Olalala ~ Thank you for reading my new post again! I don’t care whether you were attracted by the title (which did grab my eyes >.=) or you have been my long-term fans, I’ll tell you what! I am actually posting my school assignment here! Yeah…I know…I am being lazy. But Professor Kolberg said this was my propertyyyyyyy, so I decided to share it with you!!! Please tell me how you like it down there in the comment section. I’d love to discuss with you <3
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“So Good They Can’t Ignore You” is the tile Cal Newport gives his smart, interesting, and thought-provoking book. It is taken from Steve Martin, a comedian, who once gave his advice for prospective entertainers. Cal Newport currently lives in Washington, D.C. He is a writer, a blogger, and an assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University.
A short summary: this book debunks the traditional passion theory by claiming that following your passion is a bad advice and comes up with the craftsman mindset. The author claimed that it was important to build skill sets that were both rare and valuable. These skills are career capital that builds the foundation for the work you love to do. He then went on to discuss how to invest the career capital and suggested that we should have more control over our life. After you gain bigger control in your career, it is important to find your mission. A career mission can bring great satisfaction and meaning to your life. It is like a scientific breakthrough and an innovation that can be found in the adjacent possible of your field.
So in this book, Cal proposed the following four rules:
1.Don’t follow your passion. He first questioned Steve Job’s passion hypothesis, which encouraged people to keep looking for their passion and find a job that matches it. He said that passion was rare and it took time. He then pointed out two fundamental problems of the passion theory. The first was that it assumed that people had a pre-existing passion that could be found, which was not the case. Instead of encouraging people, it may actually lead to self-doubt and lost. The second problem was the flawed assumption that people would like doing what they like for a job.
2. The importance of skill. He compared the difference between two approaches. The craftsman mindset focused on creating the value for the job while the passion mindset paid more attention to what the job could offer in return. Newport argued that the craftsman mindset was more valuable, but to gain the career capital, it needed deliberate practice. Once you become really good at something, you can negotiate with your boss for more control in your job.
3. The importance of control, which Newport considered as one of the most important traits that people should acquire. However, Newport also talked about two control traps that might snare people. The first control trap was about the potential danger of gaining more control with no capital to back up. The second one warned that once you got more control and career capital, your boss would try every effort to prevent you from gaining more control. To avoid these two traps, Newport suggested that you could use money as an indicator of value to determine whether you should go on to pursue more control or stay at the current position until you gain enough career capital.
4. Find your mission. It required career capital, little bets, and remarkability. By applying both little bets and the law of remarkability, you are more likely to turn your mission into reality and end up with a compelling job.
What I like about this book is that it provides a new light on thinking about the career path by turning over the traditional wisdom and replacing with a more practical advice. This book is well-written and easy to understand. Instead of just emphasizing the importance of building skill sets, Cal went a step further. He offered plenty of examples supported by evidences. He had spent long time interviewing people from different industries, from organic farmers, screenwriters, venture capitals, freelancers to any other people who enjoyed great satisfaction at work. The stories of these people had made this book more convincing and logical!
When I was reading this book, I underlined lots of inspirational sentences (I often do that!!). The real strength of this book is that the author built a new theory with solid framework. Each chapter was clearly organized and connected with each other. The summary of each rule strengthened readers’ understanding of the content and helped them proceed to the next chapter. His optimistic and accessible tone made the whole book a perfect guide for any new beginners to the job market.
Even though most of my classmates don’t like this book, I do enjoy reading it a lot. Maybe it’s because I myself am a bookworm, and I am open to any type of books. Besides, how are you supposed to write a good book review if you hated it at the first place?! Anyway…I strongly recommend this book to anyone who feels lost lost at work or tries to figure out what to do in the future. I believe the suggestions in this book will provide great motivation to you!
P.S: Don’t forget to leave your lovely comments! I look forward to hearing from all of you!
Reference
Newport, C. (2012). So good they can’t ignore you. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing
Fighting, Connie!
Thanks Chris!!!