So Good They Can’t Ignore You

This chapter from Cal Newport’s book ‘So good they can’t ignore you’ presents the notion that when it comes to approaching and developing a career there are two types of mindsets.

1. The Craftsmen Mindset
2. The Passion Mindset

Newport provides a breakdown on the key characteristics that surmise both mindsets. The craftsmen mindset is presented as one that focuses on developing ones skill and adding value to the work, and the passion mindset projects attention on value that can benefit the individual.

Newport challenges the conventional thinking that building a career is determined by discovering what your passionate about. Arguing that pursing passion leads to unhappiness as opposed to joy because the path would lead people to focus on what they like about a job resulting in them becoming aware of what they don’t like. Following this Newport states that passion requires one to question their identity met by the need to discover what job will supply the answer to that question, resulting in confusion.

The craftsmen mindset on the flipside is one that Newport states allows one to release them selves of finding the right fit and focus on getting good and what your job. He cites the experiences of successful entertainers like Steve Martin; to reinforce this mindset by claiming that they have adopted this model, as Martin spent nearly ten years of his life developing his craft as a comedian before his show was a success.

The Informal Media Economy

This article explores the state of labour in creative streams of work, through the field of informal employment in the media industry. As stated very early in the chapter “there is a lot of money to be made in this line of work”, however the process of working within these fields can be unglamorous. It comprises of unpaid work for extremely long hours, and to many workers the boundaries between flexibility and exploitation is blurry.

Delving into this creative labour debate what is being presented is that most employees choose to operate in a non-formal manner. Trading in office cubicles for the opportunity to work from home, offers an individual a level of freedom, with their main business assets are their creative skills. It is an environment where work and private life merges. This notion has been heavily rebutted, insisting that informality in the media worlds leads to unemployment, harsh work environment, low-payments and exploitation.

Even though the text provides examples of employees who have had those sorts of experiences, it also shares the limitations of the argument. While the labour argument presented by critics have unfolded many unattractive areas in the media industry they have overlooked the creative workers who operate outside of the creative industries. Many of these workers that work in the financial sector, for example, have managed to escape the downsides associated with the media industry, where as many workers in fields such as agriculture are loosing jobs as their fields evolve and requirements change.