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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Cal Newport
Read between
February 8 - February 19, 2025
One of the first major hurdles a young practitioner faces in serious Zen practice is the Mu koan: Passing this koan is the first of the “eight gates” of Zen Buddhism.
If “follow your passion” is bad advice, what should I do instead? My search for this answer, described in Rules #2–4,
The narratives in this book are bound by a common thread: the importance of ability.
move his focus away from finding the right work and toward working right, and eventually build, for the first time in his life, a love for what he does. This is the happiness that you, too, should demand.
You’ve got to find what you love…. [T]he only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking, and don’t settle.
Perhaps the only thing it does make clear is that, at least for Jobs, “follow your passion” was not particularly useful advice.
“You’ll never be sure. You don’t want to be sure.”
SDT tells us that motivation, in the workplace or elsewhere, requires that you fulfill three basic psychological needs—factors described as the “nutriments” required to feel intrinsically motivated for your work: Autonomy: the feeling that you have control over your day, and that your actions are important Competence: the feeling that you are good at what you do Relatedness: the feeling of connection to other people
The premise of Bolles’s guide sounds self-evident to the modern ear: “[Figure] out what you like to do… and then find a place that needs people like you.” But in 1970, this was a radical notion.
THREE DISQUALIFIERS FOR APPLYING THE CRAFTSMAN MINDSET The job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable. The job focuses on something you think is useless or perhaps even actively bad for the world. The job forces you to work with people you really dislike.
The first control trap notes that it’s dangerous to try to gain more control without enough capital to back it up. The second control trap notes that once you have the capital to back up a bid for more control, you’re still not out of the woods. This capital makes you valuable enough to your employer that they will likely now fight to keep you on a more traditional path.
the law of financial viability, and concluded that it’s a critical tool for navigating your own acquisition of control. This holds whether you are pondering an entrepreneurial venture or a new role within an established company. Unless people are willing to pay you, it’s not an idea you’re ready to go after.
courage culture (briefly introduced in Rule #2; elaborated in Rule #3): A term that describes the growing number of authors and online commentators who promote the idea that the only thing standing between you and a dream job is building the courage to step off the expected path.
