#023 - 4 Quotes from ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’ To Help You On Your Job Search

If you haven’t yet read the book from the title of this newsletter, do yourself a favour and buy it. The author is Cal Newport and it’s called So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.

It basically turns the tables (“how the turntables”) (yes I know I’ve done this ‘joke’ before) (hello ‘The Office’ fans) on the typical career advice of ‘follow your passion.’ Newport’s argument is not only that following your passion is ineffective, but also dangerous. It almost always leads to feeling unsatisfied, unfulfilled, anxious. It leaves you wanting more but never getting it, like when you eat oreo after oreo and they’re so good until you realise you’ve eaten a whole sleeve and don’t feel that well. (Just me? Okay.)

Newport says - as the title of the book suggests - it’s better to focus on getting really, really good at what you do because it’s only then the ‘passion’ for the work will follow. It’s counterintuitive, I know. If you don’t even like what you do, why would doing more of it make you love it?

On the other hand, like the ending of Lost, it makes complete sense. (I kid.) You usually enjoy doing things you’re good at. And practicing and seeing and knowing and feeling yourself getting better at something is fulfilling.

Not to mention the better you get, the better your results get. And that’s going to look good on your CV and sound great in your interviews.

With that said, let’s be like kids with their biggest present at 3:45am on the 25th December and get into it:

1. “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.”

We’re usually told the complete opposite of this. “Don’t settle” were the words spoken by one of the all-time ‘follow your passion’ guys, Steve Jobs. (More on him later.)

It’s great advice, but only if it’s applied to working hard to get better at something. It’s unfortunate advice if applied to trying to find your passion because it’ll probably leave you wandering in the wilderness for a long, long time before you eventually realise, ‘Wait, all this ‘not settling’ and I still haven’t found my passion?’

And worse, you won’t have developed real skill - ‘career capital’ as Newport calls it - which would make you valuable in the market.

Oh dear.

But let’s say you don’t like what you’re doing now. You don’t want to do it. You certainly don’t want to get better at it. Believe me, I get it. I almost crashed my car once because I was so drained from a job I hated. But if this is the case, like when the original guy you tried to frame for a crime he didn’t commit doesn’t fall for it, it might be time for a reframe.

Is it better to continue not liking it, wishing you were elsewhere, wishing you were doing something else, waiting for the day you’re doing what you’re passionate about, learning nothing, desperately trying to get to the weekend, half-assing it?

Or would it be better to learn everything you can, get a tiny bit better at what you’re doing every day, develop some skills that are valuable in the marketplace, enjoy the challenge, learn to manage and handle difficult emotions, find people to network with and learn from, whole-assing it?

Which is going to be more fulfilling? Which will you learn more from? Which will better prepare you to enter your dream industry when the time comes? Which will better prepare you for the next amazing opportunity you didn’t even know existed?

It really is up to you. You have all the power here.

But you don’t have to believe me. Believe Newport. Because he also said, “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.”

2. “The good news about deliberate practice is that it will push you past this plateau and into a realm where you have little competition.”

When you’re searching for a new job, you want to do everything you can to mitigate your competition. (Except killing or maiming. Don’t need a lawsuit on my hands.)

You have to remember it’s a zero-sum game. If someone else gets the job, you don’t get that job. And when that job is in a competitive industry - gaming, tech, entertainment - you might have to do even more to mitigate the competition.

Deliberate practice is probably the best way to do this. Why? Because most people aren’t really good at what they do, and even less people 'deliberately practice’ getting better at their craft.

Why? You guessed it. Because it’s hard. Because it takes a long time to get really, really good. Because progress isn’t linear and so it’s frustrating and you want to give up. And therein lies your opportunity.

If you can deliberately practice and get better at your craft, if you can handle the frustration and boredom that comes with doing the same things over and over, if you can be patient with your results, you’ll be one of the very, very few people at the top of your field.

At that point, you might not even have to search for a job. They’ll probably be searching for you.

As ever, Robert Greene said it best:

“In the future, the great division will be between those who have trained themselves to handle these complexities and those who are overwhelmed by them -- those who can acquire skills and discipline their minds and those who are irrevocably distracted by all the media around them and can never focus enough to learn.”

(For more on deliberate practice, read ‘Mastery’ by Robert Greene. It is - unironically - a masterpiece.)

Interlude time! Below is a picture from me and my girlfriend’s recent trip to Bruges. (Thanks for all your recommendations, btw.) You can see our hotel smack-bang in the middle. Also, we climbed 366 of the steepest steps in human history to get this view so, you know, you’re welcome.

3. “Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the simple idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”

Take Steve Jobs, for example. Perhaps the ultimate ‘follow your passion’ guy, as evidenced in his Stanford commencement speech. But had he even followed his own advice? No, argues Newport.

He says that if you’d met Jobs in the years leading up to him co-founding Apple, there’s no way you would’ve said he was going to co-found Apple. He was at a liberal arts college and he wasn’t studying business or electronics. Not even close. He studied Western history, dance, and a bit of Eastern mysticism. He then dropped out of college, got a night-time job, then left that to go on a months-long spiritual journey through India. When he returned, he started to train seriously at a nearby Zen centre.

Doesn’t exactly scream ‘technology and entrepreneurship are my passion so I’m going to co-found a tech company’ does it?

As Newport writes, “If a young Steve Jobs had taken his own advice and decided to only pursue work he loved, we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center’s most popular teachers.”

Nothing wrong with that. But because he took advantage of opportunities that presented themselves to him - instead of solely focussing on work he thought he loved - he co-founded Apple and, to use Jobs’ own words, made a “little dent in the universe.” (That quote comes from an interview with Jobs that was published in the February 1985 issue of Playboy magazine. Just FYI.)

So.

If you’re not doing what you think you’re passionate about right now, it’s okay. First, remember the first quote on this list. And second, Steve Jobs is but one example of how ‘compelling careers have complex origins.’ Robert Greene is another. So is Colonel Sanders. Charles Darwin. The Pope. You probably know people yourself who have had weird careers and somehow all their skills and knowledge and experience has come together to lead to huge success.

You might be next.

4. “When you focus only on what your work offers you, it makes you hyperaware of what you don’t like about it, leading to chronic unhappiness.”

Newport says there are two types of mindset: The Passion Mindset and The Craftsman Mindset.

• The Passion Mindset: “What can the world offer me?”

• The Craftsman Mindset: “What can I offer the world?”

The companies you’re applying for need people who are skilled. They need people who can get results. Do they want people who are passionate? Yes, of course - but only if that passion produces results.

Here’s the good news: the best way to develop your skills and get results is to adopt the Craftsman Mindset, and adopting the Craftsman Mindset is the best way to become passionate about something. Win win.

And how do you think your dream industry will feel about hiring someone who’s really good at what they do and also happens to love doing it and so gets better and better all the time? I think they’ll feel pretty good about that.

Even despite all the above, I know you might be thinking, “Yeah but I’m just not passionate about what I do.” I get it, believe me. This all might feel like a complete 180 and that’s no small thing. There’s an element of ‘trust the process’ here that might make you feel uncomfortable, frustrated, sad, angry, vexxed, miffed, irked, or any another emotion I had to Google.

That’s okay. You can handle it.

Plus, is there any harm in adopting the Craftsman mindset? What’s the worst that can happen? What if you adopted the Craftsman mindset, used your skills to get into your dream industry, and then changed roles within the company? At the very least, the Craftsman Mindset is a path into your dream industry. At the very most, your career will be truly fulfilling.

Not bad.

With that said, I’ll let Newport see us off: “I am suggesting that you 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.”

In Conclusion

Nearly time for our next audio event. Thursday 7th December at 5pm GMT. Mark it in your calendars if you haven’t done so already. (Why haven’t you done so already?) I’ll send a link on the day.

Thank you, as ever, for reading. It really does mean a lot to me. And if you have any questions, thoughts, musings, haikus, one-liners, reply to this email and we’ll talk.

Cheers!

PS If you missed the last edition, you can read it here: 22 Very Short (And Sometimes Kind Of Funny) Job Search Insights

PPS My girlfriend and I have already started watching Christmas films. Whoops.