Episode description

Cal Newport visits Google to discuss his book “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.”

Following your passion may not be good advice. Preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work, but giving into the cliche can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping.

After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.

According to Newport, matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.

With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's book is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood.

Originally published in October of 2012.

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