect a good book—in particular the Bible—can have on people. Consequently, I worked hard to develop my skills as a bookseller, learning from others in the retail trade, attending conferences, and taking courses. And just as Mark Cuban said, the more skill I developed, the more passionate I became.
Another path to a skillful life is to be taught or mentored by others. I worked as a bookseller because my father owned a chain of Christian bookstores. He patiently taught me, both by his words and his example, how to be a successful retailer. We worked together for 20 years until we sold our stores to a national retail chain.
After the sale I began writing books, but not before I had read nearly as many books as Mark Batterson (only it took me longer than two years). I also learned writing skills from authors I met and interacted with during my years in book retailing. When I began writing books, I absorbed as much as I could from the professionals who were assigned to edit the books I wrote.
Illustrations from the Paduan Bible Picture Book. Printed in Italy in the last quarter of 14th century.
Wisdom – the most powerful pathway
There’s one more way to acquire skill in your profession, and this may the most powerful pathway of them all. It’s a way suggested by the Bible, the number-one-selling book of all time. In the book of Exodus, the second book in the Bible, there is the story Bezalel, a Jewish craftsman who was assigned by God to design and make beautiful artifacts for the tabernacle, which was the place where God himself met with his people. Here’s how Moses, who wrote the book of Exodus, describes the process God used to give skill to Bezalel:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel, son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts”
(Exodus 31:1-5, NIV)
The key word in this passage is wisdom, which is equivalent to the word skill. In fact, to live with wisdom means you are living with skill. Proverbs 4:7 says: “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.” And how do you get wisdom? The answer is found in James 1:5: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”
You may think this is all rather ethereal. What can these spiritual principles have to do with doing your job with skill? Have you ever heard the expression, “God-given talent”? It’s the idea that each of us has some kind of natural ability that exists simply because that’s the way God made us. And if he made us, then it stands to reason that God will increase our natural ability in order to perform at a higher level than normal. Following the advice in the book of James, all we have to do is ask.
If God gave Bezalel skill to create beautiful objects, won’t he do the same for us? You better believe it. If you are looking for the skill to do something you love, work at it, learn from others, and most of all, ask God to give you the wisdom you need to do your job better than you could ever do on your own.
Stan Jantz has been involved in selling, writing, and publishing books for the faith-based market for his entire professional life. He served as the president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association from 2015 to 2021, a professional trade group that represents and advocates for more than 100 publishers around the world. Stan is also the author or co-author of 75 books on all aspects of the Christian life, including the international bestseller, God Is in the Small Stuff. His newest book, The Healing Power of God: A Biblical Embrace of the Supernatural…Today, was released in January 2021 by Harvest House Publishers.
Stan has a strong commitment to Christian higher education, having served as a trustee at Biola University in Southern California for the past 20 years.