Newport suggests a simple rule, borrowed from Derek Sivers, who has made an entire career out of controlling his own destiny:

Siver’s ‘Law of Financial Viability’: “When deciding whether to follow an appealing pursuit that will introduce more control into your work life, seek evidence of whether people are willing to pay for it. If you find this

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Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, perhaps, that Newport’s advice on finding purpose falls flat. You’re probably going to get pretty far on So Good ’s first two sections alone. And perhaps you should be comfortable with the idea that mission and purpose are elusive, rare things — things you may never find in your career.

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Newport than parlays this into two observations about seeking more autonomy:

1. If you seek autonomy in your current role before gaining enough career capital, you won’t get the autonomy you seek. To put this simply: control demands capital .


2. Once you’ve gained sufficient career capital to seek control, the universe conspires to prevent you from gaining

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Newport argues that applying deliberate practice to your chosen skill market is your best shot at becoming ‘so good they can’t ignore you’. The key is to stretch — you want to practice skills that are just above your current skill level, so that you experience discomfort — but not too much discomfort that you’ll give up.

Newport reduces this advice... See more

The lesson Newport concludes from Jackson’s story is that you should ‘seek open gates’ when you’re in an auction skills market — that is, seek capital-building opportunities that are already open to you. Jackson’s moves at each point of his career has been to capitalise on the career capital he earned from his previous step.

So: optimise the ‘one... See more

The first idea is that there are two different kinds of skill markets: winner-take-all markets, and auction markets.

Newport thinks that if your job has one or more of the following qualities, you should leave your job in favour of another where you can build career capital:

• Your job presents few opportunities to distinguish yourself by developing relevant skills that are rare and valuable.


• Your job focuses on something you think is useless or perhaps even actively

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Newport defines what he calls ‘The Career Capital Theory of Great Work’:

• The traits that define great work are rare and valuable. Specifically, desireable jobs are creative , allow you to create large impact , and give you control over your work and life.


• Consequently, supply and demand indicates that you need to offer rare and valuable skills in

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Newport believes that Self Determination Theory holds the answer. Self Determination Theory is the idea that your happiness is related to:

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... See more