Passion has had a long run with motivational speakers and it's hard to have escaped "the-find-your-passion" message. Passion is a good thing. It breeds ideas and people and without it we would have a lot less of either. But I come not to praise or bury passion. It's very helpful. But it's not the base that anyone can build upon.

Passion without competence is the village idiot. We all know people in our lives who are very passionate, but don't have a clue about what they are doing because they lack skills to reach their goals. Passion is a differentiator when those involved have competence. Passion gives us the extra juice to solve problems.

However, you must have skills and that means learning the language of your field of endeavor. In my college days, I took a summer of private lessons from Jamey Aebersold, a New Albany, Ind.-native who could have played with any major jazz group, but chose to stay close to his family's business. He developed into the foremost jazz educator in America (after I was gone).