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This book actually refreshed my view and my mindset of what work should be like. For years now, I have found myself struggling because I wasn’t sure what I was passionate enough about to turn into a career. Sure, I like a lot of things: sport, baking and socializing, to name a few. But I couldn’t grasp how to turn this into ‘meaningful’ work. I mean, I love animals, I’m sure we all do (unless you’re a psychopath), but we can’t all become vets… it’s unrealistic. This chapter of So Good They Can’t Ignore You “argues that the more you seek examples of the passion hypothesis, the more you recognize its rarity.” The traits that define great work are rare and valuable. Supply and demand says that if you want [this work] you need rare and valuable skills to offer in return. Think of these rare and valuable skills you can offer as your career capital. The craftsman mindset, with its relentless focus on becoming “so good they can’t ignore you,” is a strategy well suited for acquiring career capital. "
This chapter of So Good They Can’t Ignore You “questions the validity of the passion hypothesis.” Despite being popular, the passion hypothesis is “wrong and potentially dangerous: This chapter of So Good They Can’t Ignore You “argues that a unifying mission to your working life can be a source of great job satisfaction.” Cal Newport presents the story of Professor Pardis Sabeti, who loves her career in evolutionary biology. He found that “her happiness comes from the fact that she built her career on a clear and compelling mission:” The First Control Trap – “the principle that control that is acquired without career capital is not sustainable” Because of these early experiences, I looked on with curiosity, once I arrived at college, when my classmates began to wring their hands about the question of what they wanted to do with their lives. For them, something as basic as choosing a major became weighted with cosmic significance.
Little Bets – the small and achievable projects to explore productive ways to turn a vague mission idea into specific successful endeavors You must think small and act big. Advancing to the cutting edge in a field is an act of small thinking, requiring you to focus on a narrow collection of subjects for a potentially long time. Avoiding the Control Traps In which I explain the law of financial viability, which says you should only pursue a bid for more control if you have evidence that it’s something that people are willing to pay you for.
From 1987 to 2010, US job satisfaction has trended downward from 61% to 45%. Amongst young people, 64% are unsatisfied with their work, which is the highest ever recorded. I think Newport made a great original contribution to understanding career development with his concept of Career Capital: In spite of the good in the book, I think Newport made several major mistakes that radically reduced the forcefulness of his book's argument. When you cultivate the craftsman mindset, you aren’t too concerned about “finding your passion.” Instead, you’re focused on producing more valuable work. And in that pursuit of producing more value, you end up discovering what you like, what other people enjoy, and ultimately how you can do work that you find meaningful and that’s valued by other people. Traits that define great workThe Passion Hypothesis The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then find a job that matches this passion. In his book, Purple Cow, Seth Godin says that “You’re either remarkable or invisible.” The purple cow is a metaphor for something that will stand out and grab attention from all the brown cows or boring stuff in the world. Thus, “Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing.” According to Newport, the poster child for the passion hypothesis is Richard Bolles and his book "What Color is Your Parachute." Here’s the leap I made as I pondered Pardis Sabeti around the same time I was pondering Johnson’s theory of innovation: A good career mission is similar to a scientific breakthrough—it’s an innovation waiting to be discovered in the adjacent possible of your field. If you want to identify a mission for your working life, therefore, you must first get to the cutting edge—the only place where these missions become visible.
Passion Takes Time: The most passionate workers did not follow their passion into a job but instead stayed in their work or industry long enough to master what they did.Cal argues that a mission chosen before you have relevant career capital is not likely to be sustainable. The reality of each of their stories is that both men focused on “becoming so good they can’t ignore you” instead of finding their passion. This process generated career capital, which both used to attain the rare and valuable traits that made their careers amazing. Chapter Seven: Becoming A Craftsman It is well known to all of us that if one strives for excellence, then success comes right behind the person. But often we get deviated or lured by different things on the path to achieve excellence.
Unfortunately, this "passion hypothesis" is a straw man, an artificial construction created by Newport. 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 The 10,000-Hour Rule – “the idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise” have this principle about money that overrides my other life rules,” he said. “Do what people are willing to pay for.”This is why the author has dedicated the remainder of rule number three to this goal. Chapter 9: The First Control Trap Newport’s book answers one simple question: Why do some people end up loving what they do, while so many others fail at this goal? Newport offers a realistic path toward a meaningful and engaging working life. Rule #1: Don’t Follow Your Passion The passion hypothesis is bad advice For this kind of book to be successful several different objectives have to be achieved. Firstly there has to be a strong narrative and this is certainly achieved here. To create a strong and convincing narrative however it has to be supported by evidence. Evidence can be of different types and included here is evidence from research, from case studies i.e. interviews with individuals, and from personal experience. Clearly to support an argument that is generalised as a truth, in this case about career development and achieving work that you love, the evidence should be strong and consistent. the second control trap, which warns that once you have enough career capital to acquire more control in your working life, you have become valuable enough to your employer that they will fight your efforts to gain more autonomy.
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