So Good They Can't Ignore You

For years, I’ve kept this GIF on my desktop, referring to it in (not infrequent) moments of uncertainty and confusion. It’s a funny image, but it also rings true in so many situations: with people always posturing and performing their successes and passions, what does it mean to have doubt that rise to the surface and how do you work through them in a system that loves certainty?

The question “what am I supposed to be doing here?” is a good one for any moment of change or transition. When explaining a tech bootcamp to people, the follow-up is often why are you doing it. My answer generally draws on previous knowledge and research. Since my undergraduate education, I’ve always had an interest in technology and how it functions in society, but it took on a more critical and abstract framework. These questions have persisted in the intervening years, and at a certain point, I became frustrated with the level of abstraction in my interest and in the conversations I was having. I wanted to know what was happening under the hood, and to be able to do it myself. Career benefits were of course a factor.

This is probably an okay answer to “what am I supposed to be doing here.” But, as I phase out of the bootcamp and into the job search, “probably okay” is not such a great answer. Employers like to hear about passion and conviction. And although I feel passionate about the journey I am on and excited about the direction of it, I’ve always been wary of the passion narrative. And a developer friend had given me ammunition for this position: Cal Newport’s So Good They Can’t Ignore You.

Newport begins his book by undoing that classic bit of career advice to “follow your passion,” perhaps most famously peddled by Steve Jobs in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford. For Newport, this is a terrible piece of wisdom and advises that one do as Jobs did, rather than said, proceeding to outline the somewhat erratic and not-always-passion-filled or intentional pathway Jobs followed. His rejection of Jobs’ advice in relation to Jobs’ pathway does not disavow the passion that Jobs eventually felt (quite palpably) for his work, rather, it suggests that the story is more complicated. For Newport, “passion is an epiphenomenon of a well-lived life,” and he advises that passion should follow you in your work rather than guiding you to it.

An important distinction that Newport makes is one between what he calls the passion mindset and the craftsman. In the passion mindset, we see what the world can offer you. It is driven by a sense of inchoate purpose and, to Newport, always leaves us feeling empty, like some part of our core is being unattended to. In contrast, he advocates for the craftsman mindset, which focuses more on “what can I offer the world.” As his title (which he borrows from Steve Martin) suggests, the craftsman mindset relies on deliberate practice—cultivating skills that can be offered to solve problems. Newport writes, “If you can figure out how to integrate deliberate practice into your own life, you have the possibility of blowing past your peers in your value, as you’ll likely be alone in your dedication to systematically getting better. That is, deliberate practice might provide the key to quickly becoming so good they can’t ignore you.” Passion for Newport is not inherent to any activity. It is then an epiphenomenon of the hard work that it takes to become “so good.”

I take two things away from Newport’s idea. One is that the epiphenomenon of passion has to rely on the context in which you work and the feelings it generates. The sense of progress and possibility I feel in writing code is definitely a driving force. The small revelations in understanding Redux I’ve had recently feel like the great epiphanies of my life. And there are so many more epiphanies I want to have. But the context also depends on having people to share that with and to achieve those goals with. Passion might enter into some kind of feedback loop with compelling one to be so good—even the best—but it is best when it has community around it.

Secondly, I have read Newport’s book in the context of being incredibly junior and green. How does one become so good to not be ignored in a few months, when competing against people with decades of experience and fighting the job climate of a global pandemic? There was something in the Flatiron curriculum that rang true for me in confronting this skill gap:

"The secret to increasing your confidence? Stop convincing yourself that you’re awesome and confident. Instead, forgive yourself when you’re not. Focus on learning, and think of any mistakes as things you can learn from with self-compassion in that ability to learn. Your self-compassion will shine as outward confidence because you are simply being you to the best of your ability and being kind to yourself in the process."

I know that in the next few weeks nor probably ever will never write the most brilliant code, but there are other skillsets that can make someone so good they cannot be ignored—soft skills that carry over from other jobs and fields around communication, attitude, and outlook. Self-compassion and confidence are crucial facets to being good at anything, and recognizing the different capabilities anyone brings to writing code—and everything around it be it the patience to debug or the support offered to a colleague—is all essential.