The Focus Course

So Good They Can’t Ignore You was our introduction into one of our favorite authors, Cal Newport. Cal sets out to prove why following your passion is bad advice. Rather instead, focus on developing rare and valuable skills through establishing a consitent rhythm of “deliberate practice”. He argues that the ability to regularly perform prolonged periods of focused work is becoming “increasingly rare”. His book is filled with engaging case studies and stories about individuals that fall on both sides of the argument. Cal presents very compelling evidence to ditch “The Passion Hypothesis” and adopt regular “Deliberate Practice”.

• The 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. (pg. 4)
• Self-Determination Theory tells us that motivation, in the workplace or elsewhere, requires that you fulfill three basic psychological needs—factors described as the “nutriments” required to feel intrinsically motivated for your work:
• 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 (pg. 18)
• The craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you. (pg. 38)
• There’s something liberating about the craftsman mindset: It asks you to leave behind the self-centered concerns about whether your job is “just right,” and instead put your head down and plug away at getting really damn good. No one owes you a great career, it argues; you need to earn it—and the process won’t be easy. (pg. 39)
• I am suggesting that you put aside the question of whether you job is your true passion, and instead turn your focus toward becoming so good they can’t ignore you. (pg. 39)
• Traits That Define Great Work (pg. 43)
• Creativity: Ira Glass, for example, is pushing the boundaries of radio, and winning armfuls of awards in the process.
• Impact: From the Apple II to the iPhone, Steve Jobs has changed the way we live our lives in the digital age.
• Control: No one tells Al Merrick when to wake up or what to wear. He’s not expected in an office from nice to five. Instead, his Channel Island Surfboards factory is located a block from the Santa Barbara beach, where Merrick still regularly spends time surfing. (Jake Burton Carpenter, founder of Burton Snowboards, for example recalls how negotiations for the merger between the two companies happened while he and Merrick waited for waves in a surf lineup.)
• The Career Capital Theory of Great Work(pg. 48)
  • The traits that define great work are rare and valuable.
  • Supply and demand says that if you want these traits 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 captial. This is why it trumps the passion mindset if your goal is to create work you love.
• The downside of the passion mindset is that it strips away merit. For passion proponents like Slim, launching a freelance career that gives you control, creativity, and impact is easy—it’s just the act of getting started that trips us up. Career capital theory disagrees. It tells us that great work doesn’t just require great courage, but also skills of great (and real) value. (pg. 51)
• 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. In fact, researches have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. (pg. 80)
• Deliberate practice – an approach to work where you deliberately stretch your abilities beyond where you’re comfortable and then receive ruthless feedback on your performance. (pg. 101)
• You have to get good before you can expect good work. (pg. 110)
• The First Control Trap – Control that’s acquired without career captial is not sustainable. (pg. 117)
• The Second Control Trap – The point at which you have acquired enough career captial to get meaningful control over your working life is exactly the point when you’ve become valuable enough to your current employer that they will try to prevent you from making the change. (pg. 131)
• Do what people are willing to pay for. —Derek Sivers (pg. 137)
• “Money is a neutral indicator of value. By aiming to make money, you’re aiming to be valuable.” —Derek Sivers (pg. 137)
• The Law of Financial Viability – When deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek evidence of whether people are willing ot pay for it. If you find thi sevidence, continue. If not, move on. (pg. 139)
• People who feel like their careers truly matter are more satisfied with their working lives, and they’re also more resistant to the strain of hard work. (pg. 152)
• 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. (pg. 161)
• Most people who love their work got where they are by first building up career capital and then cashing it in for the types of traits that define great work. (pg. 163)
• The important thing about little bets is that they’re bit-sized. You try one. It takes a few months at most. It either succeeds or fails, but either way you get important feedback to guide your next steps. This approach stands in contrast to the idea of choosing a bold plan and making on big bet on its success. (pg. 180)
• To maximize your chance of success, you should deploy small, concrete experiments that return concrete feedback. (pg. 181)
• The Law of Remarkability – For a mission-driven project to succeed, it should be remarkable in two different ways. First, it must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to others. Second, it must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking. (pg. 193)

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