3 steps to help your child develop a passion, rather than trying to find one.
Introduction
A YouTube video triggered a domestic discussion last week. My wife and I got into a discussion about what our child will end up doing when she grows up. The said video was by Ali Abdaal. Abdaal is a Cambridge-trained medical doctor working in the UK National Health Service. He recently announced he would no longer work full-time as a doctor. Last week, we figured out what must be a key reason. Abdaal shared that, as a YouTuber, he earned 3x his monthly doctor income over the past month from YouTube alone. That’s not counting any sponsorships he has, and other income such as online courses.
The discussion with my wife centres around whether we would encourage our girl to follow Abdaal’s path. If she ever becomes a medical doctor, would we whole-heartedly support her to “follow her passion” and go full-time on YouTube and quit medicine?
I had mentioned the book How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims a few times previously. One chapter I struggled with encourages parents to “Let them [the kids] chart their own path”. She cited the advice that German-born Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sebastian Thrun gave to young people seeking his career advice: “Find your passion”. Although the author expressed reservations at the platitude, she eventually advised that if parents “want to keep them close, we gotta let them go.”
I recall reading about “developing versus following your passion” some years ago. Hence I decided to write this post for my wife and myself and to prepare for further discussions down the road with our daughter. It serves as my policy memo to help our child develop a passion.
A growth mindset for interests
The article I had read about appeared in Forbes. It referenced a study published in 2018, by Paul A. O’Keefe, Carol S. Dweck and Gregory M. Walton. Carol Dweck famously wrote the book Mindset, which was the basis for Step 1 of a previous post “Science your way to personal growth in 6 steps.“
The authors built on previous work on implicit self-theories, which shows that
… people can hold fixed and growth theories for many different attributes, such as intelligence, personality, shyness and willpower. … Theories of interest are also theoretically distinct from these other constructs.
O’Keefe, Dweck, Walton, 2018: Implicit Theories of Interest: Finding Your Passion or Developing It?
In 5 experiments conducted to test how people who hold fixed and growth theories about interests behave, the authors found that:
- a stronger fixed theory was associated with less interest in the topic outside participants’ preexisting interest;
- the more students endorsed a fixed theory, the more likely they were to think that a passion would provide endless motivation. By contrast, the more students endorsed a growth theory, the more likely they were to anticipate that pursuing a passion would sometimes be difficult;
- students endorsing a growth theory may have more realistic beliefs about the pursuit of interests, which may help them sustain engagement as material becomes more complex and challenging.
Thus, students who subscribe to the belief that passion can be developed are both:
- more open to developing new interests; and
- better able to sustain an interest in the face of challenges.
Importantly, people who think passions are developed “grow to fit their vocations better over time.”
For me, the implication as a parent is obvious. I would need to create an environment in which my girl adopts the belief that passion can be developed.
How am I to do this?
Work on mastery of skills
Thankfully, the Forbes article pointed to a book by Cal Newport: So Good They Can’t Ignore You. The book title was inspired by an interview Steve Martin gave on the Charlie Rose show in 2007. The host asked Martin his advice for aspiring performers. The response was “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”.
Newport put forward 4 rules:
#1 Don’t follow your passion
#2 Be so good they can’t ignore you (or, the Importance of skill)
#3 Turn down a promotion (or, the Importance of control)
#4 Think small, act big (or, the Importance of Mission)
Passion Hypothesis and Career Capital
Newport defines the Passion Hypothesis as follows:
The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then find a job that matches this passion.
CAL NEWPORT: SO GOOD THEY CAN’T IGNORE YOU
He then proceeded to make observations that result in the following three conclusions:
- career passions are rare;
- passion takes time;
- passion is a side effect of Mastery.
He then advocated obtaining “career capital” with which one could exchange for control and defining your own career mission. Career capital is by definition rare and valuable. The author’s advice for how to go about to obtain this is to adopt the craftsman mindset:
… regardless of how you feel about your job right now, adopting the craftsman mindset will be the foundation on which you’ll build a compelling career… you adopt the craftsman mindset first and then the passion follows.
Cal Newport: So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Applying this lesson in my role as a parent is less straight-forward. To help your child develop a passion, rather than being specific about which skills to help or encourage her to develop, we would need to focus on developing a mindset. A milestone my daughter is working on is an upcoming piano exam. The predictability of the performance environment seems ideal to cultivating such a craftsman mindset.
Be better informed
In an interview with The Atlantic magazine, Gregory M. Walton said “…’ find your passion,’ is that really how things work? A little bit of knowledge is power.”
I would second the point about knowledge being power. When I faced career choices in my late teens, there was very little information about careers. You read about different professions on the papers, in magazines, on TV, and that was about it. I could tell that some professions paid better than others, but I had no idea of the extent of such pay gaps.
It was not until a year or two after I started working, that I realized my pay increase was not keeping pace. I had signed up to a profession that was described as a “calling”. The halo around it gives the employer a way of underpaying its staff. The reasoning was simple – its staff was being paid in an emotional currency of being in a “noble calling”. As such, monetary compensation can be reduced accordingly to account for such payments in emotional terms. Money should not be the only consideration for your choice of career. However, money does determine if you could join your friends at the same restaurants, or concerts or holidays.
Start with your desired lifestyle
The fault was mine entirely. I had not done my due diligence properly. To ensure that my girl does not fall into any careers of such noble calling without fully understanding the potential consequences, Cal Newport has the following advice:
Fix the lifestyle you want. Then work backwards from there.
Cal Newport: The Most Important Piece of Career Advice You Probably Never Heard
Want to be a professional athlete? Sure. Do you know how many aspiring high schoolers eventually make it to the big league? How many in the big league played a full career without having to retire due to injuries? How many make 50% of the headlined salary?
So you would rather be a tech entrepreneur? Why not. Do you know how many aspiring entrepreneurs still have their business after 3 years? What about how many hours they work a week? How many of them take holidays?
It’s great you want to work in that non-profit! It’s meaningful work and humane hours. Do you know if the bosses you’ll be working for were promoted from within? Might you still be able join your BFFs in your annual holiday with your pay? Will you be able to determine when you go on leave, given the nature of the work?
Conclusion
The call to help your child develop a passion goes against the prevailing conventional wisdom. Even Steve Jobs urged students to “find what you love” in a viral commencement address. However, studies and real-life experience have shown this does not work for all. In fact, for the majority of us, developing a passion would be more self-empowering. The 3 steps parents can take to help our children develop a passion are:
- Adopting a growth mindset for interests;
- Working on mastery of skills;
- Becoming better informed of their interests.