So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
Do you wanna work with what you love or follow your passion? Do you want to have a great career and make a lot of money? Well, then you need to be good at something first and here’s why:
The short of this book is to show case how to get the perfect job without the mindset of I will focus on whats my passion “Passion Mindset” because it could be your own demise or at least be somewhat problematic. Cal wants to highlight an possible solution that first get really good at something and specialize in that field with the “Craftman mindset” and with that you gain what he calls “Career capital” when you reach that point when you are “So good they can’t ignore you” you trade in your career capital for work you love and that takes you closer to the perfect job. Whats your perfect job? well that depends, it could be doing something specific or making X amount of money or whatever goal you have and he goes through the different steps you need to take to reach your goal.
I believe he’s on to something even tho it’s not rocket science i think people today tend to overlook this. For example when someone say that “you can be anything you want” tho I don’t think that’s untrue you also need to ask yourself the question “what can I give to the world?” instead of “what can the world give to me?” Because no one will give you your dream job or a raise just out of the kindness of their heart. From my own experience new opportunities have opened for me when i reached a point of being “So good they can’t ignore you” (Tho in this book, Cal talks about people who did things on a bigger scale I also believe that it applies to smaller things) no matter what it was and this it self doesn’t mean that you are the number 1 in the world at something but that you just are good at what you do.
I’m not close to my own goal but when look back at my career in IT and the journey I’m on with my own personal development and how being good at my job directly correlate, all the opportunities I’ve got so far comes from I hard work and doing a good job. At the same time when you are really good at something you will start enjoying it even more.
It’s a great read but as with a lot of other things in life you need to be able to read between the lines, don’t take all the things literally and some of he’s examples and explanations are somewhat longer then i wanted them to be (I’ll be like come on get to the point already!). Thankfully I’m an Audible junkie who listens to it at 2x or 3x speed which saves me time.
So who is this book for, I would say anyone who has a goal in mind with what your perfect job would be and for anyone interested in developing their own career. This book will give you some good insight on how to make that a possibility.
You can find the book over at amazon
So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
and if you want to know more about Cal Newport you can find him at
You can find me over at
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Cheers Timmy