So Good They Can’t Ignore You!

We are often told to follow our passion. If we follow our passion, the argument goes, we are more likely to succeed.

Cal Newport disagrees. In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport argues that passion alone may not be enough to lead to success. Instead, focusing on developing rare skills that are relevant to your career may be more useful — This is known as career capital. In addition to developing rare skills, Cal Newport advocates for deliberate practice of these skills if we want to have a more fulfilling career.

In essence, the book argues that a successful career my come from becoming really good at something by deliberating developing rare and relevant skills.

Some of the memorable quotes from the book include:

"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."
"The traits that define great work are rare and valuable."
"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?')."
“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.”