So Good They Can't Ignore You

Driven by this insight, while my classmates contemplated their true calling, I went seeking opportunities to master rare skills that would yield big rewards.

lifestyle-design community. This movement argues that you don’t have to live life by other people’s

carve out one walk each day for free-form thinking about the ideas turned up by this background research

“One thing a lot of people struggle with in my field is that they have a lot of ideas, but don’t know how to get them turned into reality.”

This insight explains Sarah’s struggles: She was trying to find a mission before she got to the cutting edge (she was still in her first two years as a graduate student when she began to panic about her lack of focus).

You need to get good in order to get good things in your working life, and the craftsman mindset is focused on achieving exactly this goal.

In other words, he used his capital to build a career custom-fit to his personality, which is why he now loves his working life.

you need to be ceaselessly scanning your always-changing view of the adjacent possible in your field, looking for the next big idea. This requires a dedication to brainstorming and exposure to new ideas. Combined, these two commitments describe a lifestyle, not a series of steps that automatically spit out a mission when completed.

If you have many years’ experience, then you’ve had time to get better at what you do and develop a feeling of efficacy. It also gives you time to develop strong relationships with your coworkers and to see many examples of your work benefiting others.

This subtlety probably explains why so many people lack an organizing focus to their careers, even though such focus is widely admired: Missions are hard.