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Cal Newport

So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love Hardcover – September 18, 2012

by Cal Newport (Author)

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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.

With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love.

SO GOOD THEY CAN'T IGNORE YOU will change the way we think about our careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

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304 pages
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English
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Grand Central Publishing
Publication date

September 18, 2012
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5.75 x 1.15 x 8.38 inches
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ISBN-13

978-1455509126
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Autonomy: the feeling that you have control over your day, and that your actions are important Competence: the feeling that you are good at what you do Relatedness: the feeling of connection to other people
Highlighted by 6,101 Kindle readers
Whereas the craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you.
Highlighted by 5,275 Kindle readers
“Money is a neutral indicator of value. By aiming to make money, you’re aiming to be valuable.”
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Stop worrying about what you feel like doing (and what the world owes you) and instead, start creating something meaningful and then give it to the world. Cal really delivers with this one."

--Seth Godin, author, Linchpin

"Entrepreneurial professionals must develop a competitive advantage by building valuable skills. This book offers advice based on research and reality--not meaningless platitudes-- on how to invest in yourself in order to stand out from the crowd. An important guide to starting up a remarkable career."

--Reid Hoffman, co-founder & chairman of LinkedIn and co-author of the bestselling The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

"Do what you love and the money will follow' sounds like great advice -- until it's time to get a job and disillusionment quickly sets in. Cal Newport ably demonstrates how the quest for 'passion' can corrode job satisfaction. If all he accomplished with this book was to turn conventional wisdom on its head, that would be interesting enough. But he goes further -- offering advice and examples that will help you bypass the disillusionment and get right to work building skills that matter."

--Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and A Whole New Mind

"This book changed my mind. It has moved me from 'find your passion, so that you can be useful' to 'be useful so that you can find your passion.' That is a big flip, but it's more honest, and that is why I am giving each of my three young adult children a copy of this unorthodox guide."

--Kevin Kelly, Senior Maverick, WIRED magazine

"First book in years I read twice, to make sure I got it. Brilliant counter-intuitive career insights. Powerful new ideas that have already changed the way I think of my own career, and the advice I give others."

--Derek Sivers, founder, CD Baby

"Written in an optimistic and accessible tone, with clear logic and no-nonsense advice, this work is useful reading for anyone new to the job market and striving to find a path or for those who have been struggling to find meaning in their current careers."

--Publishers Weekly

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grand Central Publishing (September 18, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1455509124
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1455509126
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1.15 x 8.38 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #8,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8 in Job Hunting (Books)
- #186 in Success Self-Help

Customer Reviews:
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Cal Newport

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Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University, and a writer who explores the intersections of technology, work, and culture. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, A World Without Email, Digital Minimalism, and Deep Work. These titles include multiple New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into over 40 languages. Newport is also a contributing writer for the New Yorker and the host of the Deep Questions podcast.

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SiberShadow

Worth Reading--But don't give him a pass on the analysis

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 12, 2013

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Although my comments below are mostly critical, let me first say that I enjoyed the read. I give the author credit for proposing a different take on how to achieve job satisfaction than has appeared in so many books in recent decades.

1. "Um... and for those of us who aren't Leonardo de Vinci?"
a.) Who is the target audience: Ivy League grads (well, Stanford is in there too), music prodigies, people whose standardized test results put them in the top 1%, United States top-ranked debaters who use law school as a back-up plan for trying out Hollywood?!! In fairness, there are also studies cited. But is this really a guideline meant to be representative for a generalized population? Yes, these remarkable people worked hard, excelled, and appear to be content. It makes sense to look at that. But what about the rest of us?

b.) An underlying assumption seems to be that career "success" is the same as career "satisfaction." (I'm not sure I would choose someone like Steve Jobs to illustrate how to be happy.) If the book were entitled, "How to be successful," I would probably quibble less. Snapshot assessments are provided of talented people who are for the moment extremely successful, and who appear content. How do we measure that these people are really happy in their jobs, or that they will be 30 years from now? Does one have to be "successful" to be happy? How many examples exist of people who have been successful who have lied (to themselves and others) about their happiness--only to later implode.

c.) How do these examples support causality relative to the book's premise? There was no mention of the possibility that others might try the recommended approach and fail anyway.

d.) The author's work with computers perhaps betrays him. This comes across as an intellectual construct based on the premise that job satisfaction is a deterministic puzzle. I don't agree: our lives are not linear, and this is NOT a science. There are just too many variables. Some write songs in 5 minutes, others labor for weeks or months. Some write books prolifically, some struggle for years. The template is not fixed.

2. "The Craftsman Mindset (Mastery)"
a.) Of all the places to look for evidence that job satisfaction is the result of the merit of one's efforts, the decision to highlight people in the music and television industries as illustrative models is just stunning. These venues represent the most subjective examples of achievement I can imagine. Countless instances can be found to illustrate a lack of mastery, talent, and quality. How many contemporary singers sing off pitch, how many hit television shows are increasingly... garbage? Perhaps "the tape doesn't lie", but in too many cases it just doesn't matter.

b.) The celebration of mastery, hard, smart work, craftsmanship, and excellence is valid, wonderful, and useful. But history is replete with examples of people who were masters at what they did, and yet they WERE ignored--or even vilified. The response based on the line of reasoning presented would likely be that these people failed to adequately handle their "career capital." Should they have assessed their marketability at the expense of their mission or their integrity? Would this have made them happy? On the other hand, maybe it's possible they were already happy--despite their lack of tangible success.

c.) I find it difficult to believe that people who have the tenacity to pursue the craftsman mindset do so not from passion but because it's what the "industry requires", or because it's what they can "offer the world." The former rationale is too cynical (a la "Stepford" employees). The latter is too Pollyanna-ish. I doubt either covers the general case.

d.) Ira Glass is quoted as asserting that "you have to force the skills to come." I can attest from decades of experience in diverse environments that some of the most capable people I have met were the biggest goof-offs... and when it came time to get down to brass tacks, it wasn't because they "forced it". (I suspect this is partially because their minds were relaxed enough to learn.) Would they fit the book's criteria to be considered masters? I don't know, but that's not the point: the question was whether they were happy in their work.

3. "Passion"
a.) I think the book makes some good points regarding passion. It is sometimes difficult to understand passion in the absence of experience. But people have done amazing things because of passion--passion allows people to get beyond horrible circumstances through dedication to something they love. And while the book ridicules the passion mindset, Craftsman Mindset Disqualifier #2 allows for avoiding work that one considers "useless." Why? Probably because it's hard for anyone to have ANY passion for something they consider useless. (And later the development of a sense of mission is lauded to answer the related question "what should I do with my life.")

b.) The argument that prior to deciding on a mission, one must first "get to the cutting edge" is just not realistic. How many people are ever able to attain that status? But even if they can, at what price? The opportunity cost of "10,000 hours" (particularly to find out one was mistaken) is enormous. Is this really a prescription for job satisfaction for the average person?

c.) Perhaps the most poignant counter-examples to the premise that passion lacks value are provided by many who do excel at music as a profession. Accomplished musicians invariably note that they selected music as a career, because they in effect "had no choice," it is "part of who they are." As far as Jordan Tice, I cannot see how he would have practiced so much without passion. And to compare someone with average or even above-average musical skills to someone who is a musical "prodigy", and assert that the difference between the two can simply be attributed to how they practiced, seems to be pushing it a bit. For myself at least, I can tell you that I harbor no such illusions. :-)

d.) The assertion is made that Steve Jobs wasted time during his younger days on the idea of passion. But how does one know that his "messy path" wasn't a prerequisite for his later success and happiness? How would he know he shouldn't become a Zen master, if he hadn't taken the time to explore the possibility? More to the point, maybe he would have never accomplished what he did if he hadn't attempted that path first. Indeed, the knowledge that our passions may not be clear cut may be the very reason for their pursuit. How will people obtain clarity, if they never investigate what they believe to be true? Passions may at times be illusory, and they may change, but that doesn't negate their validity--or their pursuit.

4. "The American Dream"
a.) This book can be viewed as optimistic, in that it suggests that anyone can do anything. Implicit in the analysis is the cliché that if one just tries hard enough and in the right way, they'll make it, and they'll be happy. But it can also be viewed as convenient and elitist to argue from success, e.g. "I succeeded, I'm happy, why aren't you... just do what I did." Though not mentioned as such, this idea fits in well with of the longstanding concept of the American dream. The narrow and exclusive nature of the supplied anecdotes does not lead one to be persuaded regarding the general premise. The author suggests that passion is rare, but how rare are the exceptional stories that were described? How many follow the rules and aren't happy; how many don't follow the rules but are? I would be curious as to how Malcolm Gladwell might view this book. Some of the points made in "Outliers" are cited, but in my opinion this book misses some of the heart that comes through in Gladwell's book. But perhaps I'm mistaken.

b.) The book notes the particularly low satisfaction level of young workers. Increasingly, Americans' expectations are too high, we have grown up believing that we deserve to be entertained. In some ways this feeds our obsession with passion--I agree. But beyond this, we live in a culture where money, power, winning, and success--not craftsmanship or mastery--are the holy grail. Are we really surprised that people feel empty?

c.) If one Googles "resume tips", they'll come upon the recommendation for people to leave their personal information off their resume. This is practical advice that is understandable, but consider the rationale that is provided: "We don't care what kind of person you are." That, I suggest, may be closer to the root of why rank and file people are often miserable in the jobs.

38 people found this helpful

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Alexis

Skills Over Passion? A Review of So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 14, 2020

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Are you searching for a job that suits your passion, hoping that once you find it, you’ll feel complete? Do you dislike your current job and feel unfulfilled? Maybe you're preparing to leave your current profession to pursue the dream that you think is predestined to bring you happiness? If you've had these feelings, this book was written for you.

In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You Cal Newport intends to reform your mind and transform you from an advocate of passion to a craftsman in pursuit of mastery. He believes that “follow your passion” is terrible advice. Instead, he advises focusing on developing “rare and valuable” skills until you have accumulated enough “career capital” to cash in for the work you desire. He uses the term career capital to refer to the value and reputation acquired from putting in the time and effort to master specific skills. He insists that you should abstain from searching for work that engages your preexisting passions, hoping they lead to happiness and fulfillment. Instead, you should concentrate on honing rare skills in the same way as a craftsman perfects his craft. This path, he says, is the way towards a happier and more fulfilling career.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You is structured into four sections. Each section explains one of the four rules developed by Newport. His rules are:

• Rule #1: Don’t follow your passion
• Rule #2: Be so good they can’t ignore you
• Rule #3: Turn down a promotion
• Rule #4: Think small, act big

Also, Newport opposes a growing community of authors that promote “courage culture.” He criticizes them for propagating the idea “that the biggest obstacle between you and work you love is a lack of courage.” To prove the flaw in this motto, he told the story of a woman called Lisa Feuer, who had a successful career in advertising and marketing and abandoned it to follow her dreams. As the story unfolds, you learn that she failed to achieve financial success in this new field because she did not have enough career capital. However, this is where I ask, “Can one person’s unsuccessful attempt at changing careers, especially before a recession, accurately serve as an example of why we should never follow our passions?”

Newport’s claim got me thinking. Do people really fail because they pursue their passion? Could they have minimized their odds of failure by planning and executing a better transition? What if, in their own time, they approached their dream with that craftsman’s mindset that Newport talks about? Wouldn’t that let them build mastery of the skills, and consequently, the career capital necessary to transition into the new field?

After analyzing his thesis, I find that I disagree with the author. Following your passion is not the problem. People are responsible for their chronic job shifting and lack of a good plan for their transition. On the contrary, following a passion has, in many instances, given people direction and resilience to help them stay on track through the pains, disappointments, and challenges commonly encountered during the initial phase of a new career path, while they're still working to develop the necessary skills. There are numerous success stories of people who achieved satisfaction, success, and purpose by committing to what they love. That's why society has come to love the "follow your passion" motto.

I found the title of the book misleading. I was hoping to learn about different methods that could be applied to improve a skill and ultimately become “so good they can’t ignore me.” Instead, this book was a series of stories that seemed, from my perspective, cherry-picked to argue the idea that passion is an evil we must avoid at all costs. I think that other readers can agree that the subjects in this book that were described as successes didn’t entirely act with an absence of passion. There must have been some degree of attraction, even if unconsciously, leading them to their professions.

I had more questions than answers by the time I finished reading. For example, is it only “rare and valuable” skills that we should all be focusing on? If that was the case, I don’t believe there would be enough “rare” skills in the world for everyone to have a fulfilling career. Anything rare and unique sooner or later would become popularized and saturated, making it as common as the rest. What about people who have ordinary jobs that do not have room for rare and valuable skills? Are they not allowed to have a successful and fulfilling career?

I want to clarify that I do agree with the author about craftsmanship. However, I don’t accept that we should drop passion entirely from our career goals. Instead, I believe that we can approach work with both perspectives, significantly increasing our odds of finding satisfaction and success.

While I disagree with the author on many points, I could see this book being beneficial for someone just starting out in their adult life and who doesn’t already have an interest or enough experience to choose a lifelong profession. I believe this book can still teach us that you don’t always have to have everything figured out in the beginning. Sometimes the only thing we can do is our best.

19 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

The Salary Coach

10/10. Loved this book. So many clear ideas that I will be implementing in my career.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

The numerous stories about different careers had lots of similar situations to my own career providing me with new frameworks for decision making moving forward.

This book is particularly relevant for people looking to be gain more control over their lives or starting their own business. For this type of reader this book will be very valuable before you make the jump and will hopefully provide the confidence that it’s the right time for you and equip you with some tools to increase the chances of success.

Below are some of the things I took away from the book:

Thanks Cal, magnificent work!!

• Choosing a job based on following your passion is often bad advice
• The advice of following your passion is common and heard from high performing executives such as Steve Jobs. But in Jobs’ case he did the exact opposite: he was not initially passionate about technology and business but studied Western history and dance
• Life happens in stages and passion takes time to develop
• Passion is a side effect of mastery
• Many people don’t realise this and feel they are failing at life which results in chronic job-hopping and crippling self-doubt. Knuckle down, work hard and be patient.

Adopt a Craftsmen Mindset

• Don’t think about what the world can offer you (the Passion Mindset), think what you can offer the world (the Craftsmen Mindset)
• If you focus on what the world can offer you then the daily grind will lead to frustration and unhappiness
• Adopting the craftsmen mindset means that you must earn it and this can be liberating when you achieve success by putting the hard work
• To make it to the top is rare. Supply and demand dictates that you need rare and valuable skills to make it to the top
• You must work hard - and smart - to accumulate rare and valuable skills if you want to make it to the top
• It’s not how many hours you put in, it’s how you spend those hours
• “Deliberate practice” has been shown to be crucial in improving performance and reaching a high level
• If you work in a knowledge environment or professional services and you can figure out how to incorporate deliberate practice into your schedule then you should accelerate past your peers
• Measure your time to make sure you’re allocating enough time to the high value activities. This will likely annoy people as you become less available by email and phone. (just like my boss, hey maybe that’s why he’s my boss???)
• Think about your sector and job title to determine whether you need one skill (winner takes all) or multiple skills (auction market).
• Then go and put in the hard graft acquiring the skill(s) that you need to progress. This will likely be uncomfortable and unnatural. Be patient, it will pay off.

Gaining Control in your career

• Companies that provide control to their employees outperformed their peers while the employees themselves are happier and more fulfilled
• Be wary of radical life changes to gain more control of your destiny. You must have accumulated significant career capital – i.e. rare and valuable skills and ideas – to be valuable to prospective customers.
• Many people underestimate the need for this and assume they’ll figure it out as they go along. This OFTEN results in failure. I’ve seen a few friends fall in to this trap!
• Gaining more control will also be challenging since if you have the requisite career capital then your employer will likely prize you highly and not want you to work less.
• Gaining more control can only be executed well by those people that understand when they have the necessary skills. Many others will make the mistake of seeking control at the wrong point and wind up failing in their venture.

Have a mission but be patient finding it

• Having a worthwhile mission to accomplish in your career can be incredibly rewarding but the reality of creating one is challenging
• It often requires several years and accumulation of career capital before you have the requisite knowledge and expertise to identify a noble cause.
• People make the mistake of trying to take on missions without having the skills to back it up which results in failure. Suppress these instincts until you’re ready
• Missions are more likely to be successful when they are remarkable and are marketed well

145 people found this helpful

Nabil Bashir

Decent read, but leaves space for questioning.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 19, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book overall, is a good read with many of the key aspects of the book giving solid and insightful advice.

The premise of the book covers picking a skill that is "rare and valuable" and then going all in to becoming "So good they can't ignore you". This is done through the craftsman mindset; where you are continously learning and honing in on your craft through "deliberate practice" (getting out of your comfort zone to learn new things).

Cal seems to comfortably dismiss the fact that it doesn't matter if you don't like what you're doing. All that matters is that you get "so good" and acquire "career capital" - A term that can be similarly described to becoming more valuable in the marketplace.

Although I agree with honing in on your craft and the topic of mastery, i cannot fathom that just because you're good at something, you become "passionate about it" or end up "loving what you do".

It's the same as saying "I'm a master at making French fries, hence I love what I do and I am passionate about it". What if a person where to pick something and become a master at the craft but hate their life? Hate that they didn't pick something they had a deep interest for instead? Or were innately good at? What if you are getting good at the wrong thing? It leads to regret.

The author completely disregarded the fact of playing to your strengths, personality types and how some jobs and trades may be better suited to the end-user than others. There's more to it than just putting in the hours and getting good at what you do.

In summary, I would advise everyone to read this book. It gives you insights that can alter the trajectory of your life in a positive way. But please consider doing something you have a an interest in as you'll end up with nothing to lose. Being good at something valuable that you also have a deep interest in. Don't rely on "developing that passion" once you're really good as it simply is not guruanteed!

62 people found this helpful

Stuart Rawlins

Game changer for me.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 17, 2019

Verified Purchase

I know it is a term that is overused, but I am going to use it anyway - This book changed my life, or rather it changed my outlook on life.

I was someone who constantly felt like I needed to be elsewhere or in another job (my dream job) and I felt like I needed to get that job or work in that area to feel happy and be satisfied with my life. Also, as my "dream job" was in something else to the thing I had trained in and worked in for the past 8/9 years, I also felt helplessly lost and at my wit's end- I felt like I didn't have the skills and didn't know how to get them. Essentially, I was playing the "helpless victim" role in my very own Hollywood blockbuster and had forgotten that I had to work and test myself to get my degrees and professional qualifications.

However, I was recommended this book by a friend and it has really changed my outlook on my present job and what I want to do in the future. Cal explains numerous things (and I won't even try - other people have done better than I could), but the big thing that impacted me was that the people who were happy in their jobs were happy because they were good at their jobs - it wasn't because it was their dream job, but due to their competence in the job and the other two big areas (explained in his book). This impacted me because I knew it to be true from looking at a few other people in my area of work and because I have been doing some other coaching which has helped open my eyes in regards to where my feelings and therefore passions come from (my thinking - see Michael Neill's TED talk as an introduction).

Anyway, I fully recommend this book, especially if you are someone who feels like you are constantly chasing or searching for that job that will give you fulfilment.

28 people found this helpful

Yam Yam

Nothing new, and flawed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 30, 2021

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I think this is an interesting summary of the craftsmanship mindset as a way of adding value and therefore ultimately your career options and ultimate success. However, I'm not convinced this material is particularly groundbreaking and has MASSIVE questions/omissions. What is extremely strange is there seems to be no attention regarding work in which a person is interested in and would actually LIKE to do. He seems to dismiss this as the flip side of the required mindset (the "passion mindset") as he calls it. However, how is anyone going to put in the hours of craftsmanship into work if it's not intrinsically satisfying in the first place? How will spending hours in a job I hate doing, to build better valued skills result in me magically becoming happy further down the line? The dissatisfied career mess people everywhere have been finding themselves in, very often has arrisen BECAUSE they have tried to apply themselves to a "market valued" job/career and have discovered they don't enjoy the work itself. Putting more hours into increasing skill sets in such a situation is NOT going to make you happier because you have added more career capital over time. Although his questioning of the unhelpful "follow your passion" advice is sound and shows its absurdity, his oversimplified alternative is EQUALLY absurd when it is missing glaring holes in its explanation such as your desire, interest and satisfaction in doing the work. On the whole I thinks its an "OK" book, but with such massive frustrating and frankly obvious questions that are ignored, I'd recommend people look elsewhere.

4 people found this helpful

D. Smyth

Wasn't so good I couldn't ignore it unfortunately

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 15, 2020

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I always wondered who takes a course in something they don't like just because a career doing that thing pays well.

This to me was the book form of the same mindset. Do a thing you might not like or be naturally any good at if that's what the market says is valued.

The example of two people who both change career, one jumps in with no real plan and it doesn't work out. The other transitions to a new career, building skills and not putting all their eggs in one basket immediately. Both approaches have merit, the first is high risk but if it works the payoff can be big (the early bird gets the worm). Cal uses it as an example of why following your passion is bad advice but I think that's not the lesson to be learned from that.

I've seen and heard nothing but praise for this book so perhaps it was just the wrong book at the wrong time for me personally.

Deep Work on the other hand I would recommend highly.

5 people found this helpful

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