
So Good They Can't Ignore You - wheresvic1
https://commoncog.com/blog/so-good-they-cant-ignore-you/
======
dwaltrip
My short synthesis/summary:

Instead of trying to find a life passion, seek to master some valuable and
useful skills. Leverage those skills to find work where you have more
autonomy, control, and impact. This can help with personal fulfillment.

If you are lucky enough to develop a sense of larger purpose that your work
contributes to, then great! But seeking this directly might be a mistake.
Meaning seems to emerges from other efforts -- pursuit of excellence,
indulging in curiosity, solving real problems, connecting with others, and so
on.

I think this is a relatively practical and effective mindset, especially for
many HNers.

~~~
baxtr
Reminds me of the “white suit consultant”: someone once told me that he wanted
to be such a master in his skill that he could come visit clients the way he
liked, like in a completely white suit with a white hat...

~~~
skrebbel
This works the other way too. I know a guy who used to have a mohawk. He also
represented his company (a mobile chip maker that was later acquired by ARM)
to customers as the chief technical guy. I once asked him if the mohawk wasn't
a problem with customers (who were mainly large, relatively traditional, tech
bigco's). He said that it gave the customers the idea that "if he's allowed to
wear that mohawk on customer visits, then he must be very good".

~~~
vkolencik
This idea is expanded in Taleb's "Surgeons Should Not Look Like Surgeons":
[https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-
surg...](https://medium.com/incerto/surgeons-should-notlook-like-
surgeons-23b0e2cf6d52)

~~~
curiousgal
As much insight as he offers, I've always found Taleb's writing style to be
vexing.

~~~
alexpotato
Once I realized his goal in life is to be seen as a philosopher and not an
easy-to-read author, that helped me mentally adjust my filter to make him
easier to understand.

~~~
eerwrq
His problem isn't that he's hard to understand. His problem is he loses his
point halfway through a chapter while he rants against eggheads, bureaucrats,
and anyone else he doesn't like.

Like, I get his point that experience beats expertise, and some experts don't
really know any more than the general public. But he drives the point so hard
that his later work is unreadable. He'll devote more time to bullying some
breed of academic than he will to making his actual point.

------
harimau777
So Good They Can't Ignore You never quite sat well with me. In the examples of
what not to do, it seemed like the author conflated "following your passion"
with "jump in with no planning or training". On the other hand, the examples
of people who succeeded by becoming experts were often very lucky. For example
successful small business owners or a historian who got his own TV show.

The author's overall idea seemed to be that once you become an expert you will
be able to negotiate the working conditions that you want. However, most of
the examples were entrepreneurs or people working remotely. I don't feel that
he addressed the fact that most people aren't cutout to run their own business
and even with hard work aren't going to be the top percent of their field. In
those cases I think most corporations aren't going to be willing to negotiate
meaningful changes to working conditions.

~~~
paulriddle
Is it even worth trying to really help those people? If they are not going to
be one of the best, then they are not so good and can be ignored. Give them
hope, so that they buy the book and continue to fail in their life. Perhaps
some even will get inspired and find the leverage within themselves to become
better at something.

Publishers won't publish a book that says "If you can't make it, then, well,
you can't really make it, haha".

Someone has to do menial boring depressing work. In a way, I'm doing it right
now, fixing some bug in a barely profitable web application. Thankfully I'm
not washing floor or flipping burgers though. But somebody has to do it.

Who is going to win in life anyway? Nowadays luck and opportunity is
everywhere, a pretty girl from a third world country can make thouthands of
dollars streaming videogames on Twitch. If she's not stupid and lazy, success
is guaranteed.

The book is going to speak to some people and that justifies it's existence.
Even if some people fail to become truly good and end up pursuing something
they are not passionate about, it's not that bad. Many people say life is not
about destanation but the journey. In that case the book is somewhat bad,
because if you're not passionate about a journey, then your journey probaby
was unfullfilling.

Some people just lack passion, they can't get excited. They need something
else.

In general companies are unintentionally evil, stupid, and treat employees
very bad.

Author's idea is not bad, when you compare it to wanting to become an expert
complainer about gender inequality and monetize that. Although it can work. It
does work for some people. Damn, I get a feeling that author's idea is
outdated and today it's better to follow your passion, instead of becoming
good. Doing both are obviously superior. But you can win whatever your passion
is. In most of the cases.

If you are fat, ugly and lazy, you're not going to win.

I mean seriously, look at 6ix9ine he is a simple guy but he is winning. He
lets his nuts hang and he is winning. He is not an expert musician, he's not
lucky, he's just so passionate about making catchy music that he has some kind
of personality disorder, borderline delusional, and yet... He makes millions
of dollars and loved by millions of people.

Passion.

~~~
strikelaserclaw
I think this book is for people who have not found their passion yet and might
never find it, it seems like a logical way to make the best out of life.
Instead of hitting random darts into life to find something you are passionate
about, its more likely you might feel something akin to passion if you somehow
force yourself to master something (which is a slight catch-22 because you
will never really master anything without passion).

------
maxxxxx
I always find it frustrating to read materials from people like Cal Newport
who somehow seem to have a wide open career path with many options and your
main problem is to pick the best one. I think I am pretty good at my work but
I was always already happy if I had just one decent option. Maybe (probably) I
am not good enough or I am missing something else but reading a book like this
doesn't help me. It simply doesn't reflect how life presents itself to me.

~~~
whack
I've never heard of Cal before, and from looking at his Wikipedia page, he
does seem academically successful. But he's neither achieved any "breakout"
successes, nor does he have decades of experience to back up his advise.

Which is not to say that his advice is bad. It's mostly a distillation of
various psychology studies and research. For example, the whole thing about
pursuing Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose, is copied wholesale from Drive, which
is itself based on sound research findings.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452796-drive](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452796-drive)

~~~
cambalache
Yes, that has been my impression too. Not to slack the guy, who obviously is
very smart and comes across as a nice person. Maybe it was the hype of the
book but if you write a book about the paradigm changing results of deep work
and how you have applying it all your life I would expect a little more impact
from your work. He is basically known for this book, and a couple of other on
how to get into college, not different from your garden-variety Ted-x talker.

He has played the academic game well to be fair so if you are a just-hired
assistant professor and want to be prepared for your tenure decision in 6 or
so years you could do worse that heed his advice.

------
d--b
I think generally people should be a little more nuanced. If your passion is
violin-making or oceanography or accounting, you’ll probably be fine by
following your passion. If you like dancing, you may want start as a dancer,
and then find that you’re better at doing the accounting of the dance company
you joined, and do that instead.

It’s true though that “follow your passion” as a blanket statement is not a
good advice (for all the reason in the article). But so is the blanket
statement of “find a niche craft where you can excel”.

First, you never know whether you will excel at a skill or not before spending
a really long time doing it.

Second, craft is not for everyone. If you’re a people’s person, HR, management
or politics is likely a better orientation. You could say that you have
developed “managerial skills”, but then the question becomes how to chose
one’s skill?

I believe a better advice is “follow what you already know you’re good at”.
And “if you’re not good at anything yet, just keep trying things you may enjoy
and see if you’re good at them”

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> First, you never know whether you will excel at a skill or not before
spending a really long time doing it.

That's a very good point- mastering a skill requires a great investment and
investment always comes with risk. By the time one trains their chosen skill
to mastery, their skill might have lost the majority of the value it had when
they first chose it- therefore, it's very risky to rely on the current market
value of a skill as a guide to specialise oneself.

One of my computer science teachers at uni, had a library full of books on the
Ada programming language. When I met him, he was supervising undergraduates
learning to program in ... Java. I never found the courage to ask but I bet he
had basically spent most of the '80s and '90s learning Ada, because of various
historical reasons, then his university switched its teaching to Java, again
because of historical reasons- and then he was left with a big library full of
books that didn't even register as programming books to most of his students.

(OK, I think Ada is still widely used, in the same way COBOL is etc. but it's
certainly not the language most new programmers learn first; just like Java
isn't anymore; etc)

~~~
mindentropy
You spoke my mind. I am in a complete dilemma as to what to devote my personal
time on. On the one hand I want to get familiar with Android AOSP so that I
can get into companies which require board bring up for Android devices. On
the other hand I would want to get my algorithmic skills up by doing a lot of
coding competitions.

It is very hard to master both. Time is limited and both the topics are
enormous. It is extremely difficult to select a subject to master in the hopes
of it having a value in the future. It is similar to selecting something which
you think will earn a huge value later such as stocks or startups for that
matter.

------
clumsysmurf
An idea that I read recently, is that there is a passion-discovery mindset,
very much like the growth mindset. For example, I thought, there were a few
things I was interested in, it was just a matter of 'finding those passions'.
But it seems people can learn to be passionate about things they didn't expect
to be.

[https://news.stanford.edu/2018/06/18/find-passion-may-bad-
ad...](https://news.stanford.edu/2018/06/18/find-passion-may-bad-advice/)

~~~
walterbell
_> Being narrowly focused on one area could prevent individuals from
developing knowledge in other areas that could be important to their field at
a later time ... Many advances in sciences and business happen when people
bring different fields together, when people see novel connections between
fields ... In an increasingly interdisciplinary world, a growth mindset can
potentially lead to this type of innovation, such as seeing how the arts and
sciences can be fused ... If you are overly narrow and committed to one area,
that could prevent you from developing interests and expertise that you need
to do that bridging work_

This will become increasingly important as ML/AI subsumes routine tasks within
domains, freeing up humans to tackle inter-domain and multi-domain innovation.

Looking forward to more funding for inter-disciplinary research and multi-
tasking neurology.

------
AndrewKemendo
I think the causality behind the "passion hypothesis" is misunderstood.

To a person, the most successful people in any field, are obsessively focused
on whatever they are successful at. It's impossible to be at the absolute top
of your field without obsessive, driven, focus, aka "passion."

HOWEVER, having obsessive focus doesn't mean that the rest of the world will
reward you for it. You might be "passionate" about the wrong thing, or even
maybe the right thing at the wrong time. Which is I think what is left unsaid
here.

It's certainly possible to cultivate enjoyment out of anything you put
dedication into, but obsessive passion is an extra 1 or 5 or 10% that sets
apart the absolute top of the field with someone who just enjoys it.

So passion does not equal whatever metric you would define as success, however
at the extreme end of your definition of success, you will only find the
passionate.

Passion then is "necessary but insufficient" for success.

~~~
shubhamjain
The obsessive passion is itself cultivated. Looking at pre-Apple Steve Jobs
you would hardly guess he would obsess over building top of the rank devices.
Spirituality, LSD, Hitchhiking around the country—you see traits of a
freewheeling hippie than a visionary.

I don't deny the role of genetics, but the problem is that people have been
inculcated with the idea that you're born with a very specific interest and
that's what you should spend your life doing. When the steam runs off, people
are stuck in careers with a bleak outlook.

I feel passion is more a combination of different skills—obsession, curiosity,
persistence. You can use them to make inroads into any field—and be happy too.

~~~
watwut
> I don't deny the role of genetics, but the problem is that people have been
> inculcated with the idea that you're born with a very specific interest and
> that's what you should spend your life doing.

This. It also discourage people from trying out new things - the thing you
enjoy becomes your identity and somehow becomes personally important truth
about you. The initial like/dislike becomes something revealing and definitive
instead of being seen as just a stage of learning.

------
jesperlang
> The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re
> passionate about and then find a job that matches this passion.

I think alot of people can misunderstand the "what" of their passion,
especially when trying to match it with a job. Take for example photography.
If you tell yourself you're passionate about photography but not understand
_what_ kind of photography and in what context/social situation you can make
some pretty bad occupational choices. So if what you _really_ are passionate
about is street photography, socializing with random people, observing people
in an urban environment, and you end up with working with photography in an
indoor studio setting doing meaningless marketing campaigns you are probably
going to end up unhappy. Maybe even loosing the passion of street photography
as well...

------
peterburkimsher
Siver’s ‘Law of Financial Viability’: “When deciding whether to follow an
appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek
evidence of whether people are willing to pay for it. If you find this
evidence, continue. If not, move on.”

I keep being moved on, and nothing I've tried has ever made real money. That's
why I haven't developed mastery of any specific skill (a Masters degree
doesn't count). HR departments now hate me because I had too many short
internships. I tried to fix that by settling into a job for 4 years, but now
that contract's not being renewed, I'm unemployed. I keep trying to throw side
projects onto Show HN, but they haven't turned into job offers. How far should
I keep moving on before I give up?

~~~
Kagerjay
Some words of advice from looking at your site and resume

UK is well known for having a 2 page resume. But America, this is not the
case, its a one pager. You blog & resume speaks of a very european mindset as
well,you should know that European Companies =/= American companies in terms
of cultural fit. Many european computer science jobs are more B2B than
America, which has a large amount of B2C as well

I've done a lot of hiring, your resume has some serious red flags. It shows
you jumped around too much, and there is just way too much irrelevant
information. You should spend a bit of money and get resume critiquement /
career critiques, this would be highly beneficial to you. Learn what your call
to action is to both HR and to technical recruiters. Just put down the last 3
jobs you worked on

You would gain a alot by instead focusing on learning UX design, both document
and website wise. I have a short attention spam, I could not read your resume.
I went as far as measuring the fonts for you.

You put things at 10pt font... that's insane. 8pt font is as small as it goes,
14 to 16 pt is the preferred size for web-font readability.

You would also learn a lot by taking better photos of yourself too. Your photo
looks like MySpace Tom is in his prime.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

You need to think in a companies' hiring shoes. What is their first
impressions of you? If I were a recruiter for a big firm, this is how I would
interpret you resume

\- 2 pager -> You can't figure what matters in our company. There is way too
many things listed that are irrelevant to the job position, what is it you are
looking for in the job

\- Blog -> it shows you don't have the best communication standards out there.
It shows you have poor design aesthetics

\- Hobbies / couchsurfing -> This shows you don't know what matters in XYZ
company. Companies could not care less about your hobbies, unless its related
to work

\- "• Entrepreneurship: Buying, refurbishing and reselling a class set of
iBooks in 2005; iPod repair at ", " Took online training courses in big data
processing with ElasticSearch and Tensorfow machine learning. ",...etc → it
shows you think a bit too highly of yourself, ego might be an issue. Reading
through your writing on your blog suggests the same. I do not know you
personally, I am only relaying what every HR person would think. I don't see
any perspectives other than your own in your blogs, it suggests you might have
issues acclimating to different cultures

Your blog is not a blog. Its a journal. Know the difference.

I am giving you 100% honest feedback on everything I've seen, you have a lot
room for improvement not on the technical side of things. I'm not any better
though, I recognize my weaknesses, my writing sucks and I tend to repeat
myself. But I make strides of improving it everyday

~~~
mailshanx
Would you be so kind as to look at my resume and give some feedback? I know
I'm an internet stranger asking for your time - I'd understand if you don't
want to do it, but I'll be very grateful if you did! :)

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/n41w2zja8au26wp/shankar_resume_cto...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/n41w2zja8au26wp/shankar_resume_cto.pdf?dl=0)

~~~
Kagerjay
Looks great, even though its 2 pages long, since you have lots of experience.
Top 1% on kaggle is seriously impressive though

I see a few grammatical errors, "i". The "Subnero" link is broken by the way,
might want to point it to the correct spot. If you use google link, I would
suggest doing analytics tracking to see how many times its clicked (this gives
you a good indication fo how many people read your resume)

I imagine this is for datascience jobs, the things that stood out to me the
most were

\- youtube links to actual talks is very good

\- 1% kaggle is really hard to get

\- actual publications

otherwise it looks perfectly fine. Make sure the PDF is OCR readable, and make
sure there is an accompaning .docx format as well

~~~
mailshanx
Thank you so much, I appreciate it!

>> I see a few grammatical errors, "i"

Do you mean I'm using small-letter "i" somewhere? I triple-checked, but can't
seem to find that anywhere?

>> If you use google link, I would suggest doing analytics tracking to see how
many times its clicked

That's a great idea!

>> The "Subnero" link is broken by the way

Thanks for catching that!

>> Make sure the PDF is OCR readable, and make sure there is an accompaning
.docx format as well

I suspect its not OCR readable, and there is no .docx version either - the
disadvantages of making your resume with Latex!

~~~
Kagerjay
Its on the [http://vanishingradient.net/](http://vanishingradient.net/) (now
defunct), with the small "i"

ah okay you made it in latex. I always run my PDF's through Adobe Acrobat Pro
X for OCR recognition. CTRL+F some words on there to see if it works. You want
to ensure if it is OCR because it's going to be scraped for content through HR
processors. That's why I recommended .docx format as well, granted that also
let's headhunters delete your email address.

Pandoc has a latex to pdf converter, I imagine this is what you used

Also, you might want to change the resume name a bit differently. You wrote
down "shankar_resume_cto.pdf". You might not be applying to a CTO position and
might be taken as a threat to someone's existing CTO position.

By the way, you should really link your kaggle profile on there if you really
are in the top 1%. Gives recruiters no doubt that you are actually what you
say you are.

~~~
mailshanx
>> Its on the [http://vanishingradient.net/](http://vanishingradient.net/)
(now defunct), with the small "i"

Ah - thanks, its amazing how I tend to become "blind" to errors in my own
writing!

Great point about the "cto" suffix! I once applied for a CTO position, and
saved the tailored version of my resume at that time with a "cto" suffix.
Since then I have been using modified versions of that resume, but I must get
rid of the suffix now.

I held the top 1% rank in 2014. I'm not active on Kaggle anymore. They have
since changed the way they calculate rankings, and you lose your rank if you
don't stay active. As a result, while I still have my Kaggle profile, its now
unranked. I figure its easier to explain this when asked, rather than link to
a profile page that seems to contradict the claimed achievement.

~~~
Kagerjay
if that's the case then omitting the link would make more sense.

Resume looks perfectly fine though,I didn't checkout your linkedin profile
under your username but I assume it looks similar

------
throwaway3fnjk3
A little less than a year ago, I got approached with an amazing job offer.
Great salary, options in a fast growing company, very flexible team, location
and hours. I wasn't passionate about the company or their mission, but I
figured it would come, as it has in other jobs.

However, fast forward to today, I'm still not passionate and keep thinking I'm
wasting my time. Once my options vest, I'm out.

I DO think passion is important. You can have multiple passions and you can
get new ones, but it has to be there. At least speaking for myself, it makes a
huge difference on how good I feel about my life.

------
gfs78
Job wise passion can be defined as: mastery + control + status + money (but in
relative terms: a really successful guitar instructor is not going to make as
much as a Big 4 CEO)

Someone talked about some senior manager he knew that was not passionate at
all.

I've met some senior managers that weren't passionate about their jobs too.
Problem was, they had money, status and mastery, but they lacked control.
Their decisions were just a mirror of what the higher echelons expected, not
what they thought the company should be doing.

Another example could be the "enterprise Scrum" which is bashed all the time
in here. Why is that?

#Money: are developers well payed? Yes. #Mastery: Can they develop mastery
working this way? Probably not. #Status: do they have some status inside the
org? No #Control: have they any control left over they jobs? No.

Funny that while I was writing this I was participating in a remote daily
meeting. What were the participants doing? They were trying to boss around.
Why? Because they lacked status and control. That's why!

------
sidcool
This book is why I have started reading CLRS after my last visit to the book
some 12 years ago. That too I read a couple of chapters. Getting good requires
time and good basics.

~~~
jeremynixon
Didn't this book come out in 2012?

~~~
sidcool
The first edition came out in 1990. I am talking about the CLRS book.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> 1\. The Passion Hypothesis Sucks

For me, there are two fundamental assumptions in this piece of advice, both
mistaken: that you only get one ("true"?) passion in your entire life and
that's that, and that this passion is for one very specific ...thing, that
exists in a particular space and time.

For instance, under those assumptions, Charles' Babbage's "passion" would be
about "mechanical computers", based on the fact that he dedicated the majority
of his resources working on those, towards the end of his life; so they must
have been what he was passionate about.

In reality, reading his autobiography, it's obvious that Babbage simply had a
mind that would not be constrained and would jump from interest to interest
throughout his life. He happened to get his teeth sunk into something really,
really big with mechanical computers and, having so dug his way into a rich
seem of new ideas, he invested most of his resources in mining it for all it
was worth. But he was simply interested in anything and everything- and,
particularly in _things that worked_.

As to the second fundamental mistake, the fact that Babbage became interested
in mechanical computers was a happy accident: he was born at a time and in a
place that enabled this interest. Were he to be born 1000 years prior, or half
a continent away, he would have probably never have heard of such things as
mechanical calculators and never have gone down in history as the inventor of
the first ever general computer (and also, btw, of feature creep).

Perhaps -no, certainly!- "find your passion" is bad advice when it makes these
two assumptions about how a "passion" is a very specific thing that can only
exist in one place and time. But, when "passion" points to something deeper
about how one's mind _functions_ and where one's natural proclivities lie,
then it's actually good advice: to find your strengths and your weaknesss, and
play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses.

Then, there's those of us who can only really apply ourselves to a job if it
is scratching an itch- for working with our hands, for things that work, for
abstract ideas, for the wonderment in the physical world, for inspiration and
creativity, for hard work and contributing to the community- etc, etc. Only
when we are really interested in the thing we do can it keep our full
attention and our full focus for long hours and longer days. For such people,
"find your passion" really means: "find something that makes you work hard and
use it to live a productive life". It means: "maximise your potential".

~~~
shawn
I like your comment. This was a perceptive reframing:

 _the fact that Babbage became interested in mechanical computers was a happy
accident: he was born at a time and in a place that enabled this interest.
Were he to be born 1000 years prior, or half a continent away, he would have
probably never have heard of such things as mechanical calculators_

Usually people point out that Babbage was incredibly unlucky to have been born
just before computers were made practical.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Aye, that's true. They miss the point: that he was the first to plant his flag
in a vast, undiscovered country.

To be that person- I'd accept being born ten thousand years before my time and
dying in complete obscurity.

~~~
darepublic
How do you know he was the first. By your own example, that person may die in
complete obscurity.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Yeah, XP for the skepticism. But not for anything else.

------
gwbas1c
I say follow your passion long enough to figure out what you really like, and
what pays the bills. Then, figure out the best compromise between the two.

------
risto1
I think passion matters. If you aren't going to be self-employed (most
people), and you don't land some really great job (most people) then there
will likely be a bunch of things that will suck about your job. If you have
_some_ intrinsic passion about the tasks, that will carry you through more

Though I'd say it _might_ be a good idea to avoid making your favorite thing
your job. Because all of that stuff could suck the fun out of your favorite
thing, and then you've associated a lot of negative emotions to what used to
be something that could get you out of bed in the morning

------
sun_har
I appreciate Newports work on productivity and think there is a ton of insight
here. But I often find myself wondering - what are we optimizing for when we
talk about career success?

I understand that these principles can benefit people in figuring out their
direction, they have certainly helped me, but I'm often let down that
"purpose" is treated as an afterthought. At the end of the day you are going
to die one day, large or small, don't you want to feel that you had a positive
impact on the world? Shouldn't that be a defining metric of career success?

~~~
patrickskim
It can be if that is what you so seek.

------
yahyaheee
The Jobs argument isn’t solvent. Maybe Jobs goes on to become one of the
greatest zen teachers the world has known. Maybe his life is far more
fulfilled on that path.

~~~
risto1
Right? Entrpeneurship is great, but we don't know what those alternative paths
would've given us

------
Sol-
The theory really speaks to me, as someone without any strict passion that
could be realized in some hypothetical job. But on the flip side, can you then
be ever really sure that if you dislike working in a certain field that it's
because some specific job is bad or you are just too lazy to cultivate the
competence/passion required to enjoy it?

Can anyone do anything to reach the competence/enjoyment stage with enough
grit?

------
hyperpape
Most of the review/book seems sensible, but the bit about passion is
overstated. Maybe Steve Jobs' passion was becoming a zen monk at some point.
However, he was clearly passionate about computers, software and hardware at a
later point. The counterexample plays into the same idea of an immutable and
predetermined passion that's shared by the theory it's criticizing.

------
hevi_jos
"The follow your passion" advice is flawed because you are focusing on your
needs instead of the needs of others.

Society, or the world or the Universe, call it whatever you want, will reward
you in direct proportion to the value you give to them, not to yourself. It
does not care about you, it cares about itself.

On the other hand you should never forget your needs as a human being while
working. Focusing too much on others, becoming in practice a slave, not eating
well, not sleeping well, not having fun, will only burn you in the medium and
short term.

That will for sure make you not to contribute much to others on the long term.

The advice is given by people that had overextended themselves and experienced
the burnout in their life. They compare themselves to others and it becomes
obvious that some people are doing exactly what they love to do.

They assume that this has always been the case. Usually it is not. For example
my father met a man called Carlos Sainz, a car driver that won some Dakar,
when people see this man succeed, they assume it was always easy to him. They
can't see the effort and sacrifice that led to him winning races.

I fortuitously met Rafael Nadal, a Spanish tennis player. People see him
winning titles and believe that is his life, but his life is 90% training
training and training(repeating repeating repeating) to a level that will bore
to tears any normal human being.

I like playing tennis myself but it will be impossible for me to spend my life
doing that.

------
fouc
The most interesting bit from the book was the relationship between the
duration of being in the job, and the level of happiness with the job.

People that have been in a particular job for 10 years, are happier than
people that have only held it for 5 years, and so on.

Confidence, experience, skills leads to happiness.

~~~
pyduan
This could also be due to selection bias, since people who are unhappy at
their jobs have a higher probability of leaving the company. So if you look at
the subset of people who've remained at their jobs for 10 years, you tend to
have happier people on average.

------
fizixer
Last three 'mastery', 'autonomy', 'purpose' is a straight ripoff of Dan Pink's
TED talk (though Dan Pink gave the talk not by claiming it's his ideas, but
that it's based on statistics or something).

> So Good They Can't Ignore You

The title itself doesn't hold. You will get ignored no matter how good you
are. And you will get picked no matter how bad you are.

But maybe he's talking about the likelihood of being ignored going towards
zero. Well, then we have to define 'good'.

And then you find out that reducing the likelihood of getting ignored has
pretty much nothing to do with 'autonomy', 'mastery', 'purpose' but the
impression you can instill in the mind of whoever you want noticed by (whether
it's real or an illusion is secondary). So what matters is your influence, not
how good you are.

So yeah, not interested in this at all.

------
aedron
Since the summary relies so heavily on a Steve Jobs anecdote for the "don't
follow your passion" advice:

Steve Jobs was not passionate about Zen buddhism, whatever he may have said at
some point in time. It was a passing interest of his. He was very obviously
passionate, even obsessed, about developing great computing products for
consumers.

The example is horribly chosen.

~~~
rchaud
It's a good example for the audience he is speaking to. Everyone thinks of
Jobs as a "creative", cut from a different cloth compared to tech CEOs of the
time. It's easy to see his success as stemming from his refusal to do things
the normal way. His barefoot hippy days at Reed and HP are also recognizable
touch points of his early history, and covered extensively in the official
biography, which no doubt was used as a source for this passage (of Newport's
book).

Of course the reality was more complicated; he was a deadbeat dad and
needlessly perfectionist at times. But given the public image he created for
himself, the Buddhism story is a good fit for the point the author is making.

------
Kagerjay
"4" is not something you find in life right away. Finding a passion should
never be the first goal you think of, some may never find a true passion worth
following. That's okay, because not everyone is this way.

A good example of a "4" is elon musk. His motivation stems from reading
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy at any early age. He stuck to the same quotes
that motivated him today. That is true passion.

I have a friend who is very good at "4". Knowing "4" as a deep level, helps
you identify similar "4"s. People will remember you as that person with a
strong "4" and drive inspiration from you.

My "4" is pretty generic. Its to give back to all the technology that has
defined me growing up. This is the internet, TV shows, video games,
smartphones, etc I have taken for granted in this generation. And by
definition, the hardware and software to enable those things to be. That's my
reasoning. Anything that benefits the persuit of my "4" is fun to me. I like
building tools to empower others, my guiding philsophy is similar to
Douglas_Engelbart, inventor of computer mouse. "4" is the small things in life

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart).
> guiding philosophies

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYeCltXpxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYeCltXpxw).
> how, why what

\------------------------------------------------------------------

The "how" of "4" is driven by 2 different things:

\- Automation

\- Documentation

Growing up, I have always been obsessed with automation. This is because I
started working at the age of 13. And had to do a lot of tedious inefficient
tasks that gave me a lot of time to mull on. I transitioned this obsession
into MMO's, which has taught me everything I know about business today. Its
defined me for better or worst. My automation obsession has lead me to
constantly critique myself, can I do things better? is there a faster way to
learn XYZ? Do I really need to move my finger farther than I need to on the
keyboard? Does this UX respond well to minimal eye fatigue?

The obsession of documentation I have stems from dealing with logical
infallacies growing up. I was always told that I was wrong because I clearly
was not experienced or old enough to understand. I would journal things
religiously - and I made an effort to document everything I do. I still very
religiously do this today, I have made over 13,000+ gifs/images, 2000+ videos
tracked of things I watched, 1000+ softwares documented of things I used,
5000+ items of things I've researched and bought/tried out. I have different
methods of tracking this, this is my obsession with documentation

The "2" is what I defined as the "what". From the "why" and "how, that "what"
could be been many things. It could be working on computervision / embedded
hardware. It could be manufacturer automation in industrial sectors. Or
business processes. Minimalistic UX designs for marketing purposes. Those are
all derivatives of automation & documentation. Literally, everything is
automation & documentation in some form or another.

But I've done 3 years of semiconductor / metallurgical lab research. I learned
that I hate doing research, and slow changes. I don't believe in reinventing
the wheel or experimenting things on unsure success. This makes me a poor
scientist and an aspiring 10x engineer.

I grab the lowest hanging fruits of the "whats". It simply what makes money
with the least amount of effort. 95% _quotation needed_ of things needed to be
done are just CRUD webapps. This is why I've chosen only to learn
ruby/rails,javascript,python,react for now, and later C++/C/C#. Down the road,
I wish to expand this into machine learning, datascience, and embedded
hardware. Strictly, There's many things in imaging / video processing that I
wish to learn _e.g FFMPEG_ , and these all tie into automation/documentation.

I am starting to outgrow all the software I've used, and wish for many things
that do not yet exist. Regardless of what things change down the road in my
life, these obsessions of mine with automation, and documentation, will never
go away. It defines me. Neither will my motivation for building tools to
empower others, including myself

\------------------------------------------------------------------

## TLDR

[https://commoncog.com/blog/so-good-they-cant-ignore-
you/](https://commoncog.com/blog/so-good-they-cant-ignore-you/) → this blog
suggests "2" and "4".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&vl=en](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&vl=en)
→ "Ted talk, how why what".

"4" is the "why" and the "how" to me.

"2" is the "what" to me.

"why" is giving back to this ideal, of culture and media only made possible
with the advent of technology. Its the small, taken for granted things in
life.

"how" is automation and documentation to me.

"what" is large and encompassing, but I've chosen for now the lowest hanging
fruit, the 95% problem, CRUD webapps. Ruby/rails, javascript, react, python
suit my needs just fine now. On a slow ongoing basis, I wish to tackle the 5%
problem. C++/C#/C, embedded hardware, machine learning, computervision. With
this I need a deeper understanding of math, computer science, and electrical
engineering.

Here's a crappy diagram of my professional goals in life.
[https://i.imgur.com/nTyvVOR.png](https://i.imgur.com/nTyvVOR.png)

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything that falls outside the scope of automation and documentation,
generally do not interest me. These are things like research topics that don't
intersect my goals, e.g. chemistry, biology, etc.

Things that also fall in the scope of automation and documentation, in some
way form or another. This is callisthetics, rock climbing, jiu jitsu
_automation physically_. Space repetition learning, notetaking, UX design,
_automation mentally_. Those are just some examples.

Documentation would be blogging and youtubing among other things. The latter I
persued in the past with some success, but wish to do so again sometime later.
Not sure what it would be, granted the one youtuber I really look up to is Tom
Scott.

Instead of having the "why" as inspiration, I want to be the "why" to others
and for myself. The storyteller, not the reader. This could be in many forms,
from writing, to building tools that make an impact on others. Drawing
inspiration from things I accomplished in the past, etc.

Its still a long progress, but having a "4" or "why" really drives me everyday
in persuing my goals

------
jcoffland
tl;dr, a summary of a self-help book that posits that following your passion
is bad career advice and that you should seek mastery, autonomy and purpose
instead. This post was designed to completely replace the article, so you can
read this post and skip reading the article entirely.

