So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love

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Even if anyone wants to keep you at bay due to any reason, they will be unable to do so because talent always shows. It has a way of showing because it is natural and has been worked upon thereby making one truly excellent at their endeavors. Rule #1 states that “follow your passion” is terrible career advice, which provides the foundation for everything that follows in this book. Chapter One: The “Passion” Of Steve Jobs The Law of Financial Viability – this law “suggests that when deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, you should ask yourself whether people are willing to pay for it:”

Just like pursuing a life of control before you have career capital is destined for failure, so is pursuing a mission before you have the relevant career capital to pursue that mission successfully. That means you need to develop relevant, rare and valuable skills to pursue your mission. Mission requires little bets The law of supply and demand says that if you want these traits, you need rare and valuable skills to offer in return. Passion Is a Side Effect of Mastery: The Self-Determination Theory shows us why which pursuits motivate people in their work: Creativity: “Ira Glass, for example, is pushing the boundaries of radio, and winning armfuls of awards in the process.” Cal argues that a mission chosen before you have relevant career capital is not likely to be sustainable.

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Career Capital – the rare and valuable skills within the working world, which is “the key currency for creating work you love” The path to happiness goes much further beyond the simple question of “What should I do with my life?” In his book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, Cal Newport discusses what he learned from trying to answer the following question: You need to get good before you can expect good work. Thus, invest your (extensive) career capital into gaining one of the most important traits of Control (Dream-Job Elixir) over your work: Career passions are rare: most passions are hobby-style interests (e.g., sports and arts) and may have nothing to do with a career. Impact: “From the Apple II to the iPhone, Steve Jobs has changed the way we live our lives in the digital age.”

Yet, Newport continues to promote interesting ideas. The first is that a mission must be capital driven, in a sense, you can’t skip straight into a great mission without having mastery in your field.However, Newport notes that acquiring control is perhaps a little complicated and notes two key control traps: Leading on from rule two, the obvious question is once we have enough career capital, what do we do with it? Well… you invest it into traits that define great work.

Passion hypothesis: The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then find a job that matches that passion. When you focus only on what your work offers you, it makes you hyper-aware of what you don’t like about it, leading to chronic unhappiness. Patience involves the willingness to ignore other pursuits in building career capital. Rule #3: Turn Down a Promotion (Or, the Importance of Control) Chapter 8: The Dream-Job ElixirThere are many complex reasons for workplace satisfaction. The notion of matching your job to a pre-existing passion is not among them. Spend time to understand the competition in your field and know what they are doing to perform well. Have the spirit to outdo the best in your field without any fear but with only courage and heart. Newport promotes that to construct work you love, you must first build career capital by mastering rare and valuable skills, and then cash this capital for the type of traits that define compelling careers… mission being one of these traits.

The passion hypothesis is not just wrong, it’s also dangerous. Telling someone to “follow their passion” is not just an act of innocent optimism, but potentially the foundation for a career riddled with confusion and angst.” To have a mission is to have a unifying focus for your career. It’s more general than a specific job and can span multiple positions. It provides an answer to the question, ‘What should I do with my life.’” For a mission-driven project to succeed, it should be remarkable in two different ways. First, it must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to other. Second, it must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking.” The key is to know when the time is right to become courageous in your career decisions. Chapter 11: Avoiding the Control Traps Courage Culture – “the idea that the only thing standing between you and a dream job is building the courage to step off the expected path” of “other people’s definition of success” and follow your own dreams

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These unique skills are referred to ‘career capital’, which is anything that puts you in a better position to have a large social impact in the long term. Throughout the book, Newport cleverly and neatly introduces four simple rules that he believes will lead us all to successful and fulfilling careers. Of course, many of us believe that rules are made to be broken, but I think these might be some rules you’ll want to follow very closely. Rule 1) Don’t follow your passion In his book Drive, Dan Pink discusses how control has resulted in an overall better life in terms of better academic results, physical performance, increased productivity, and greater occupational happiness. Within the workplace, the power of control is embodied in a new philosophy called ROWE: