Preparing to have a good career

I don't think I've ever done a book report for this blog before, but I found some things that are helpful in one book, and with the costs of education rising, and wages not really doing the same, the advice may be more valuable than ever.

The book is So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport.

The book came about as Newport was finishing his education and applying for jobs. There was reason to believe he might not be able to get a good job offer, and especially not in an area where he would like to live, so he needed to consider alternatives. He started questioning how people end up loving their jobs.

Newport breaks the book into four sections, or rules.

Rule #1: Don't Follow Your Passion
Rule #2: Be So Good They Can't Ignore You (Or, the Importance of Skill)
Rule #3: Turn Down a Promotion (Or, the Importance of Control)
Rule #4: Think Small, Act Big (Or, the Importance of Mission)


Many people will tell you to follow your passion, and the money will follow. Steve Jobs has advised this, but not only are their many people who have found it not to be true, it is not how Jobs himself became successful, and wealthy.

Jobs dropped out of college and bummed around for a while, and then he saw an opportunity to make some quick money that incorporated the skills of Steve Wozniak, who was very passionate about technology. Finding a need in the market, they worked on filling that, and Jobs ended up being really good at finding technological needs and filling them.

Technically, the part of his life before, when he was studying Eastern mysticism, sleeping on floors and scrounging for meals, and traveling to India, would more accurately reflect his passions, but he got tired of being poor. Once he succeeded in business, that gave him the option to do things that he really wanted to do.

One way of looking at this is that you should have passions in your life, but maybe not the job part of your life, but many people find that they are passionate about their work. Newport cited three needs that, on being fulfilled, led people to love their work:

Autonomy
Competence
Relatedness

These relate directly to the other rules. Feeling that you are good at your job is a good feeling, but it also increases your chance for autonomy, which makes it possible to do other things to improve your job satisfaction. Using that autonomy to make projects you care about happen is satisfying, but also indicates that you see a higher purpose in your work, which adds to satisfaction that way.

Initially what I found most significant in the book is that there is not a rush to nail down your purpose and follow it right away. In fact, it takes time to discover what your passion will be. Through many interviews, people were found who thought of their work as a job, a career, or a calling, but the biggest common denominator of those who thought of their work as a calling is that they had been at it longer. It took time to know what was going on and to gain an appreciation of it.

The parts that I found most interesting were under the second rule, regarding the "Craftsman" mentality, and using "deliberate practice" to become better. Which parts will resonate most will probably depend on where you are in your work, but there is a lot of good information, and simply getting a different vantage point from what is commonly said is helpful.

I cannot go over everything in the book here. If the ideas sound helpful, you should read it. I do feel I need to add that for Rule #3, you would not automatically turn down any promotion. It is more about not being afraid to turn down a promotion that is wrong for you. This advice could rid the world of many poor middle managers.