The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century

"Yes, I think so. Although reality has shifted under it, because it was largely written prior to what’s happened to the economy this year. But I don’t think that undermines its message. I agree with you: I’ve written, and totally believe, that the idea that we have one passion that we have to discover in life, or that if you follow your passion you don’t need to worry about anything else, is not useful. But he’s not making that argument. He’s saying, through a sequence of interesting case studies, that it used to be the case that you had to choose between doing what enthused you and felt deeply meaningful, or making a stable living. But now you don’t have to choose—in fact, you kind of have to choose the opposite, at least for a certain demographic. That doing the things you’re passionate about, that really fire you up, are often the best way to flourish in this new economy. Granted, there’s a whole other book to be written about how there should probably be universal basic income, and more progressive taxation; we shouldn’t be having to lecture people on how to stay afloat. But putting that aside, I think it’s a very powerful argument, based on the well-known truth that more and more of industry is being automated. That’s been true for a long time in the manufacturing of simple, cheap consumer goods; but it’s also happening now with all sorts of ‘knowledge work’ careers as well. “If my career is going to go in the direction I want it to, it’s going to involve reaching out directly to the people who are into the kind of stuff I do” The example people always give is routine accountancy and legal work—things that once needed a highly skilled professional with a flair for that work. But, increasingly, doing your tax preparation just requires a piece of software. Journalists are constantly freaking out about how routine news stories can also now be written by robots, by artificial intelligence . And it follows that as this process escalates, what will retain its value is the human spark that can’t be replicated in that way: people who tell stories really well, people who can create beautiful objects that can’t be replicated 1000 times, people who can tailor their services to extremely specific segments of the audience. A lot of his examples have to do with people taking a business model that once could have been a service with hundreds of thousands of clients, and instead offering services to a far smaller number of clients, but who are willing to pay more money. Specialized accountancy services, niche clothes designers, people serving the Amish farming community, there’s even a high-end pencil manufacturer in the book. I’ve been thinking about it in terms of my own work as well, increasingly. I feel it’s probably the case that, if my career is going to go in the direction I want it to, it’s probably going to involve more directly reaching out to the specific people who are into the kind of stuff I do, as opposed to holding out for the blockbuster, the one-in-a-million chance that will make you a name in every household in the land. He sets up the book with a story about his father and his grandfather, both called Stanley. Stanley his grandfather worked in a ball bearings factory, and it never occurred to him to find it fulfilling. But he provided for his family. Stanley the father rejected it to become an actor. Davidson writes that he always saw life as a choice between these paths, but that now, for the first time ever perhaps, you don’t need to make that choice. In fact, you shouldn’t make it. You’re totally right. Because any one of your income streams can be threatened without it threatening the whole. I mean, if you had a few thousand pounds to invest in stocks and shares, no one would tell you to invest it all in one company, but that’s exactly what we do with our jobs—or at least, what we have traditionally tended to do."