“Find Your Passion” is Bad Advice
If you’re waiting for the appearance of a passion that leads to career happiness and success, stop—and get busy instead.
The misguided mantra to “find your passion” distracts people from actively cultivating interests, say researchers from Stanford and Yale. They claim the word “find” suggests a magical process uncontrolled by the individual. However, the research showed that passions or interests are developed by investing time and energy into discovery rather than waiting for the proverbial lightbulb to appear.
The study measured mindsets linked to “theories of interest,” specifically the effects of fixed mindsets, or the belief in innate interests, versus growth mindsets, or the belief that interests are acquired. The study revealed that people with a fixed mindset who have the belief that passions simply appear tend to be less curious than people with a growth mindset, who view acquiring interests as a process that unfolds. This more take-charge process is more likely to lead to a satisfying career.
From Quartz Media
How to Shine at Work
What do employers value in employees? The attributes below are characteristics that will help any worker stand out on the job.
Punctuality shows respect for others’ time.
Focus demonstrates self-discipline in a time of countless distractions.
Eagerness means taking on additional responsibilities and looking for learning opportunities.
Integrity makes an employee trusted and credible.
Objectivity removes emotion from business dealings so that actions are fair.
Flexibility is essential in a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.
These attributes add up to professionalism, the underpinning of all successful careers.
Gentlemen, Please Step Up
Practically daily, the media report on another addition to the #MeToo movement. According to The Wall Street Journalopinion columnist Peggy Noonan, the reason is that too few men are gentlemen.
Noonan does not defend predators—men bent on sexual assault and rape—but separates those acts from general boorish behavior. Men can be grabby creeps, slobs, pigs, Noonan writes. But those problems might ease if men behaved courteously and honorably, showing dignity and respecting the dignity of women.
Noonan notes that on one hand, social media have created the forum for a lack of decorum that brings out the worst in male brutishness. On the other hand, there may be hope, she writes: The Internet is laden with definitions of what a gentleman is and how to be one.
From the The Wall Street Journal
