So Good They Can't Ignore You | Stuff You Like

5 years of Stuff You Like, and a book review! So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion In The Quest For Work You Love, is an ode to the Craftsman mentality, learning rare and valuable skills, and passion as a side-effect of mastery.

[BadtimeBard]

"Passion without skill is just enthusiasm" had no business landing as hard as it just did for me. As a soon-to-be graduate I think this was some much needed insight and definitely gives me more to consider when looking for my first industry job, whatever that may be. Thank you

[stevebills]

Thanks. When I lost my corporate job I spent a couple of months entertaining at an old folks home one hour a week. I absolutely loved it. It remains far and away my favourite job. I enjoyed it so much I gave serious thought to making a go at doing it full time in other homes. But a quick review of the sums and the effort I'd need to put in made it clear that for me singing will forever be my favourite thing to do, but as a hobby, or to earn a handful of extra coppers. Meanwhile back in a large corporate (which is where I've ended up) I have far more security, income to feed my hobby, and support/social life with my co-workers (and many other benefits besides). I would never consider my career a "passion", but it's perfectly fulfilling and I enjoy it. That's all I want my work to be.

[darthslaits]

Thanks for posting this, I'd never heard of this book until now! I plan to order a copy soon.

And since you asked, I've got a little personal anecdote to add about not choosing works based on your passions. I'm not sure if the book talks about this, but if you try and monetize the things you love, you can quickly ruin your love for it.

I'm an artist by all extent and purposes, been creating all my life, got a degree in it, etc. So when I graduated college I began doing commission work, using a passion in which I was skilled to make money.

It made sense. I was good at it and was already drawing every day, why not make money doing it? And at first it was alright, building an audience was slow-going, but I never was without some work. But as money became involved my relationship to my skills and passions began to shift. I was drawing other people's ideas, and for people who didn't have the understanding to appreciate the best of my skills, and I was having to churn them out in what basically amounted to customized mass-production.


After about a year and a half I hated what I was doing.

My art's quality hadn't just stagnated, it worsened. I would make things and then never want to look at them again. And I didn't want to draw for myself because it had been down right tainted for me. When I finally stopped doing commissions, I went for a whole year without picking up a pencil to draw anything.

Luckily I could turn my focus to writing, but even that I had to change how I did, because coming off of all that time focusing on my passions through the perspective of monetization, I kept stressing about making my work publishable instead of just making things for the love of it.


Now I'm about to start a job working with contractors to get them their necessary construction supplies. And I'm excited for it because it'll give me an opportunity to learn about many new things while using the marketing skills I developed doing commissions. And more importantly, it means that my art and my writing can continue to be something I do for me. I can focus on developing those skills I'm so passionate about for myself, and not have to sacrifice experimentation or quality to pay my bills.


TLDR: When they say 'do what you love' it shouldn't mean 'monetize what you love', or you could quickly learn to hate even your life-long passions.

[danielschneider]

After a trip to a living history museum when i was a child, I *really* wanted to become a blacksmith. In my 20s, I had the opportunity to work at a (different) museum and (among other things) learn blacksmithing. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. After 10 years, I was a fairly skilled smith, making less than I would working at McDonalds, and incredibly tired of being poor while working my a** off. So, I got a job in a factory, making wooden boxes. It was boring, and not really what you'd call spiritually fulfilling, but it enabled me to afford a life outside of work, where I could be passionate on my own terms- because no matter how much you love a job, there are going to be aspects of it that you don't like, and over time those things can start to taint how you feel about the thing you were passionate about in the first place.

[soniashapiro]

So cheering to watch this today two years after you successfully turned your YouTube channel into something huge. "results not typical". Very good.

[cdwrrir]

You know I’m a professional scientist. To be honest I’d rather have done it as a hobby in some ways. Gives you more control over your work. So many scientists have very little say in their research direction until well into their careers. And it takes 6 years of training minimum to break into the career.

But it’s very hard to do real science any other way. Even the cheapest science experiments tend to cost 1000s of pounds. And of course they can get a lot more expensive. Particle accelerators aren’t cheep.
The only hobby scientists who do real science, at least the only ones I know about, are millionaires.

So yeah that’s the thing about making your passion your job. Sometimes it is literally the only way to pursue your passion.

[CptAwwsome]

I love the way you humanized the summarized book. There are ideas kicking around my brain, something about the way we are taught to frame dream career choices in a weird narrative way. Like it's all for the story we will tell others to understand our purpose as the hero of our own lives. Titles like "doctor" or "astronaut" are way easier to weave into our narrative-future than "marketing associate" or "financial analyst." It's like we plan the story then live reality and wonder why the rest of the world wasn't reading the same book. I think I've been the happiest doing things that weren't necessarily the coolest cocktail-party jobs.

[JR-bjuf]

Jill, I have been watching your videos now and I am always drawn to your clear communication style and humor as you present interesting topic. I wanted to address this topic. I have just landed a job I love. It is the first job I have felt entirely comfortable in and satisfied with and I am 62 years old. At first I tried to follow the wishes of my parents getting a corporate job. That paid well but I figured they were going to fire me the whole time I worked there when they figured out how very little I actually did. Then I got a high pressure job as an art director for a small agency. That lasted a year until it collapsed. My wife says that it saved my life from the inevitable heart attack I was working on. After that I bounced around doing anything and trying to find something. Now I work in shipping and receiving. It is a combination of accounting, stock keeping and physical exercise in a heavy equipment environment. I love my job and I love the down to earth and quirky people I work with and I am actually pretty good at being very picky about the details. My advice: do not live out your life trying to fit some image of yourself. Do not keep smacking that square peg into the round hole.

[jerryfick]

Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs coined a similar idea.
"Don't follow your passion, take it with you!"

[stevegeorge]

Why aren't you dominating this platform? I just incidentally found this channel crawling from Channel Awesome to The Cinema Snob to your review of Jesus, Bro!; and I have to say that the accent could sell anything, but the content is so good that it would be worth following if delivered in sequential flashcards or some equally inconvenient format.

[MrTmack]

The folks who say "Follow your dreams" never had one where they were robbing a book sale with Richard Nixon.

[kentjohnson]

My name is Kent Johnson. The thrifty guy in the Coronet film is Ralph. I played Ralph. So you can tease me directly if you think this is laughable stuff. You are right … it is! This was my first shot at film acting and obviously I still had a lot to learn. I was also in the Good Grooming production Jill mentioned at the end and one called Rest and Health with Dick York. I'm now 87 and living in Seattle.

[blaufman]

I haven't read the book as I tend to read for a mental massage rather than "self help". I am good at what I do and I'm paid fairly well to do it. I work from home most of the time so working conditions are about as good as they can be. My work can be very stressful and I have strong feelings about it and I strive to be a perfectionist. But I would resist using the word "passionate" to describe my relationship with my work as one day I will happily retire and walk away and spend all my time doing things I enjoy even more and am actually passionate about. While I'm quite good at these things, these are the things that I do in my spare time to relax and keep me sane. I think every job (whether you enjoy it or not) comes with its moments of high stress and unhappy times and you need to retreat into something else to recharge. While I don't know if I could make a business out of my hobbies and interests (the things I am passionate about), but if I did - what would I do then to relax? For me, that's too much like polluting the waters.

[deec]

Late to the party, but I live in California, and today was the first nice day after literal WEEKS of temps >110F. The highest I can recall with certainty was 122F. That’s 50C. That’s too much. But learning about hedonistic adaptation was exciting for me, bc now I have something new to learn about. 🔥

[KaiHenningsen]

Hmm. My passion and the closely related hobby developed in parallel, such that at the time I started work, I was already ... I'd say quite a bit above-average. However, I had (still have) passion for other stuff which isn't my work, nor usually particularly relevant to it - that's the "enthusiasm" thing. So ... looking back, the most important part was doing stuff alongside developing that particular passion, such that I was learning stuff long before anyone might ask how good I was.

[nephys]

passions that become jobs, become JOBS, with all the pre-existing shit every job has.

[purplealice]

I mastered the skills of a job which is usually only done by men, but I'm a woman. I turned out to be VERY VERY good at it, better than many of my male co-workers. But this didn't get me enough work to count as a "career" 😞

[DavidKennyNZL]

Avoided management. Stick with knowing technical stuff backward so you just make it work no mater what.

[purplealice]

Try to get a job doing what you *like* to do. I never did locate a job where I'd get paid to eat, sleep, and read books.

[TheWiseRabbit]

I found this book hard to read, I haven't finished it. Because the premise "so good they can't ignore you" strikes me as very very privilege-centric. So good they can't ignore you for a minority can be literally being the absolute best, and even still... I've seen mediocre people in high positions and excellent people toil in anonymity, because they are a minority or discriminated group.