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.

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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

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

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

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

There are goals that I had set out for myself as an artist. I have accomplished some of them - becoming accepted all over the world - however, other parts of my goals have not been completed.

Jimmy Cliff

I grew up on the Bond movies. The first one I saw was 'Diamonds Are Forever,' when I was a kid. I just loved them to pieces.

John Logan

I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream.

Heywood Broun

Happiness does not consist in self-love.

Joseph Butler

I wake up every morning at, like, seven or eight because I think that there's a bad story about me, and I have to check. My worst fear is waking up and finding something bad about me on the Internet.

Kylie Jenner

Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love.

Hector Berlioz

I've got thick skin.

Curt Schilling

The science linking the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather to the climate crisis has matured tremendously in the last couple of years.

Al Gore

I would prefer to be a little nervous, because when you stop being nervous is kind of when you stop caring.

Conor Oberst

You've got to be willing to put the time into seeing who's got talent and who's going to do a great job.

Zac Brown

I used to take pride if my kids were playing basketball, and I'd be there, and I wouldn't say anything. People were obviously expecting me to yell and scream at the ref and at them and everything. I wouldn't say anything.

John McEnroe

Life cannot arise spontaneously but comes only from preexisting life.

Ray Comfort

To me, the more bizarre the character, the more I'm attracted to it.

James Marsden

In literature, the ghost is almost always a metaphor for the weight of the past. I don't believe in them in the traditional sense.

Tabitha King

Contemplation must bring forth right action in order to permit further growth.

Robert A. Heinlein

It is a grave matter to enter a war, without adequate military preparation; it may prove fatal to come into peace, without moral and religious preparation.

Louis Finkelstein

I'm Cancer and Gemini cusp, so I read both and pick the one I like best. I read horoscopes but claim not to believe any of it.

Joe Dempsie

The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.

Arthur Eddington

Lots of opera singers are just boring.

Anna Netrebko

I encourage people who don't believe in evolution to look for horses in Jurassic Solenhofen limestone.

Jack Horner

I used to binge eat and make myself throw up. I was a fat kid. Obviously I didnt quite master the bulimia.

Russel Brand

I understand the military. I know the military.

Donald Trump

It's no accident that I'm not married and don't have kids yet. Because, despite what I've achieved in my career, I'm always wondering when somebody's gonna tap me on the shoulder and say, 'OK, the gig is up.'

Shemar Moore