If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re probably stuck at an "acceptable level."

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So Good They Can't Ignore You

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.

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"Follow your passion" might just be terrible advice.

Daniel Campos

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.

Daniel Campos

Self-Determination Theory tells us that motivation requires that you fulfill 3 basic psychological needs: 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.

Daniel Campos

Working right trumps finding the right work.

Daniel Campos

Whereas the craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you. This mindset is how most people approach their working lives.

Daniel Campos

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.

Daniel Campos

The traits that define great work are rare and valuable.

Daniel Campos

Think of these rare and valuable skills you can offer as your career capital.

Daniel Campos

The craftsman mindset, with its relentless focus on becoming "so good they can’t ignore you", is a strategy well suited for acquiring career capital.

Daniel Campos

Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that’s exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands…. Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration.

Daniel Campos

Deliberate practice is often the opposite of enjoyable.

Daniel Campos

Giving people more control over what they do and how they do it increases their happiness, engagement, and sense of fulfillment.

Daniel Campos

To summarize, if your goal is to love what you do, your first step is to acquire career capital. Your next step is to invest this capital in the traits that define great work. Control is one of the most important targets you can choose for this investment.

Daniel Campos

Control that’s acquired without career capital is not sustainable.

Daniel Campos

The point at which you have acquired enough career capital 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.

Daniel Campos

"If you’re struggling to raise money for an idea, or are thinking that you will support your idea with unrelated work, then you need to rethink the idea."

Daniel Campos

Hardness scares off the daydreamers and the timid, leaving more opportunity for those like us who are willing to take the time to carefully work out the best path forward and then confidently take action.

Daniel Campos

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.

Daniel Campos

Advancing to the cutting edge in a field is an act of “small” thinking, requiring you to focus on a narrow collection of subjects for a potentially long time. Once you get to the cutting edge, however, and discover a mission in the adjacent possible, you must go after it with zeal: a "big" action.

Daniel Campos

To maximize your chances of success, you should deploy small, concrete experiments that return concrete feedback.

Daniel Campos

If career capital makes it possible to identify a compelling mission, then it’s a strategy of little bets that gives you a good shot of succeeding in this mission.

Daniel Campos

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.

Daniel Campos

The core idea of this book is simple: To construct work you love, you must first build career capital by mastering rare and valuable skills, and then cash in this capital for the type of traits that define compelling careers. Mission is one of those traits.

Daniel Campos

I argued that the best ideas for missions are found in the adjacent possible—the region just beyond the current cutting edge.

Daniel Campos

Rule #1: Don't follow your passion. Rule #2: Be so good they can't ignore you by acquiring enough career capital with rare and valuable skills. Rule #3: Cash in your career capital by gaining Control and other traits that make great work. Rule #4: Think small, act big - the importance of missions.

Daniel Campos

Reason is the historian, but passions are the actors.

Antoine Rivarol

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish.

Julius Caesar

I grew up watching British comedy on TV, really.

Robert Webb

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But... I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.

Thomas A. Edison

You can't make someone love you, all you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.

Caleb Followill

The Ford Motor Company has always been part of my life, and I continue to draw a lot of energy from this wonderful and exciting business.

William Clay Ford, Sr.

We can be civil. We can still be friends, and be Democrats and Republicans, and have different views.

Joel Osteen

The real secret to guacamole is that you use exactly the elements that you need, which is cilantro, onion, tomato, and jalapenos. And, of course, avocado.

Demian Bichir

Feeding the world will be one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. It will be impossible without using scientific advancements and biotechnology.

Mike Pompeo

In politics, every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.

Donald Rumsfeld

Yeah, I know, some people are against drunk driving, and I call those people "the cops." But you know, sometimes, you've just got no choice; those kids gotta get to school!

Dave Attell

Because I was a tennis player, Billie Jean King was a hero of mine.

Sally Ride

It is U.S. workers who lose out when employers cannot get the high-tech graduates they need to compete with foreign companies in the 21st century economy.

Kit Bond

Jealousy is indeed a poor medium to secure love, but it is a secure medium to destroy one's self-respect. For jealous people, like dope-fiends, stoop to the lowest level and in the end inspire only disgust and loathing.

Emma Goldman

The unspoken thing, the elephant in the room, is the war against terrorism, it's tainting everything.

Joanne Liu

Always being an underdog, always being the player or the person nobody really knew, that always kept a chip on my shoulder.

Paul George

You see, that is it with music, you never stop learning.

Dennis Brown

In love lies the seed of our growth. The more we love, the closer we are to the spiritual experience.

Paulo Coelho

I come from New York originally, but Californians have been wonderful about animals. These animals are so nice and so good and so sweet and intelligent. It's a crime not to help them.

Dick Van Patten

My favorite types of movies definitely aren't thrillers, but at the same time you can't deny the genius of Hitchcock's films.

Aaron Yoo

Only parts of us will ever touch only parts of others.

Marilyn Monroe

The best way to change it is to do it. Right? And then after a while you become it, and it's easy.

Ursula Burns

Dear mind please stop thinking so much at night I need to sleep.

Kushand Wizdom