Cal Newport | So Good They Can’t Ignore You
Benjamin
Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States, in his
inspirational autobiography titled, The
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1791), discusses in great detail on his work
ethics and career choices!
Although theirs
was a family of dyers and smiths, Benjamin Franklin (Benji) decided to step off
their family occupation and instead tried his luck on other trades as well! And
as for his choice of profession, Benji confesses in his Autobiography that, he got his calling for his profession thanks to
his great love for reading.
It’s no wonder
then that, your reading helps you test your call and prove your intuition right!
You might want to
read our past post on Benji here!
Now to the book
of the day –
Well, Cal Newport
is one author who promptly comes to mind every time we have a discussion on digital declutter ain’t it?
Who can forget
his axiomatic statement –
If I want to add meaning to my life
I need to subtract the clutter!
Well, Cal has
also written a wonderful career-strategy book titled, So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest
for Work You Love, in the year 2012.
Through this
wonderful book Newport gives us an answer to the quite intriguing question, “How
do people end up loving what they do?”
Like for example,
he’s spent quality time with professional musicians, screenwriters, hotshot
professors etc, to find out how they approach their work, and to ‘pick apart
what matters and what doesn’t when building a compelling career’.
This, his out-of-the-box
thinking brings out a startling finding of sorts!
‘To follow your
passion’, or ‘Do what you love’, is bad advice, says Cal!
Rather, Cal
advocates the importance of ability!
Says Cal –
The things that make a great job great, I discovered, are
rare and valuable. If you want them in your working life, you need something
rare and valuable to offer in return. In other words, you need to be good at
something before you can expect a good job, he
quips!
In other words, ‘Don’t
follow your passion; rather, let it follow you’, he says.
Cal has divided
this compact book of his, into four beautiful little rules, albeit iconoclastic
in its import!
And they
beautifully address his main argument to a tee!
That’s Cal’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You for you! :-)
So tempted to
give y’all a few lovely quotes from the book that I found so enriching –
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?”).
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.
This is what you
should experience in your own pursuit of “good.” If you’re not uncomfortable,
then you’re probably stuck at an “acceptable level.”
Enough motivation
to start reading Cal, ain’t it?
So yup! Why wait?
Do buy for yourself a copy of the book right away! E-versions [including kindle reads] are available aplenty across major e-platforms!
Remember? Benji
got himself his vocation because of his love of reading!
And here’s wishing
y’all happy reading!
image: mediumdotcom
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