[dartharva]

This is also the kind of advice that only sounds good on paper. In reality there is no clear marker of what you can and cannot do well unless you empirically experiment with everything which would take several lifetimes.

Modern gurus like Cal Newport advise the opposite, and for good reason.

[mbbutler]

Newport's book on this topic is terribly underwhelming, and I say that as someone who has really enjoyed his other books, blog posts, and YouTube videos. Most of the anecdotes he gives to support his "Career Capital over Passion" have an ambiguous directionality of the causal arrow. For example, the fact that the happiest admin assistants have been at the job the longest does not mean that getting good at being an AA makes you happy with the work. There is an equally plausible explanation that enjoying the work of an AA makes one likely to stay in the job longer. Most of his examples in the book are like this.

The place where I think Newport flounders in this area is that, in order to get "So Good They Can't Ignore You", you actually have to be able to put in the time and effort to get good. And the vast majority of people do not possess the self-control and willpower to force themselves to do something they dislike to the level that is necessary to achieve said mastery.

[dd8601fn]

I think the whole conversation sounds silly, from the start.

There are 8 billion people on this planet. It just doesn’t make sense.