Growing Up: So Good They Can't Ignore You & hens parties

"No one owes you a great career... you need to earn it— and the process won’t be easy."

Hello beautiful people,

I've just arrived in Melbourne... brain slightly not working as it's 4am back in London (3pm here). But we will power through!

Great news! I am breaking my habit of getting excited about a book, buying it, reading 20 pages, sharing and idea here and then not revisiting it again for many months (or ever). That is, I have started finishing my half read books! In the past three weeks I've finished 5 books that I'd half read. I also started and finished one from scratch, staying with it despite strong urges to dip in and out, mixing it up with other books (i.e. distracting myself and never finishing any of them). I was about to say I wonder if not being able to stick with a book (the old habit me) is how it feels to be one of those people who can't stick with a relationship (or job) and keep starting new ones. Then I wondered if I'm describing my (former, hopefully) self. Oops. Let's stick with books.

The book I started and finished (yay) was So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. Newport is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University (he also wrote Deep Work and Digital Minimalism).

I have some opinions about this book. Would love to discuss if anyone's read it...

The subtitle is "Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love" and Newport is setting out to debunk the idea that "follow your passion" is good advice.

As you'd maybe expect from a computer scientist, his arguments are all very rational which is great, just that he may not realise that some of us are heavily influenced by those other parts of being human, you know those not very rational parts... (parts definitely worth celebrating in a world of AI by the way (they are what makes us different to computers.))

Which is why in direct opposition to his school of thought (which I'll share below) I also love this quote:

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman (American author, philosopher, and civil rights leader)

Lots of great ideas to think about from Newport's book (despite me accusing him of being a robot). The 'craftsman mindset' / 'career capital' is my favourite takeaway.

But first here's where the title, 'So Good They Can't Ignore You' comes from:

[In a] 2007 episode of the Charlie Rose show. Rose was interviewing the actor and comedian Steve Martin about his memoir Born Standing Up. They talked about the realities of Martin’s rise. “I read autobiographies in general,” Martin said. “[And I often get frustrated]… and say, ‘You left out that one part here, how did you get that audition for that one thing where suddenly you’re working at the Copa? How did that happen?’” [DB: this is what happens on the podcast!! I don't let people skip over these small details]. Martin wrote his book to answer the “how” question, at least with respect to his own success in stand-up. It was in this explanation of “how” that Martin introduced a simple idea that floored me when I first heard it. The quote comes in the last five minutes of the interview, when Rose asks Martin his advice for aspiring performers.

“Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear,” Martin said. “What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’… but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you.’ ”

In response to Rose’s trademark ambiguous grunt, Martin defended his advice: “If somebody’s thinking, ‘How can I be really good?’ people are going to come to you.”

This is exactly the philosophy that catapulted Martin into stardom. He was only twenty years old when he decided to innovate his act into something too good to be ignored. “Comedy at the time was all setup and punchline… the clichéd nightclub comedian, rat-a-tat-tat,” Martin explained to Rose. He thought it could be something more sophisticated. Here’s how Martin explained his evolution in an article he published around the time of his Charlie Rose interview: “What if there were no punch lines? What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it? What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax?”In one famous bit, Martin tells the audience that it’s time for his famous nose-on-the-microphone routine. He then leans in and puts his nose on the microphone for several seconds, steps back, takes a long bow, and with gravitas thanks the crowd. “The laugh came not then,” he explains, “but only after they realised I had already moved on to the next bit.”

It took Martin, by his own estimation, ten years for his new act to cohere, but when it did, he became a monster success. It’s clear in his telling that there was no real shortcut to his eventual fame. “[Eventually] you are so experienced [that] there’s a confidence that comes out,” Martin explained. “I think it’s something the audience smells.”

And here's a bit about the craftsman mindset:

I’ve presented two different ways people think about their working life. The first is the craftsman mindset, which focuses on what you can offer the world. The second is the passion mindset, which instead focuses on what the world can offer you. The craftsman mindset offers clarity, while the passion mindset offers a swamp of ambiguous and unanswerable questions... there’s something liberating about the craftsman mindset: It asks you to leave behind self-centered concerns about whether your job is “just right,” and instead put your head down and plug away at getting really damn good. No one owes you a great career, it argues; you need to earn it—and the process won’t be easy.

...I am suggesting that you put aside the question of whether your job is your true passion, and instead turn your focus toward becoming so good they can’t ignore you. That is, regardless of what you do for a living, approach your work like a true performer.

...
The traits that define great work require that you have something rare and valuable to offer in return—skills I call career capital. The craftsman mindset, with its relentless focus on what you produce, is exactly the mindset you would adopt if your goal was to acquire as much career capital as possible. Ultimately, this is why I promote the craftsman mindset over the passion mindset. This is not some philosophical debate on the existence of passion or the value of hard work—I’m being intensely pragmatic: You need to get good in order to get good things in your working life, and the craftsman mindset is focused on achieving exactly this goal.

This makes me so excited thinking about the podcast. I can just keep going, and continue improving week after week. Steven Martin took 10 years, might as well give myself the same (that is, whilst also pursuing serious, income generating, visa providing, non podcast work of course). Speaking of...

This week on Growing Up with Delia Burgess
Ep. 89 - Jenny Haynes: eating disorder, theatre, lockdown destroying her business & finding her calling
Jenny is a yoga teacher, breathwork, movement and meditation instructor based in London, UK.

Originally from the North East, her passion lies in connecting people to their bodies and their minds in an accessible, creative, and warm way. Jenny initially trained in Theatre, having been one of 4 girls out of 2000+ applicants to be accepted into the world renowned Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She then set up and ran a successful dance party company before training in yoga and fitness.

Coincidentally Jenny is probably a perfect example of the So Good They Can't Ignore You strategy (and set up a successful business that way in something she wasn't necessarily "passionate" about) combined with the realities of being human and following your heart (the work she does now). This ep is up on youtube! Yay.

Best,
Delia

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Hi! I'm Delia Burgess

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