Study Questions
One. What is one of the strongest advantages of the craftsman mindset over the passion-centric mindset?
Finding the right or ultimate job is a myth. In fact, we’re constantly agnostic about our job. We don’t know if our job is ideal or not. What we do know is we have to improve our craft.
Improving our craft makes us passionate about what we do, not the job, so we have more flexibility over what kind of job we do.
However, there are 3 Disqualifiers for Some Jobs
One, the job offers you few opportunities to distinguish yourself with rare and valuable work.
Two, the job makes you focus on useless or morally wrong activities.
Three, the job forces you to work with people you don’t like.
Two. Why did Jordan Tice excel in guitar in ways that Cal Newport did not in spite of their equal years of playing time?
“Discomfort with mental discomfort is a liability in the performance world.”
You must work through the discomfort to reach higher limits of your talent. Only then can you achieve breakthroughs and develop a skill that is rare and valuable.
Jordan practiced, and this meant a lot of repetitious tedium.
In addition to doing deep work, Jordan got instant feedback.
We learn that deep work is most effective when a teacher or mentor figure gives us feedback as we make our progress.
In contrast, Cal played casually. Jordan became a professional. Cal became a guitar-playing dilettante.
Three. What is the 10,000-Hour Rule?
Excellence at performing a complex task requires a minimum of hours to accomplish. We’re not just talking any hours. We’re talking deep work hours, that is undistracted focus entailing a lot of mental discomfort.
Being willing to do 10,000 hours of deep work is a trait we see in people who labeled as geniuses like Mozart and Bill Gates.
Genius does not exist without deep work.
Talent without deep work is a flop, a dud, and a waste.
Four. Is hard work enough to reach a level of mastery?
No. Deep work leads to deliberate practice, which requires feedback. Without deliberate practice and feedback, even a talented hard-working person will hit a plateau.
Five. What are the Five Habits of a Craftsman?
1: Decide what capital market you are in. There are 2 kinds of markets –
Winner-take-all: One killer skills with a few winners all over the world (e.g. hollywood script writer)
Auction: Diverse collection of skills. Here, there are many different types of career capital and each person might generate their own unique collection (e.g. CEO of a Fortune 500 company)
2: Identify your capital type. Ignore this if you are in a winner-take-all market as there’s only one type of capital. (i.e. be amongst the top 10 script writers in the world to make it in Hollywood)
For an auction market, however, seek open gates i.e. opportunities to build capital that are already open to you. Open gates get us farther faster. Skill acquisition is like a freight train: Getting it started requires a huge application of effort, but changing its track once it’s moving is easy. (e.g. keep moving upwards in an organization and then laterally instead of trying to move laterally and start from scratch)
3: Define “good.” Set clear goals. For a script writer, the definition of “good” is clear – his scripts being taken seriously.
4: Stretch and destroy. Deliberate practice – that uncomfortable sensation in our heads that feels like physical strain, as if neurons are physically re-forming into new configurations.
5: Be patient. Look years into the future for the payoff. It’s less about paying attention to your main pursuit, and more about your willingness to ignore other pursuits that pop up along the way to distract you.
Six. What is the power of control and how does control result in job happiness?
Giving people more control at work increases their happiness, fulfillment, and engagement.
But you cannot earn safe control without career capital. Think of the lady who quit her job to run yoga studios. She had to go on food stamps.
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