[Market Economy Guide] What You’re Good At vs. What You Love

Even Michael Jordan, the “emperor of basketball,” failed badly in baseball…

If you keep doing what you’re good at, it may become what you love

There may be people who do not know exactly who Michael Jordan is, but there is probably no one who has never heard the name “Jordan.” Michael Jordan is the most famous once-in-a-generation basketball star not only in the United States but across the world. Over 13 years, Jordan won the NBA scoring title ten times, the regular-season MVP award five times, and the Finals MVP award six times, while leading his team, the Chicago Bulls, to six league championships.

Michael Jordan’s dark chapter

As completely as Jordan dominated the basketball world, there was one chapter in his life that was far from perfect. In the middle of building his basketball career, he briefly strayed into baseball. At the time, Jordan was reeling from the shock of his father’s sudden death. One reason he switched to baseball, it is said, was that his father loved watching him play baseball just as much as basketball.

The entire world’s media focused on the baseball skills of the former basketball emperor, who had traded a basketball for a baseball bat. But Jordan’s bold venture into baseball ended after just one year in Triple-A, a level of U.S. professional baseball. The Triple-A league is the tier directly below Major League Baseball. The man who had been a near-mythical figure on the basketball court was, on the baseball field, no more than a fringe player. One American sports magazine sneered that baseball-era Jordan was not “Air Jordan” but “Error Jordan.” Jordan, whose competitive drive was stronger than anyone’s, is said to have been deeply frustrated by this bitter failure, the first of his life.

The blind spots of self-help books

Young people on the verge of entering working life often struggle with whether to choose what they are good at or what they like. If what you are good at and what you like overlap, there is nothing to worry about. The problem is when they differ. Countless self-help books on the market take an ambiguous position in such cases, suggesting that either choice is fine, while some actively encourage people to choose what they love. The argument is that if you make what you love your job, passion will follow, work efficiency will rise, and professional self-esteem will grow.

But that claim is surprisingly unrealistic. Work efficiency arises when what you love and what you are good at are the same thing; when they are separate, the story changes. Comedian Kookjin Kim is a good example. He had top-tier talent as a comedian in Korea, but not as a golfer. He, too, once went through a period of wandering, like Jordan, when he tried to become a professional golfer.

When you are torn between something you love but are not good at and something you are good at but do not love, is there no standard by which you can decide? Monetary reward may be one such standard. What you are good at enables you to earn money. What you love, by contrast, often costs money.

The choice between what you love and what you are good at can also be explained through market principles. Suppose, for example, that you carve high-quality wood to make handmade dolls. If you have skill with your hands and know how to work wood, you can make handmade dolls and sell them in the market for a price. In other words, when you do what you are good at, the market gives you a certain reward.

But what if you have no such skill and are carving wood simply because you like handmade dolls? Rough wooden dolls made for personal satisfaction may have meaning as decorations in the maker’s home, but other people are unlikely to buy them. If you carved the wood with the intention of selling it on the market, you would simply have wasted perfectly good premium lumber.

We must understand human nature

The claim in some self-help books that passion comes only from doing what you love begins with a poor understanding of human nature. Human beings are social animals and respond sensitively to outside evaluation. Even work a person did not particularly enjoy at first often becomes something they naturally come to like once they gain recognition from others through productive activity and earn the income needed to support themselves. By contrast, if you love something but are not good at it, you gain neither social approval nor income from it, and in the end you are likely to drift away from it.

Jordan’s spirit of challenge in refusing to settle for success in basketball and taking on baseball deserves high praise. In today’s era, when people often pursue multiple careers over the course of a lifetime, no one can guarantee that the job you have now or the workplace you are in today will last forever. But challenging yourself in a new field is meaningful only after you understand your own abilities, strengths, and weaknesses and find work suited to them. After ending his baseball detour, Jordan returned to the basketball court and led his team to three more championships. He is now living a successful second life as the owner of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets.

■ Please remember

The claim in some self-help books that passion comes from doing what you love begins with a poor understanding of human nature. Human beings are social animals and respond sensitively to outside evaluation.

Sung-no Choi, President, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [시장경제 길라잡이] 잘하는 일 vs 좋아하는 일

Author: Sung-no Choi

Date: 2020-08-24

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=column&pn=7&idx=23025