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.

"Follow your passion" might just be terrible advice.

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.

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.

Working right trumps finding the right work.

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.

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.

The traits that define great work are rare and valuable.

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 capital. 

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.

Deliberate practice is often the opposite of enjoyable.

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

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

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.

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

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.

"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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

I think when the bottom started to drop out, we didn't recognize it.

Stop making excuses of why you can't or how hard it is and start making your life matter.

We don't have real hours and we don't have a boss, so artists create rules for themselves that they then break. It's transgressive in such a personal way.

I've deliberately studied many things that I know, going in, I won't be able to assimilate. I read Plato, St. Thomas, the mystics, to exercise my mind.

To study the abnormal is the best way of understanding the normal.

And certainly the history of public sculpture has been disastrous but that doesn't mean it ought not to continue and the only way it even has a chance to continue is if the work gets out into the public.

Sometimes I go crazy - get into a mindspace where it doesn't matter what I spend. Like, on impulse, I might buy a $600 Dolce t-shirt, you know, just because it's silk and maybe there's some suede leather detailing. Or two of my favourite hoodies, I don't even know the brand, but they're' very thin soft cotton. $300 apiece!

I have great respect for Sandra Day O'Connor. She has broken so many barriers for women in the law, and was a master negotiator and pragmatist in her days on the Supreme Court.

I had people sleeping in front of my home. I couldn't go anywhere. It confronted me from the moment I woke up. There would be 100 people at the lot where we shot 'The Partridge Family.'

To save your world you asked this man to die; would this man, could he see you now, ask why?

I wasn't a good rule-breaker when I was younger.

I want to do a record with Monica Lewinsky.

We would go in there with our parents once in a while for - actually go into Manhattan for dinner, weekends occasionally to a museum, but most of my memories of traveling into Manhattan was with the school trips and then later on as we got, you know, into high school, kind of on our own and with friends.

I think all art is, by nature, intended to motivate society for change, and the only reason change doesn't happen is because within the target population, courage is lacking.

So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.

Faith is more basic than language or theology.

I thought I had the rights to The Lord of the Rings. I don't know how Jackson ended up with the rights.

The best of healers is good cheer.

My family had a habit of collecting creatures that didn't always want to be pets. The first animal I can remember was a Lab named Zoe.

Pretty is so boring now. There are so many different definitions of 'pretty.' It's so much broader than before. The old pretty is boring - nobody cares anymore.

I always thought of myself is a private-sector person. I was a reluctant candidate. I put in my time. Now it's somebody else's turn to take charge. But I am still very interested in politics.

But I like not these great success of yours; for I know how jealous are the gods.

My family and friends have been monumentally supportive from well before I was a published author.