So Good They Can’t Ignore You 

By Cal Newport

288 pages

Published Sept. 18, 2012 by Business Plus

I came across this book while reading a young blog writer that a friend recommended. In talking about something he called “career capital,” a lesson in a course he gives on personal success, he mentioned that his partner in the course had written something by this title.

The subtitle (“Why ‘Follow Your Passion’ Is Bad Advice”) sold me.That’s something I’ve been saying in my books and on my blog posts for 20+ years.

I asked G to order me a copy, and I read it over the weekend. I thought, “I bet this Newport guy subscribed to Early to Rise when I first began to write about this.” He made all the points I made. But he arrives at his advice through interviews: asking organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, and freelance computer programmers that loved their careers how their passion happened.

It turns out that it takes some thought and effort to end up in a career that you can love. Much of what careers look like from the outside feel very different when you are on the inside, trying to make them work.

Here is some of his advice:

• Select a career that can offer you all or most of what you want. That is usually some combination of challenging work, good compensation, and recognition for expertise and accomplishment.
• Identify the most valuable skills in that industry and commit yourself to acquiring them through purposeful learning.
• When in doubt about what skills to learn, ask yourself: How much will someone pay me to provide that skill?
• Work hard to acquire those skills and whatever knowledge is needed to go along with them. This becomes your career “capital.” The more career capital you have, the farther you will go in your career.

 Note: Newport doesn’t tell you what particular skills are needed for any of the industries he studies. He seems to believe, correctly I think, that every business in every industry has its unique features.