about the book

You can pick up Cal’s ‘The Gift of Imperfection’ at all good outlets.

In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice. Not only is the clich flawed-preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work-but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping.

After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.

Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it. With a title taken from the comedian Steve Martin, who once said his advice for aspiring entertainers was to "be so good they can't ignore you," Cal Newport's clearly written manifesto is mandatory reading for anyone fretting about what to do with their life, or frustrated by their current job situation and eager to find a fresh new way to take control of their livelihood. He provides an evidence-based blueprint for creating work you love.

SO GOOD THEY CAN'T IGNORE YOU will change the way we think about our careers, happiness, and the crafting of a remarkable life.

TRANSCRIPT

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mike parsons 0:10

Hello, and welcome to the moon shots podcast. It's Episode 60. Yes, six zero. I'm your co host, Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by the man from Brooklyn himself in his very new office, Mr. Chad Owen. Good evening.

Chad Owen 0:26

Good morning, Mike. It's a new recording setup here and the new office space, excited to record yet another episode on another favourite author of ours. going a bit back into his catalogue of books, to I believe the second book, he wrote, but we're continuing our series this week discussing cow newports so good. They can't ignore you,

mike parsons 0:53

which in itself, that headline is so good you can ignore that headline right? What a, what a great, what a great title for a book. And I have to say Cal is very well known for his book, deep work, mostly digital minimalism. But what's really interesting this book was in, as you said, it's in these early, earlier years as a writer, but I have to say this has brought some surprisingly good ideas. I was a little taken back, as I really returned to this book and got into it. Chad, I gotta say, this book is has got a lot of insights on how to build your career. It's got a lot of insights on some of the skills you need to be successful. And it takes some very popular Miss and absolutely bus that doesn't it?

Chad Owen 1:47

Yeah, yeah, I think that's my favorite part is how he takes this idea that you should follow your passions, and he completely debunks it and not just oh, you know, in my experience, no He, you know, he goes to all the literature he's, you know, gone to everyone from farmers to freelancers to debunk into yoga teachers to debunk this, this myth and that, follow your passion and your life will be bliss. So yeah, I'm really excited to jump in and, and learn from him.

mike parsons 2:20

Yeah, I mean, I think it's so important for us to to acknowledge that there is such a pervasive myth of following your passion. And I think this just leads to so many people being really unhappy with their career and their work, because they've got the wrong expectations and they certainly don't understand the hard work it takes to get there. And today, we've got a bunch of clips that are going to show us really a better way to think about careers, how to obtain the right skills, and and really the mindsets, the practices that we can all do in order to kind of have a career That is deeply fulfilling and rewarding. And again, I have to say Chad, I really feel like he's a Simon Sinek in the making. I think Cal Newport in this book so good that you can't be ignored. I mean, wow, this guy has really got some great thinking. And what I love about him is he's got such a rigorous approach. Like once you hear the work he puts into developing his ideas, they become pretty irrefutable. Like, there is a lot of work that's gone into always thinking,

Chad Owen 3:34

yeah, it's, that's the title of the book, I think, is where we can start. Because it's not something that he came up on his own. It's something that he might have borrowed from someone else, but I think that's a good introduction and kind of an entree to the content. So we'll just leave it right off with a clip from Cali explaining where got the idea. Hi, this

Unknown Speaker 3:59

is Brian white. Welcome back to the optimal living interview series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Cal Newport, who in addition to a tonne of other things, wrote the great book so good. They can't ignore you subtitle why skills Trump passion in the quest for work you love. Cow is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University. He specialises in the theory of distributed algorithms. My brain hurts even thinking about that cow. He previously earned his PhD from MIT and before that went to Dartmouth, Cal, I loved your book. I think he makes so many important distinctions and I really appreciate you taking the time to chat, sir. Thank you, Brian. Alright, let's jump straight in. So let's just start with the title and your inspiration for that and what it means to you and all that good stuff so good. They can't ignore you.

Unknown Speaker 4:48

That's a quote from Steve Martin. He actually said it during an interview with Charlie Rose and he said the Charlie, you know, people are always asking me for my advice, you know, How can I succeed in the entertainment industry? And they never liked the answer I give them, they're expecting that I'm going to tell them how to get an agent or how to get ahead. And instead I say, you just need to be so good. They can't ignore you. I just think if you do that, good things will come. And that phrase, hit me an important time in my life that help reorient my energy and my efforts. And so I was happy to borrow it for the title of this book.

Unknown Speaker 5:24

That's awesome. How can you shed a little light on on that personal part of your journey and why it was so impactful?

Unknown Speaker 5:31

Yeah, I encountered that interview clip, maybe about halfway through my graduate school experience. So I was on my way to getting my PhD with my eyes towards maybe a professor one day, and I was coming at it from sort of a standard life hacker type approach. You know, I'd always been involved in the community of sort of life hacking and hacks and trip tricks and these types of things. And really, that solidified for me that Wait a second for what you're doing those type of Things can be useful, but really, you just have to be really, really good. You know? Do what you're doing really good. And it crystallised for me that you know what i think that's it. I think the really interesting stuff that happens to people the interesting opportunities, the stuff you hear about that makes you envious. Almost all of that comes from this foundation of their just being so good at something core, something so unambiguously valuable, that they can't be ignored. And that really helped focus my energy from that point going forward.

mike parsons 6:26

So good, they can't ignore you. And inside of this, Chad, what cows really giving us is a bit of a reset on how we might think about our career. And I think the big setup for the clips to come is that it seems some ways he's approaches very stoic. It's great old adages of hard work. Don't just learn something, Master something. And don't be obsessing about some Instagram like false paradise. Some virtual remote job in Bali. It's just good old hard work and just be so good at something that people want to work with you. And inside of that there's so many ideas, but I love it because I think we we just meet too many people that have this disgruntled feeling with their careers because they think that if they spend a year or two on something, then they should be a high flying executive enjoying all the all the benefits, but really what he's talking about is a lifetime of hard work.

Chad Owen 7:33

Yeah, I think another way of saying so good. They can't ignore you is focus. I kind of have a visceral reaction to the word focus. I'm often pulled in many different directions and don't want to focus. But yeah, this commitment to doing something so well, that you make a name for yourself in it I think is a really is a really powerful is a really powerful mindset to have. Have in being the academic that he is cow has some interesting frameworks, some acronyms mindset to share with us. I just wanted to remind our listeners before we get into the meat of the show here that you can find all of the links Eclipse show notes and get in touch with us@moonshots.io. We love all of those five star reviews from you, iTunes Raiders. And we love hearing from you by email at Hello at moon shots.io

mike parsons 8:33

Absolutely. And I think the next few clips are really going to set up a couple of ideas that hang on the Monaco's of Korea capital and S dT. And let's let's jump in and get into this self determination theory because this is the underlying thought to kind of reset maybe some of the bad habits and the false expectations we have around our careers. Let's start with Cal Newport discussing self determination theory.

Unknown Speaker 9:05

self determination theory is one of several different, relatively well validated and relatively old at this point frameworks within psychology for understanding what creates senses of motivation and satisfaction and individuals. You know, Dan Pink's book drive, for example, really dives deep into self determination theory. It's basically a book about how to apply self determination theory as a manager. So something has been around for a while. But basically, it says there's there's a few things that really give people a deep sense of motivation, satisfaction, and they include a sense of mastery. It includes a sense of autonomy, and it includes a sense of connection to other people. If you have these things, you're going to feel more motivated, you're gonna feel more satisfied with your work. And the key thing I point out about these trades is that none of them have to do with matching a specific job to some sort of specific intrinsic trait of yours. You can have autonomy, you can have mastery, you can have a sense of connection in any number of different fields. So, I think that's important because it says you should stop spending so much time worrying about what's the exact right job for me, and putting all of your emphasis on the match. If I find the right job for me, then I'll be happy and instead say, How do I get more autonomy? How do I get more mastery? How do I get more connections? I throw since impact in there for various other reasons. How do I get those traits into my life? And almost always the right answer is going to be to start with the career capital you already have and then figure out how to keep acquiring more as fast as possible.

mike parsons 10:37

Who He even just paid his career capital idea into that. But But Chad the the thing I just wanted to reflect on and share with you is like, the thing I relate to so much here is almost this this idea of mastery and you were talking about focus. I've spent different chapters of my Career focusing on different things. And I can only tell you that the sort of obsession that I've had for the last seven or eight years into innovation and to design thinking, and the behaviours that it takes and the skills that it takes to get those things done, have been so rewarding. And I feel that when you sort of master something, it opens up the opportunity to be more autonomous, because you're such a capable contributor, that you have a lot more freedom that you can enjoy. But that also that mastery gives you the chance to connect with others as well. And so I see this interrelationship between these three ideas, but it all stems back to be picking a theme, not necessarily a passion, and we'll get to the whole passion thing later, but for me, it's picking a thing and just I love the exercise of asking yourself What can I be the best in the world at and getting super focused on that double down on that? What that's I think the gift inside of this idea is to start with mastery.

Chad Owen 12:12

Yeah, I have two interesting takeaways building on what you're saying. I think you can actually enter either through mastery or autonomy or connection, because there's a lot of individuals that I know that are highly connected individuals, I call them mavens that they're so well connected, they know someone or they know someone who knows someone that can either help you or you know, get something done or, you know, send business your way. And so I think that that element of connectedness is, is kind of is one way that you can begin this this journey towards self determination. And I think if you're able to as an individual to operate autonomously, you know, very self directed and can can You really make progress without a lot of oversight, that also will put you on people's radars. And then of course, you know, it might be the easiest to notice someone who has mastery over a particular discipline. But I think they're all very important and interesting in how we think about work. And the second point is, cows returning back to kind of the fundamental psychological, you know, way our brains are, are structured, in that everyone says, Oh, you know, pursue your passion and you'll be happy. But cows like I don't, I don't necessarily trust that. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go to the doctors and understand how the brain works. To know that actually, it had, I'm sure if you index you know, for passion, mastery, autonomy and connectedness, the passion is going to be at the bottom of the list and the other three are going to be way more important. So again, I think cows ability to go in You know, these kind of disparate fields for us to help understand how we approach work is really fun and interesting. For me.

mike parsons 14:08

Yes. And I think the the side note to this is I spent several years in the very beginning of my career, I following my passion, which was and remains, one of my big passions is music. And actually, it was really hard and challenging when the thing that you love becomes the thing that you do for a living. And then you're forced to perhaps produce music that you're not really that excited about, but it's what sells. And then it sort of almost corrupts your passion. And so this is where this is my bigger I love the fact that he's saying guys don't get too obsessed with the destination and trying to sort of in the early part of you create just finding this elusive passion that's just going to drop out of the sky. And then that's, you know, the golden ticket for the rest of your life. rather focus on the mastery and build a set of skills every day that sort of come together and build this momentum. And they deliver you mastery, autonomy and connection. And you may in the end become passionate about what you do. But I love this idea of finding mastery because it's in the mastery that you've got a state of flow you get all sorts of good luck and momentum when you're doing something that you really are building a level of mastery and and you enjoy that autonomy and that connection as well. I think there's a lot in this and I think that the big practical advice here I think is Stop daydreaming and having unrealistic expectations that something that is your passion today is going to be your career or starting holding out those unrealistic expectations that Nirvana is just around the corner. It's it's the journey of hard work of mastery, autonomy connection. It's the journey as much as getting to that destination.

Chad Owen 16:14

Yeah, and it's all about building what Cal calls career capital. So I'll just let him explain his ideas around this new currency, if you will, of work.

Unknown Speaker 16:27

Let me let me lay the foundation for why I think skills and a craftsman mindset actually makes you passionate about your work. And so I approached this, you know, a math guy approached us in a geeky way, but your audience distributed algorithm. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna start drawing distributed algorithm proofs on the boards here soon. It's okay if we do some calculus, right. But here's, here's, let me give you the foundation for essentially, everything I'm going to say. This interview, which is the main thing I discovered when I went out there to study how two people end up loving what they do for a living, is that the traits that makes people's work great. The type of traits that make people really love their jobs and feel passionate about it, are themselves rare and valuable. Right there, they're hard to get in your career. No one is just handing them out because you want them in your career. They're rare and valuable. So if you want these traits in your career, you have to have something rare and valuable to offer in return. And I like to think about it like an economic exchange. As you build skills that the world finds unambiguously valuable, you get more of what I call career capital. And it's this career capital that you invest for the type of traits that really lead people to love their work traits like autonomy, a sense of impact, a sense of mastery, a sense of connection with other people. The better you are, the more of those things you can in essence barter for in your career. And so that's why I say getting good skills Trump just trying to follow your passion because honestly, passion for your work comes from once You have those type of traits in your working life. And as far as I can tell, in my research, the only way to get those is to have something to offer in return. So you really got to start by putting in the long yards, the better you get at things, the better things you can put into your working life and the more you're going to like it.

mike parsons 18:16

I love this, build a skill. Build a talent that is undeniably valuable to people in the world. It's almost a servant mindset. Rather than asking the world like, Where's my passion and like, what what's the world gonna do for me? He's really talking about turn. I was meant to do this. Why isn't everyone following me as I'm

Chad Owen 18:42

following my passion? Yeah,

mike parsons 18:43

yeah. And what he's saying is a baby. You've got to be out there doing a thing that really speaks to people it addresses problems that they have. And the mall, US seen as a contributor rather than a Hey, I think this is the foundation for being building create capital, because what you have effectively done is got a whole bunch of people who are your peers, your clients, your partners, who look at you as someone like, Oh, we've got to have them on the team, they're going to provide an enormous amount of help God and support. And that's where you want to be you want people ringing up and saying, hey, come work on this, can we do this? And if you're not getting those calls, you'll probably find that you're not giving enough and you're taking too much.

Chad Owen 19:37

This economic model that he's created, I've find really fascinating, I think because the way his brain works and he sees things is very different from mine. I I never really would have thought about me devoting myself to a craft as building something like career capital that I can then go and exchange or buy, autonomy or go and buy connection. with others, but that's really how it works. Because when you develop that, that skill, you're going to get those phone calls, you're going to, you know, be asked to be part of the team, a collaborator. And again, it's, you know, psychologically, we're getting the reward from the mastery, autonomy and the connectedness, not necessarily from working on our passion, you know, we can get dangerously close to what you were describing, where you almost get burnt out. And you're like, wait a minute, I used to love this thing, but now I hate it. Yes,

mike parsons 20:31

yes. And so having so many interests, and so many passions, one of my big things is don't turn them all into a career. Like I take great joy in when the rugby season is finished. And I can just watch rugby as a fan rather than thinking about tactics and strategies and I can just listen to music and not work out how they produced it and how this body of work kind of comes together. And that's that's this sort of unlock there is that met? You know, I could never thought that you know, designing products and helping launch products for large corporations would be my thing. But it really is. And I love it and I have found so much passion and enjoyment in it. So much mastery, autonomy and connection in it. But I I didn't sit there 25 years ago and say I'll I want to do design thinking workshops and build products and create launch campaigns for new products. That wasn't on my agenda. I was making radio shows I was DJing. So, so fascinating how how you can just use caos mental model here, thinking about career capital, thinking about self determination theory. And I think that the we've only just started to get into some of the gifts of, of cows thinking. I just want to check with you, Chad. How we, as we've explored this had you reflected on this on your career because you've done a big career pivot you've, you've made a big change in building career capital. This must be really interesting for you to explore as an idea when you think about your path.

Chad Owen 22:09

One thing it's helped me realise is I probably way over indexed and optimised for autonomy. For a number of years, I definitely got a lot of enjoyment from in choosing how and where, and who I worked with, and maybe hidden neglected a bit of the mastery and a bit of the connection. So that's, that's one thing I'm noticing. But I think the gift that I've been given for, you know, the 10 plus years of experience and working at at a skill and craft, the, you know, I was able to exchange that career capital for a new role where I do have a lot of autonomy and connection. So before I thought, Oh, well, I could only find that you know, working for myself and living the freelance solopreneur life but it exists. It is exists elsewhere. But I'm kind of I'm curious, you know, so so what do we do, Mike, if we don't just go after our passions, like how do we find the work? That's right for us?

Unknown Speaker 23:12

Hmm.

mike parsons 23:13

Well, I think we, there's this idea of seeking right work and really trying to reduce some of the pressures are and all the different choices and finding the different paths for us, because it can be a bit overwhelming. And here we've got another thought from from cow about seeking right work.

Unknown Speaker 23:38

Another wonderful phrase that I appreciate it from your book is is seeking right work versus working right. And obviously the emphasis on what's work right with accumulate career capital by finding ways to increase our competence and mastery, which then leads to higher levels of autonomy, more connections in that intrinsic self determination theory, embodiment that leads to the true passion and happiness, right?

Unknown Speaker 24:06

Yeah, there's any number of different sort of theories out there, they're pretty well validated about what makes people happy, satisfied and motivated. And the striking thing is that none of them that I could find have is their foundation. Every human being is hardwired for a very particular type of job. And if they can just find that the match between some magical intrinsic passion and the job is the key to their happiness. People have been studying this questions for decades that never comes up as the answer. The answer is always things that's relatively agnostic to the specifics of the work. And of course, there's bad jobs and there's things that you're really not going to like to do. I mean, I'm not I'm not suggesting that you can throw a dart at a job listing and whatever it is, you'll be happy with, but I am trying to really reduce the pressure on making the choice of what you do. Anything that seems like it's reasonable and interesting and could lead you to interesting places is as good as any other such options. This what I'm trying to argue that choice of your work is not meaningless. But it's also not as meaningful as people like to think.

Chad Owen 25:08

Hmm, this is one of my favourite clips, because I think so many of us, certainly those of us that have been looking to make transition in our career, we're just getting started. we sift through dozens, if not hundreds, I'm sure a few of us maybe even 1000 potential job opportunities, searching for that needle in the haystack. That will be right and perfect for us. And how many hours of agony could we have saved? If we had if we'd all read this book and taking a bit of cows advice to heart?

mike parsons 25:43

Yeah, he's like, Guys, relax, like, you know, don't get so caught up on this specific role. Focus more on the building, create capital, right? developing your mastery, autonomy and connection and I think the reason Can we zoom out here? There's a really big context around this is that, you know, years decades and decades ago, you either took an industrial age factory job, or you went to an office, and both jobs were a jobs for life. So you sort of saw this classic pathway people go from high school to college, they get a degree, they go and get a job. Now, we live in a very different world. So we presented Now you mentioned some of them, solopreneur, freelancer, etc, etc. There's all of these casual, flexible, partially employed, new types of jobs that have exploded onto the market, or various forms, shapes and sizes, which mean now rather than basically are you going to be a trades person or an office person. You're now presented with it. 10,000 other options. And so we find ourselves just like there's like way too many options now. And so what happens is you become the master of nothing. You don't have enough autonomy and connection because you're literally swamped with choice you and you become very unsure how to go forward. But the great thing is Cal Newport has a thought for us and can put all of this in context for us. So we know how to think about all of these different options. So let's have fun. Listen to cow talking about the Paradox of Choice.

Unknown Speaker 27:35

And you just reminded me a very short says Paradox of Choice of the other thing that's happened over the last 30 or 40 years is this this enormity of infinite choice which beyond a very small point becomes paralysing, right?

Unknown Speaker 27:50

Yeah. And when you have these micro industries and remote work and so many different options is no longer just, you know, you can either go to college and become the professional class or work at the factory. In town, were suddenly overwhelmed with all these choices. We shouldn't be surprised that, you know, my generation in particular is becoming more paralysed with I don't know what to do, what should I do? It's just the right job. You know, we didn't have this issue 40 years ago. And I think that's a big part of it.

Unknown Speaker 28:14

That's awesome. So letting that go and just doing it again, it's not a Dart, but being willing to find that reasonable. And then and then make the decision. I think there's a courage and saying, Look, I'm going to commit my life force into this. And I'm going to do the best I possibly can and accumulate that career capital etc.

Chad Owen 28:29

Yeah, this this idea of, well, I'm kind of conflicted on it, but I'm at least looking at it in a different way. In the job is not necessarily the end. Although it can be. It used to be Yeah, used to be that Yeah. But now the subtlety that I'm picking up on is use the job and the role as a means for creating the career capital to either exchange at your current position or parlay in you know, into something that is more interesting to you that maybe is a little more aligned with your, your your passions, but that maybe the primary purpose of the job is to build up that career capital and not necessarily give you all of that enjoyment that you're seeking in your in your life, you know, maybe pick up that hobby, maybe watch and coach that rugby. You know, you don't have to, you don't have to be the rugby coach to be sure that you're, you're fulfilled in terms of, of your profession and your life.

mike parsons 29:29

Yeah. And so I think what he's saying, now that the landscape has shifted so much, there are so many different forms of employment. There are so many different Korea taught, don't get obsessed on Am I going to be a trades person or office worker because that was the choice of 30 years ago. Ask yourself How can I develop my mastery, autonomy and connection and see every step in my career as building rare and valuable skills and I can make sure that I'm almost like a portfolio manager, I'm building up this this capital, building up wealth, this career, wealth, experience wealth, and then I'll be able to make better choices and find a path that suits me. And I think in the clips we've just heard, I think that is such great advice. In this age of constant change, too many options, disruption across so many different industries. Having a simple playbook like this sets us up really, really well, to know how to go through our career paths. And the exciting thing chat is the second half of the show is all about the mindsets that we need to embody in order to get the most out of that path.

Chad Owen 30:49

Yeah, and some really interesting examples from the people that he talked to you and in kind of shadowed as he was doing his research for this book. So we've we've talked a lot about not following your passion, but we don't have to wait. Cow is going to show us kind of the flip side of that coin and maybe where our focus should be. So if it's not passion, then what is it? Let's

Unknown Speaker 31:20

talk about the mindsets that you articulate. And I do love the distinctions you made between the passion mindset, and the Craftsman mindset, which gets us to rule number two, which is be so good, they can't ignore you. But can you kind of unpack that juxtaposition of mindsets?

Unknown Speaker 31:36

I think the passion mindset is an important concept because it It helps tells us that this advice that you should just follow your passion that you know what you're meant to do just have the courage to go do it. It's not just an innocent sort of aspirational thinking, it can actually affect the way that you approach your work such that you become less likely to end up passion about your work. And that's because I think this this general sense of your Do something. And once you identify it, you'll be happy, puts people into what I call the passion mindset. And when you're in the passion mindset, you're constantly asking, okay, what is this job? What is this career doing for me? Do I love this? Is there something I might like better? Is this fulfilling? Do I really like that I have to go to these meetings is this really the right job? For me, it's a very self focused mindset that causes quite a bit of angst and anxiety and uncertainty, because nothing's really going to measure up to this sort of mythical idea we have of if this is your passion, you'll love it. I contrast it to sort of Steve Martin's Craftsman mindset, where what you're asking is the opposite. Okay, how much value Am I producing? How useful Am I I mean to to an outside observer? What am I producing it the world cares about and how much they care about it? How could I be creating more value? How can I be making the you know, more positive sort of additions to the world? So this sort of relentless focus on how do I make myself and my output more valuable? Those are in direct opposition. If you would Dubbed the Craftsman mindset, you're almost, you're significantly more likely to end up being able to craft a career. That's a huge source of passion. Ironically, if you have this passion mindset, you're really steering yourself away from a very meaningful, satisfying career, and more likely steering you towards chronic job hopping, uncertainty and anxiety. So I'm a big advocate that the Craftsman mindset is the foundation of building a very passionate career

Unknown Speaker 33:25

well said and so good and I just love that distinction of the passion mindset is essentially obsessed with kind of the lifestyle side of things. So let me see what value I can get. Yet ROM whatever it is, I'm doing. Visa v. The Craftsman mindset says How can I create value How do I give as much as I possibly can, in whatever I'm doing and in the broader scope of my life, in that getting value versus creating value is just such a powerful distinction.

Unknown Speaker 33:53

I

mike parsons 33:53

as he was talking, Chad, I had this vision of someone hopping between jobs. always saying is this the perfect job. And then like 12 months, I know that it's just not the perfect one and boom, they go to another one and another one. And I think we've all seen those people. And I think what Cal Newport does is he's explaining why this is happening. Because everybody who has a passion mindset has incredibly high expectations of the job. So it's almost impossible for the job to meet the standard that they expect. Whereas the Craftsman mindset, this is all about what can I give and how can I get better at giving rather than me asking, What can I get out of this situation? And the great twist on all of this Chad is he's basically saying if you want to be passionate, don't follow your passion, follow your craft and the craft will get you to the passion. So it all kind of turns everything upside down, doesn't it?

Chad Owen 34:50

He had this idea of value is very interesting to me. And I would kind of add unique to that. So if you can find unique value in something that you're doing, you're going to have a blast doing it, because you're providing that value people are going to respond to you. They're going to be beating down your door, to work with you and to be a part of your team and to join your company and to buy your products. Because you have that focus on the value that you're providing. It's a lot easier said than done, though.

mike parsons 35:26

It is it is and and I think this is such an important gift in what caos thinking has to offer. We really should go another step into this because we've we've explained that there are these two paths, the passion mindset, versus the Craftsman mindset. But I think this is so important, just like building Korea capital was another important topic we've covered. I think, this idea of don't stop with your passion. It's really important that you can actually find it but you just don't stop with it. So let's have a listen to Cal Newport espousing the values of don't follow your passion.

Unknown Speaker 36:07

Don't follow your passion. Tell us about that.

Unknown Speaker 36:10

Yeah, so I'm not a big fan of the advice to follow your passion. And I think it's important to nuance that because when people first hear me say, don't follow your passion, they think I'm saying, don't follow the goal of ending up passionate about what you do. And that's not at all what I'm actually trying to claim. In fact, my goal is to be passionate about my work. The goal of that book is to help people end up having work that they feel very passionate about. But I think the equation has it backwards. This idea that you start with a clear pre existing passion that you identify and then use as the foundation of your career choices. That idea is just not borne out by the evidence. If you actually study people who love what they do for a living people with real passion, more often than not, the passion comes later. It's a side effect of everything else you have to do to build a really good and maybe Full career. So I like to flip that around and say really the goal is not to follow your passion is to let passion follow you, as you put in the hard work of constructing a really satisfying career.

Unknown Speaker 37:10

So good. And I love you know that the word epiphenomenon. It's the byproduct, the side effect of committing to something and just being as good as you can possibly be as great as you can possibly be at it. And, you know, of course, I think your point is such a good one, right? that most of the time, we're just chasing the passion. And we forget the other side of the equation. There are some exceptions where people just happen to have this passion, then they became masters at it. But for most of us as you articulate again, again, the book it's it's at least a two way process and the majority of the time focus on being so good, and let that passion be the the byproduct.

Chad Owen 37:46

Hmm. It's interesting for me to see this in the light of feedback loops, because I'm trying to understand like, Why Why is it that the kind of unexpected path of actually the Craftsman mindset will bring you the fulfilment and in make you passionate and I think it has to do with feedback loops because if you shift from that selfish to that selfless mindset, you mentioned it earlier kind of a servant or service oriented mindset, you're going to be continually getting positive feedback signals from the people that you're working with the clients that you're working for the customers that you're serving, and those kind of, you know, those blips of positive emotion and feedback is going to lift your spirits and it make you more passionate about the work that you're doing. But it's very unintuitive it is

mike parsons 38:38

and I think there was they were riffing together there and there was something that I really liked, which is, don't follow your passion. Let your passion follow you. And I really think this is so crucial, because I think when you change that expectation, then you do the hard work, you search for mastery, you get focused and I truly have experienced in myself that passion comes through that work. So I just really, really want to call this out. This is so, so powerful as a pathway to finding that fulfilment to finding that satisfaction in your career. Because then you're like, ready to work for five or 10 or 15 years to find that mastery, rather than saying in the first five or 10 weeks of well, geez, this this job sucks. This is not giving me the pleasure and the utopia that I dreamed of. I think this totally sets us on a different path, doesn't it?

Chad Owen 39:40

Yeah. And and if we can, if we can let this message sink in, it takes that pressure off the Paradox of Choice or, you know, oh, I I am not getting the job that I was destined to do that fate, you know, has set aside for me, you know, like, there's not just I have one thing, you know, actually, there's just thinking about yours and my skills that we have I'm sure that we could probably do all right, in vastly different fields. And then, as you said that the passion will then begin to follow us. So I, I just I love how this idea takes that pressure off of over optimising and finding that one job or role that you were destined to do. Yeah,

mike parsons 40:27

yeah. what's really great is we managed to find a couple of anecdotes, a couple of stories of different people going on this journey. So now that we're into this, back half of the show, and we're thinking about how we might do this one of the mindsets to build Creek capital and to find mastery. We've got this great anecdote that caches comparing a marketing guy and a yoga woman. And I think this really sets up how you go on a path that accumulates create capital over time. So let's let's have a listen to Cal Newport sharing some stories of those that have attempted to build their career capital.

Unknown Speaker 41:09

Right. So here's the the analysis I went through in the book, I am a big believer in career capital. The more capital you have, you can invest it for better things. I don't care so much about the specifics of the activity. I think we way over emphasised the match between the specifics of the work and yourself, I think really is what traits Do I have those traits can be in lots of different jobs. So the analysis I did was, here's this this advertising executive who had a lot of career capital in sort of the fields of marketing or copywriting, or whatever it was, specifically she was in. She has zero career capital in yoga, in order to build a career that has mastery, autonomy, impact and connections and yoga. She has a long road ahead of her she'd have to gather up from scratch a lot of career capital of she has no head start on. So instead, I would say if I was in her situation, I would say well, how can I take this capital they already have from being successful in marketing advertising and invest it to get the type of traits that I like about the yoga. And maybe I need to acquire a little bit more I need to add to the stash, but I would start from what I already had. So I contrasted her to another marketing executive that I found, who had done exactly that he was, had one he thought maybe he'd wanted to be an artist. And he was building capital as a doing illustrations for marketing purposes, but was having the same thoughts around the same time as this, this woman who went on to become a yoga instructor. But instead what he did was he just found places within marketing where he could build his capital and invested and he ended up creating this sort of very creative marketing business of his own, which became very successful and gave him a lot of autonomy and allowed him to work on things he liked. And I wrote about this, this compound they built by the lakes in Wisconsin, where his family get together. Anyways, he built a very passionate life out of a same moment of indecision, because he said, Well, what capital do I have? How can I get more and how can I invest it? Whereas this other person was saying What's the right job for me? What's the right match? If I could just find the job that's the right match for me, I'd be happier ignoring career capital, ignoring the need to have career capital to get fulfilling traits in your work, and she really paid the price for it. Hmm,

Chad Owen 43:13

yeah, we've actually got a really great follow on clip to that, to understand exactly how it went wrong for the yoga teacher.

Unknown Speaker 43:22

You do a great job of of kind of articulating this in the context of a yoga teacher, right? Who decides that their passion is yoga, they go and get a basic certification and then tell us what what you've seen happen and why that's that's kind of a dangerous thing. If we don't bring in the Craftsman mindset

Unknown Speaker 43:39

that this story was the sort of classical example of what happens if you have the passion mindset, she she gets the basic yoga certification and quits her job as an executive and say, I'm now going to be a full time yoga teacher because the passion mindset says what's going to bring you the most value and she thought I think I would enjoy being a yoga teacher. More than a secutor and of course, where the story ends is this not long after that, that she's in line for essentially the equivalent of food stamps, because just because she really wanted to be a yoga teacher didn't mean that anyone cared, or that she was gonna be able to make a living at it, or that she would be able to do it successfully. And that's sort of the trap of just focusing on what you want.

Unknown Speaker 44:20

Oh,

mike parsons 44:22

yeah. So, so that that one was like, such a nice kind of story to hear, because she really missed, didn't she?

Chad Owen 44:31

Yeah, yeah, it the the incremental ism or iteration nuance that's in here, I think is really important, because I know that we've all known those people, that high flying ad executive, and then they go and try to start a fly fishing business. And yeah, sure enough, you see them pop up at another agency, you know, here 18 months later, and I think it just comes down to Maybe those individuals being a bit too selfish and just ignorant of what the market needs and, and ones for them. And so the the story of the the illustrator guy kind of building a bridge, he doesn't immediately quit his job because he just wants to draw pictures, he starts drawing pictures while he's still at work right? then that leads him to create this new business. And then, you know, he doubles, triples, quadruples down on this this illustration side. So it's it's funny because the the passion kind of followed him to that to that new gig.

mike parsons 45:32

That's right. That's absolutely right. And I think that the, the frame that we have here is, it's just simply think about your value proposition as an individual, to your peers, to your colleagues, to your clients, to all of those stakeholders, and ask yourself, What am I doing that really makes the difference and how can I be better at it? Find that mastery Develop the autonomy and the connection in put them before yourself, and the path will emerge. But as in many times in life, it's about trusting in the process. And we often want to skip and just get to the destination. Yep. And I think this is Cal's thinking is really forcing us to trust the process. Don't just try and catapult skip all the hard work and arrive at the destination. Don't you feel like that's what he's written? I just want that quick fix. Right? I just want the quick fix.

Unknown Speaker 46:28

Yeah, isn't it? Yeah, so

mike parsons 46:30

it's so stoic, isn't it, Chad?

Chad Owen 46:32

Yeah, not just dog. But it really takes a long term mindset, which is so hard to cultivate. We all seek immediate gratification. I think the analogy of treating it like you're mining of valuable resource is career capital. And that's something that in the more unique and valuable the skill, you know, the craft that you're developing in the higher mastery, autonomy connection impact you will have in your work and from those things passion, passion is attracted to yes to those things. And so this taking a long term, you know, investment Warren Buffett approach to your letter is, it sounds really great but again, it's really hard to to ignore or quell hold the the short term gratification that we seek.

mike parsons 47:27

Yes. And I think that the the benefit of this is you don't have to worry about the dreaded question is, is my career on track? Am I doing the right thing for me? Because that's such a big open ended long term question. What this does is it focuses into some daily practices. It focuses into just trusting the process so you don't have to worry about the outcome of of the process because you know, you're doing the right process. And this is great conversation that we found between cow and and a radio host, talking about how this thinking comes alive and how we can enjoy these benefits. And it's in deep inside that perhaps there's a calling back to this Craftsman mindset of focusing on a thing, providing it to the world. But if you do embody the habits that we've been talking about here, this is Cal talking about whether you really do have bad days in the end, because if you've trusted in the process, things will work out.

Unknown Speaker 48:31

Just this morning, I traded some tweets with women who said, You know, I really admire what you do, you're so consistent. And I'm all about this, like I'm all wins. This is all I I do is get as good as I can master my craft and I work hard and I strive to produce a lot in to acquire that career capital and be able to do more and more things. Anyway, she said, You know, this is great, you inspire me, but but do you ever have off days and I replied in a tweet instead of Of course, you know, but when you're rocking your fundamentals and you're doing this work, it's it's hard to have that out of a day, then she tweeted back and said, well, that's great. But, you know, I would just wish for you and I'm inspired but I'd wish for you to have at least one day a week where you just do you know, something that just kind of brings you joy in that mindset of the the presupposition that putting in the work, not only to acquire the trades, but just doing the work is in itself so liberating. It's one big game when we play it with the mindset that you talk about of the deliberate practice and so jokingly replied that well, that presupposes I'm not doing that seven days a week, right? Yeah. So I think there's this bizarre myth that in me Hi, chick sent me I talks about this a lot in his work on flow, of course, where there's a the cause of the paradox of work, where we actually feel best when we're engaged in work that's challenging and meaningful and worst when we're in leisure activities yet all we want is leisure activity. So I think that's that's part of the cultural phenomena that's going on that that is making the passion visa v craftsmen such a challenging thing for people to get right.

Unknown Speaker 49:59

Yeah, I think That's, that's absolutely what's happening we have to it's a kind of a weird cultural moment we've been in in the last maybe three or four decades, where we've constructed this notion that there's these, these deeply passionate activities that our soul is wired for. And we all have them. And when we're doing them, we're really happy. And otherwise, we're doing stuff that we're not happy. And it really doesn't match the psychology of what actually gives people a sense of motivation, satisfaction, which is when you're actually working at a craft, you're actually you're, you're good at something, you're exhibiting mastery, you're applying a craft in a way that sort of publicly rewarding, that feeling, the feeling of flow, the feeling of mastery, the sort of feeling autonomy over your world, embodiment in a physical world, we are creating things that are valuable. Those are the deepest levers of sort of passion and meaning that we have. People have recognised this all the way back to the ancient Greek philosophers. There's nothing new about it. What's new is this idea that rose out of the 60s and 70s that no No, no that stuff isn't important. It's you know, you need to be, you know, walking through the woods while doing poetry. Well, whatever the whatever the scenario is that there's these, this big separation. And it didn't used to be that way, craftsmanship was the height of sort of human flourishing and fulfilment. And so that's what you're tapping into. When you take the skills oriented focus. If you're looking around for some magic activity that every time you do, it makes you feel blissful and you're never unhappy, or you're you're going to be looking for a long time. The reality of passion is, I think, a lot more interesting, but it's also more nuanced than just that feeling of sort of simplistic bliss that people are looking for.

Chad Owen 51:40

Hmm, there's a lot in that clip. One thing Yeah.

One thing I was thinking of is, we used to not have a choice. You know, you were a craftsman, dedicated to your craft. Maybe your family members helps, but like there weren't big you know, corporations and companies, not nearly as much coordination of resources and whatnot that the whole kind of explosion of entrepreneurial ism, you know, in the 19th century brought us and Adam Smith and industrialization, but we provided you know, we were a farrier. So we're putting shoes on horses that made everything work, right. Commerce and transportation. And because we're providing that value, I think, eventually, you know, you would have that that passion follow. So it was just an interesting thing, how, in a way, it's kind of coming full circle, you know, like a couple hundred years later, where this Craftsman mindsets becoming so important, almost as like a response to, you know, the information age, the knowledge, economy. Absolutely. And

mike parsons 52:47

what happens is that when you take on a craftsman mindset, the satisfaction can occur every single day, because you know that you did it. thing you mastered a skill today, which is far more measurable tangible in the here and now, rather than this elusive, am I pursuing the best, most delightful passionate career I could ever have? Which is like, Well, how do you know when you're there? What he's actually saying is that you can become deeply satisfied every time you down tools every day because you know, that you've switched your orientation to, how can I build my mastery of different skills? How can I have a craftsman mindset every single day? So in a funny way, you finish work for the day and you feel deeply satisfied and you can get actually, here's the catch. You can get really passionate about that feeling about that state of flow. So that every day you can just say, wow, I built my mastery. I built my career capital.

Chad Owen 53:54

Yeah, him bringing up or the host bring out behind she sent me Hi, who wrote The book flow, giving a shout out to my alma mater, the University of Chicago. It's another interesting layer to this, where in that literature, it's it's saying, you know, pursuing leisure activities, aka maybe passions can be counterproductive to your enjoyment and fulfilment. And you know, we all know that state of flow that we've been in, whether it was in sport or at work, where you just kind of lose yourself in the moment. And the fulfilment that you get after experiencing those states of flow, I think it can only be achieved when you are, as you said, You're sitting down every day, committing to do that work, that skill, that craft, taking on those slightly more challenging tasks, which is what will create those states of flow and and again, bring that fulfilment and passion to what you're doing.

mike parsons 54:58

Totally, totally. I think there is just what what a wonderful series of ideas to kind of refresh, you know, some reflections of my career. I To be honest, the funny thing is, I don't really think about my career so much, maybe I've kind of bought into this process so much. I'm very much obsessed with mastery right now. And what I found is this is like a great inspiration. It's a kind of a turbo boost for my desire to acquire and grow, and to make sure that the things that I'm doing actually really help people. And it also affirms in me, there's no don't worry about the big long term. Because if you're doing things that bring you satisfaction, in terms of mastery and autonomy and connection, like you'll end up in the right place, Mike, I found that a really powerful reminder in this book. So I want to ask you, Chad, you've done a big career pivot, you've done a Quantum leaping career capital. How do you feel now that we've sort of decoded the key ideas in this book from Cal Newport,

Chad Owen 56:08

but it feels it feels great to know that I can make such a big shift after investing over 10 years in quite a different industry and roll. But because maybe without me even knowing I was building up career capital that I could then you know, I could go to could take it to the bank and cash it for some really great opportunities. And if I think about it hard, I could probably have gone into maybe even two or three other different fields, because I had that career capital. And again, it wasn't like so. So tied to finding the one perfect role because I had built up the career capital, I was actually able to jump on an opportunity that that came up and presented itself whereas if I hadn't built up that career capital, I would not have been able to seize that opportunity. So, I think for me it all it all comes down to a growth, a growth mindset. I think the Craftsman mindset is very much a growth. It's a selfless in a in a growth mindset. Whereas the passionate mindset seems quite fixed to me and also very selfish.

mike parsons 57:20

Yeah, yeah. And a big part of growth is learning and the exciting thing is we have one more book in this series Chad and we're going to dedicate it to the three or so books that Cal has written about learning how to win a college how to be a high school superstar and how to become a straight A student. We're going to get all of those, throw them into one ginormous show and just dedicate ourselves we're going to be going back to high school and college Chad, can you believe it?

Chad Owen 57:51

Well, again, I I read cows blog years ago and wish I had discovered it or maybe wish I was a little bit younger. So I could have used it in high school and college because I'm sure if I go back and look at my transcripts I could have I could have done better but yeah, I'm I'm very excited to complete our look at cows over to us a high school word. And, and yeah, kind of bring it home with probably the strongest theme that has emerged from all of the moon shatters is on us on the show of of of learning lifelong learning and, and and and a huge value of yours and mine as well.

mike parsons 58:38

Absolutely, absolutely. So what a wonderful ride we've had today exploring these critical ideas from Cal Newport create capital, self determination theory, really getting into the Craftsman mindset. I mean, there's so much more than I expected in this book and it's been great Chad to share it with you. I can't wait to go back to high school and college in the next show learning how to be a great student. Again, I think we can always refresh our thinking. So I'm really looking forward to that. I know it's getting late there in New York, Chad. So I want to thank you. I want to thank our listeners. Chad, do you have a call to action for our listeners? I know you love a good bit of email.

Chad Owen 59:25

Yeah, you can always email us at hello@moonshots.io we've been getting great feedback. People are still asking to find their why with me with Simon Sinek. If my schedule if my schedule allows, I will certainly respond to as many of those requests as possible. Awesome. And again, we love your reviews on iTunes. It's it's helpful for people to discover the show and know all the hard work that Mike and I are putting in here on the show.

mike parsons 59:55

Awesome. Okay, well, thanks to you, Chad. Thanks to you, all of our listeners. It's been great to discover how we can be so good. They can't ignore us. The book from Cal Newport. It's been really inspiring and we can't wait to go back to a deep diving learning on the next show. Thanks again. And that's a wrap

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