“We cannot predict the value our work will provide to the world. That’s fine. It is not our job to judge our own work. It is our job to create it, to pour ourselves into it, and to master our craft as best we can.”
James Clear, Blog
12 Cal Newport Quotes from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’
Excerpt: Follow your passion is bad advice. Read these powerful Cal Newport quotes from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ and find out why…
Read More »12 Cal Newport Quotes from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’
“The more you try to force it, I learned, the less likely you are to succeed. True missions, it turns out, require two things. First you need career capital, which requires patience. Second, you need to be ceaselessly scanning your always-changing view of the adjacent possible in your field, looking for the next big idea. This requires a dedication to brainstorming and exposure to new ideas. Combined, these two commitments describe a lifestyle, not a series of steps that automatically spit out a mission when completed.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You
“Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the simple idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You
“If your goal is to love what you do, you must first build up ‘career capital’ by mastering rare and valuable skills, and then cash in this capital for the traits that define great work.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You
“If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset (‘what can the world offer me?’) and instead adopt the craftsman mindset (‘what can I offer the world?’).”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You
“Don’t obsess over discovering your true calling. Instead, master rare and valuable skills. Once you build up the career capitol that these skills generate, invest it wisely. Use it to acquire control over what you do and how you do it, and identify and act on a life-changing mission. This philosophy is less sexy than the fantasy of dropping everything to go live among the monks in the mountains, but it’s also a philosophy that has been shown time and again to actually work.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 230)
“Working right trumps finding the right work. He didn’t need to have a perfect job to find occupational happiness—he needed instead a better approach to the work already available to him.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 228)
“People who feel like their careers truly matter are more satisfied with their working lives, and they’re also more resistant to the strain of hard work. Staying up late to save your corporate litigation client a few extra million dollars can be draining, but staying up late to help cure an ancient disease can leave you more energized than when you started—perhaps even providing the extra enthusiasm needed to start a lab volleyball team or tour with a rock band.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 152)
“If you want something that’s both rare and valuable, you need something rare and valuable to offer in return—this is Supply and Demand 101. If follows that if you want a great job, you need something of great value to offer in return.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 44)
“Put aside the question of whether your job is your true passion, and instead turn your focus toward becoming so good they can’t ignore you. That is, regardless of what you do for a living, approach your work like a true performer.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 39)
“The happiest, most passionate employees are not those who followed their passion into a position, but instead those who have been around long enough to become good at what they do. On reflection, this makes sense. If you have many years’ experience, then you’ve had time to get better at what you do and develop a feeling of efficacy. It also gives you time to develop strong relationships with your coworkers and to see many examples of your work benefiting others. What’s important here, however, is that this explanation, though reasonable, contradicts the passion hypothesis, which instead emphasizes the immediate happiness that comes from matching your job to a true passion.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 17)
“Why do some people enjoy their work while so many other people don’t? Here’s the CliffsNotes summary of the social science research in this area: There are many complex reasons for workplace satisfaction, but the reductive notion of matching your job to a pre-existing passion is not among them.”
Cal Newport, So Good They Can’t Ignore You (Page 14)
So Good They Can’t Ignore You [Book]
Book Overview: In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that “follow your passion” is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed-preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work—but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers. Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.
Post(s) Inspired by this Book:
29 Must-Read Seth Godin Quotes from The Practice For All Creators
Excerpt: If you’re a creator of any kind (current or future) this list of quotes from The Practice should be required reading—they’re THAT good.
Read More »29 Must-Read Seth Godin Quotes from The Practice For All Creators
“No one can possibly do a better job of being you than you can. And the best version of you is the one who has committed to a way forward. Your work is never going to be good enough (for everyone). But it’s already good enough (for someone). Committing to a practice that makes our best better is all we can do.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 246)
“Ultimately, the goal is to become the best in the world at being you. To bring useful idiosyncrasy to the people you seek to change, and to earn a reputation for what you do and how you do it. The peculiar version of you, your assertions, your art.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 226)
“Of course, at first, all work is lousy. At first, the work can’t be any good—not for you and not for Hemingway. But if you’re the steam shovel that keeps working at it, bit by bit, you make progress, the work gets done, and more people are touched. There’s plenty of time to make it better later. Right now, your job is to make it.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 203)
“We have unlimited reasons to hide our work and only one reason to share it: to be of service.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 190)
“You are not your work. Your work is a series of choices made with generous intent to cause something to happen. We can always learn to make better choices.”
Seth Godin, The Practice (Page 181)