  | Book Details Title: The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century |
Book DescriptionCustomers Review: A business/economics journalist, Adam Davidson does a lot of speaking and a lot of writing, but this seems to be his first book. He is the founding cohost of NPR’s Planet Money podcast. He also apparently gives paid speeches and writes for the New Yorker magazine. He’s got enough cachet that Charles Duhigg, Daniel H. Pink and Tom Peters all blurbed his book, and those are pretty good blurbers. And I heard him interviewed today on NPR’s Here and Now where he could describe and plug his book.Adam Davidson’s basic idea is that many of us can find a niche in today’s economy where we can profit from our passion. Unlike a few decades ago, we aren’t limited to an industrial economy of scale where we are just fungible cogs in a giant corporate wheel. Instead we can take advantage of human-scale opportunities where we offer more crafted products or services at a premium price to a discriminating clientele.It’s a good idea, optimistic and inspiring, and Adam Davidson has found plenty of examples to back up his idea. The stories he tells about those exemplary people are compelling. But his approach is a lot like that of Malcolm Gladwell (though his writing style is rather different). That is, he gives his thesis, tells his stories, and thinks the latter adequately support the former. But they don’t.That’s the trouble with stories. You can find stories to support almost any idea. It’s like the stump speeches we hear political candidates give. They will tell stories about voters they talked to who had exactly the problem that the candidate has the perfect solution to. That’s all very fine, but any candidate can find and tell those stories. The stories seem to mean something, but they don’t.If you like to read stories and don’t care much about learning new things and applying them to your life, this book is good for that. Plenty of good stories, told well. It’s a quick and easy read, and I’m glad I read it. I agree with the basic idea — I think the modern economy does give us more of a chance to build a unique career path where we can make money doing things we think are important.Still, that’s a very hard thing to do. Ideas like this one are easy in the abstract but hard in the real world. It’s always that way. Ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s execution that is rare. Getting inspiration from a book like this seems valuable, but what happens when you try to find your niche and you spend all your money and time and find nothing but failure instead? What then?Again, I think of political candidates. Elizabeth Warren, for example, likes to tout her plans. An issue comes up, and “I’ve got a plan for that”, she says. But so what? As boxer Mike Tyson said, “everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face”. Plans never work — you can’t live your life according to plan. As John Lennon sang, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” (though John Lennon took the quote from someone else).So this book might inspire you to follow your passion and get you going, but when the going gets rough, this book will be little help. The book gives some practical guidance, but the rules are general and amorphous. Like set your prices high. Find a low-competition, high-margin niche market (that rarest of beasts!). Fire bad customers as well as find new ones.Not that that advice is that bad, but for entrepreneurs the main foe to fight is failure. Most new ventures fail. Learning how to overcome difficulties and how to pivot to avoid pitfalls are the best lessons to learn. But nobody wants to read or write stories about failure. Too depressing.Trouble is, reading success stories and rules that blaze a path to success generates unwarranted optimism. This is harder than it looks. Much harder. However strong your passion.
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2 reviews