Some people know just what you need, when you need it. The front of house and owner of my favourite restaurant is like that. He’s there when you have questions, he always suggests the right drink, and he’s always around for a chat. I remember one time; he even came in on his night off just to say hello to everyone. After a while I realized he’s a master at taking care of you. A real craftsman.

Be useful

There’s something liberating about the craftsman mindset: It asks you to leave behind self-centered concerns about whether your job is “just right” and instead put your head down and plug away at getting really damn good.

Cal Newport

When it comes to your career, becoming a craftsman might be the best approach. Cal Newport introduced me to the idea in So Good They Can’t Ignore You. The craftsman “focuses on what you can offer the world”, rather than what the world can offer you.

The craftsman uses their skills to make goods and provide services that people want and value. Demand for these skills is often high, and if supply is low (that is, rare) then they’re also more valuable.

Becoming a craftsman is satisfying. According to self-determination theory, everyone has three basic psychological needs that support life satisfaction:

• Autonomy, which gives us the “experience of volition and willingness”, allowing us to feel “a sense of integrity” in our actions. Useful skills allow us the freedom do it your own way.

• Relatedness, which gives us the “experience of warmth, bonding and care”, helping us feel connected to each other. Providing useful services is about helping others.

• Competence, which gives us the “experience of mastery and effectiveness” where we use and extend skills and expertise. In other words, learning skills and putting them to use.

A craftsman mindset can lead to a meaningful career. As Cal highlights, you need rare and valuable skills if you’re to have a rare and valuable career. The benefit of a unique set of skills, is you never really compete with anyone. You’re in your own lane, as Kevin Kelly writes

Don’t be the best. Be the only.

Don’t follow your passion

What skills should you work on? What you shouldn’t do is try follow your passion. In nearly 80% of the Adam Grant’s podcasts, I’ve listened to, when he asks, “what’s the worse career advice you’ve ever gotten” his guests reply “follow your passion”.

Instead of focusing on what you get, focus on what you give. The reality with work is you need to provide something valuable so that people to pay you. And people will pay you to do things that they either don’t want to do or can’t do.

Follow interest instead

The trick is to find something that you can offer that is valuable. That’s where interest and enjoyment come in. If you love working on something, then you can endure that work for a long-time and get better. Most good work is done over long periods of time.

If you’re uniquely good at it, even better. But it’s not the end of the world. Many people have done useful things with no natural talent for the skills. It seems to be more about doing what you really want to do.

Skills are what we use to making a good or provide a service to someone else. Skills are often split into technical skills versus soft skills, and character skills versus cognitive skills. Some possess a few skills (specialists), other possess many different skills (generalists).

Don’t think about skills too narrowly. It’s tempting to look at professional sports players and think skills are physical and easy to see. Like kicking a ball or running around in circles. Think of a therapist, their core skill is building a rapport with their client. Without it, treatment is far less effective.

Choose and take action

What should you do if you’re young and ambitious but don’t know what to work on? What you should not do is drift along passively, assuming the problem will solve itself. You need to take action. But there is no systematic procedure you can follow… You need to make yourself a big target for luck, and the way to do that is to be curious. Try lots of things, meet lots of people, read lots of books, ask lots of questions… When in doubt, optimize for interestingness.

Paul Graham

How do you decide what to work on? Try some reflection. Maybe you can think of something you loved doing as a kid. Or something that someone once said you were good at. Or maybe something you pay attention to. And maybe you haven’t tried it, so think of something you think you could get good at.

If you can’t think of something, that’s okay. Most people just need to test something out. Pick something and try it. If it doesn’t work out, pick something else and try that. Eventually you’ll find something.

Try pick one to three skills to work on at a time. The less you pick the faster you’ll make progress. Set a goal for 12 weeks away and aim to practice those skills daily’ish.

Work hard and practice

The best type of practice is deliberate practice. In short, it’s structured and methodical, challenging and uncomfortable, requires rest and recovery time, and involves constant feedback and measurement.

What people often get wrong is that deliberate practice shouldn’t be pleasurable in the moment. It should be hard. It’s not about getting in a flow state. Flow is closer to performance while practice is closer to preparation.

When finding ways to practice, you might need to be creative. Just as there are many different skills, there are many ways of practicing those skills. One way is look for opportunities in your current role to practice. Another way, which I quite like, is Paul Graham’s idea of an enduring project where you pick something to work on in your time.

And be patient. “The greatest impediment to creativity”, Robert Greene writes, “is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.

Beyond good

Career passions are rare, passion takes time, and passion is a side effect of mastery.

Cal Newport

In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religous.

Robert Greene

Start now. Be curious. Act. Build skills. Be patient. And if you get lucky, maximise your return on luck. One day, you might even find yourself with a passion and mission. Just don’t try figure it out at the onset.