Don’t aim for passion straightaway, decide your career path and apply the craftsman mindset of deliberate practice to achieve mastery. Increasing your career capital and striving for excellence increases your chances of finding work you love and achieving long-term career satisfaction.
“So Good They Can’t Ignore You” is a thought-provoking book by Cal Newport that challenges the popular notion that you should follow your passion, do only what you love and if you haven’t found it, keep looking... Steve Jobs popularised this notion with his "keep looking, don't settle" advice in his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech.
Newport argues the contrary. Newport challenges this notion suggesting that it can be misleading and detrimental to one’s career prospects.
Building Career Capital
One of the main ideas in this book is the concept of “Career Capital”. Newport argues that building your career capital first is better than following your passions. Career capital refers to the skills you have that are rare and valuable which can be used as leverage in defining your career.
The economic theory of supply and demand says that if you want something rare and valuable, you should also have something rare and valuable to offer in return.
The more career capital you have, the more leverage you will have in your organization. Your job will enable you to be more creative, and impactful and you will have more control in your career as your career capital increases. Newport explains that the passion mindset is detrimental to one’s career prospects and leads to dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
The Passion Mindset vs The Craftsman Mindset
The problem with the passion mindset is that it leads people to ask the question, What can the world offer me? What does my work offer me? In many cases, it results in job hopping and one may not have any substantial level of skill as a result. He further explains that 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. This is especially true for entry-level positions that are not going to be filled with challenging projects and autonomy—these come later.
He also balks at the passion mindset because it prompts deep questions such as — “Who am I?” “What do I truly love?” “Is this who I am?” and “Do I love this?” — These questions are not only so hard to answer but are almost guaranteed to leave you perpetually unhappy and confused.
He proposes that you adopt what he calls the “craftsman mindset”.
Newport explains that the craftsman mindset asks you to leave behind self-centered concerns about whether your job is “just right,” and instead put your head down and plug away at getting really good. No one owes you a great career, it argues; you need to earn it—and the process won’t be easy. Instead of asking what your job can offer you, the craftsman mindset encourages you to focus on what you can do for your job. It prioritizes skill development and mastery over the pursuit of passion. It stresses the importance of deliberate practice and effort to become excellent at what you do.
Deliberate practice for Newport meant a guided approach to skill improvement that involved focused effort, feedback, and consistent refinement. He argues that deliberate practice is the only way to achieve mastery in any field.
Working Right Vs Finding The Right Work
Working right trumps finding the right work. Passion follows mastery. You begin to love what you do the more you get better at it. You don’t need the perfect job to find career happiness – you need a better approach to the work available to you.
Key Takeaways
Don’t aim for passion straightaway, decide your career path and apply the craftsman mindset of deliberate practice to achieve mastery. Increasing your career capital and striving for excellence increases your chances of finding work you love and achieving long-term career satisfaction.