There is no shortcut to smart.

-Naval Ravikant

Transcript

Hello!

This week we are continuing to define the terms and ideas that are foundational to the processes of A New Order of Things. Conveniently, Naval Ravikant had a presence in our last episode #4: The Right Questions, and will grace us again in this one.

This week’s topic is an idea and process that I did not know had a title for decades. It is just something I have always done. Then I found Cal Newport, who devotes his 2012 So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, to the idea of what he calls Career Capital.

Because I found Cal’s definition of these ideas prior to the others we will discuss shortly, I call this process by Cal’s chosen verbiage. Thus, the title of this episode.

In the book, Newport investigates his hypothesis that the advice to “Follow Your Passion” might be terrible advice. This Passion Hypothesis is defined as:

The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you are passionate about and then find a job that matches this passion.

In short, “what can the world, or this job, offer ME?”

His research finds that time and again, this advice is poor. He goes on in his research to define and describe a differing process, he calls this the Craftsman Mindset.

Cal states:

The Carer Capitol Theory of Great Work:

1. The traits that define great work are rare and valuable.
2. Supply and demand says that if you want these traits you need rare and valuable skills you can offer as your Career Capital.
3. The craftsman mindset, with its relentless focus on becoming “so good they can’t ignore you”, is a strategy well suited for acquiring career capital. This is why it trumps the passion mindset if your goal is to create work you love.

The difference between passion and craftsman?

In short, those utilizing Passion ask, “what can the world, or this job, offer ME?”

Those with a Craftsman Mindset ask, “what can I offer the world or this job?”

Simplified Example: A career seeker states: I love my houseplants so I should work with plants. So, I am going to work at a nursery.

Question: How does a love of potted plants in your window transmit to being out of doors in all kinds of weather, lifting actual tons of potting mix, fertilizer, and manure every day. Can you Perform safe and responsible driving of forklifts and backhoes. Drive delivery trucks. Provide Non-stop Customer service. What about your minimal knowledge of plants apart from Bob, your potted, window-bound nasturtium?

Does your affinity for Bob make you a valuable collection of skills for the Nursery? Or, are you going to figure out in short order that your passion is not enough to bring value to the establishment?

But what if we put the Craftsman Mindset to work. The same career seeker decides they love plants and want to work in a nursery. So they:

Take courses and read books about plants and their needs.

Peruse the nurseries in your area on weekends watching to see how they merchandise.

Reach out to a friend that has a farm and buy him some beer to teach you how to drive tractors and forklifts.

Read up on marketing and sales techniques and put them to use in interactions at your current work, school, organization, family…. everywhere.

Build some muscle. Join a gym, swing a kettlebell, a lot. Or figure out a way of doing it on the cheap. (Email me at interesting@eddiekillian.com, I have some resources.)

Now they go apply to that nursery. List out what they know and have experience in on the application. In other words, they let the owner/manager know what effort has been put into being able to offer them and the world (customers) a great worker who takes pride in being so good they cannot be ignored.

Naval Ravikant in his tweet storm titled: How To Get Rich. Discusses what he calls “Specific Knowledge”. This tweetstorm and the transcripts of other talks and conversations Naval has had are collected in The Almanac of Naval Ravikant compiled and published by Eric Jorgenson.

Naval Tweeted:

BECOME THE BEST IN THE WORLD AT WHAT YOU DO.

KEEP REDEFINING WHAT YOU DO UNTIL THIS IS TRUE.

FIND AND BUILD SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Here he details these ideas..

Sales skills are a form of specific knowledge.

There’s such a thing as “a natural” in sales. You run into them all the time in startups and venture capital. When you meet someone who is a natural at sales, you just know they’re amazing. They’re really good at what they do. That is a form of specific knowledge.

Obviously, they learned somewhere, but they didn’t learn it in a classroom setting. They learned probably in their childhood in the schoolyard, or they learned negotiating with their parents. Maybe some is a genetic component in the DNA.

But you can improve your sales skills. You can read Robert Cialdini, you can go to a sales training seminar, you can do door-to-door sales. It is brutal but will train you very quickly. You can definitely improve your sales skills.

Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned.

When I talk about specific knowledge, I mean figuring out what you were doing as a kid or teenager almost effortlessly. Something you didn’t even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. Your mother or your best friend growing up would know.

Examples of what your specific knowledge could be:

→ Sales skills

 → Musical talents, with the ability to pick up any instrument

→ An obsessive personality: you dive into things and remember them quickly

→ Love for science fiction: you were into reading sci-fi, which means you absorb a lot of knowledge very quickly

→ Playing a lot of games, you understand game theory pretty well

→ Gossiping, digging into your friend network. That might make you into a very interesting journalist.

The specific knowledge is sort of this weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. It’s almost baked into your personality and your identity. Then you can hone it.

No one can compete with you on being you.

Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most.

For example, I love to read, and I love technology. I learn very quickly, and I get bored fast. If I had gone into a profession where I was required to tunnel down for twenty years into the same topic, it wouldn’t have worked. I’m in venture investing, which requires me to come up to speed very, very quickly on new technologies (and I’m rewarded for getting bored because new technologies come along). It matches up pretty well with my specific knowledge and skill sets. [10]

I wanted to be a scientist. That is where a lot of my moral hierarchy comes from. I view scientists as being at the top of the production chain for humanity. The group of scientists who have made real breakthroughs and contributions probably added more to human society, I think, than any single other class of human beings. Not to take away anything from art or politics or engineering or business, but without science, we’d still be scrambling in the dirt fighting with sticks and trying to start fires.

Society, business, & money are downstream of technology, which is itself downstream of science. Science applied is the engine of humanity.

Corollary: Applied Scientists are the most powerful people in the world. This will be more obvious in the coming years.

My whole value system was built around scientists, and I wanted to be a great scientist. But when I actually look back at what I was uniquely good at and what I ended up spending my time doing, it was more around making money, tinkering with technology, and selling people on things. Explaining things and talking to people.

I have some sales skills, which is a form of specific knowledge. I have some analytical skills on how to make money. And I have this ability to absorb data, obsess about it, and break it down—that is a specific skill that I have. I also love tinkering with technology. And all of this stuff feels like play to me, but it looks like work to others.

There are other people to whom these things would be hard, pithy and selling ideas?” Well, if you’re not already good at it or if you’re not really into it, maybe it’s not your thing—focus on the thing that you are really into.

The first person to actually point out my real specific knowledge was my mother. She did it as an aside, talking from the kitchen, and she said it when I was fifteen or sixteen years old. I was telling a friend of mine that I want to be an astrophysicist, and she said, “No, you’re going to go into business.” I was like, “What, my mom’s telling me I’m going to be in business? I’m going to be an astrophysicist. Mom doesn’t know she’s talking about.” But Mom knew exactly what she was talking about. [78]

Specific knowledge is found much more by pursuing your innate talents, your genuine curiosity, and your passion. It’s not by going to school for whatever is the hottest job; it’s not by going into whatever field investors say is the hottest.

Very often, specific knowledge is at the edge of knowledge. It’s also stuff that’s only now being figured out or is really hard to figure out. If you’re not 100 percent into it, somebody else who is 100 percent into it will outperform you. And they won’t just outperform you by a little bit—they’ll outperform you by a lot because now we’re operating the domain of ideas, compound interest really applies and leverage really applies. [78]

The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.

You can go on the internet, and you can find your audience. And you can build a business, create a product, build wealth, and make people happy just by uniquely expressing yourself through the internet. [78]

The internet enables any niche interest, as long as you’re the best person at it to scale out. And the great news is because every human is different, everyone is the best at something— being themselves.

Another tweet I had that is worth weaving in, but didn’t go into the “How to Get Rich” tweetstorm, was very simple: “Escape competition through authenticity.” Basically, when you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy. [78]

If you are fundamentally building and marketing something that is an extension of who you are, no one can compete with you on that. Who’s going to compete with Joe Rogan or Scott Adams? It’s impossible. Is somebody else going to come along and write a better Dilbert? No. Is someone going to compete with Bill Watterson and create a better Calvin and Hobbes? No. They’re being authentic. [78]

The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.

The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The old model of making money is going to school for four years, getting your degree, and working as a professional for thirty years. But things change fast now. Now, you have to come up to speed on a new profession within nine months, and it’s obsolete four years later. But within those three productive years, you can get very wealthy.

It’s much more important today to be able to become an expert in a brand-new field in nine to twelve months than to have studied the “right” thing a long time ago. You really care about having studied the foundations, so you’re not scared of any book. If you go to the library and there’s a book you cannot understand, you have to dig down and say, “What is the foundation required for me to learn this?” Foundations are super important. [74]

Basic arithmetic and numeracy are way more important in life than calculus. Similarly, being able to convey yourself simply using ordinary English words is far more important than being able to write poetry, having an extensive vocabulary, or speaking seven different foreign languages.

Knowing how to be persuasive when speaking is far more important than being an expert digital marketer or click optimizer. Foundations are key. It’s much better to be at 9/10 or 10/10 on foundations than to try and get super deep into things.

You do need to be deep in something because otherwise you’ll be a mile wide and an inch deep and you won’t get what you want out of life. You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It’s usually things you’re obsessed about. [74

Naval pointed out Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, and how no one would be smart to compete with him in the cartoon space. Interestingly, Adams of Dilbert fame wrote the following June 20, 2007, Dilbert.blog entry titled Career Advice.

The link to this will be available with the transcript of this episode at my website, eddiekillian.com. Links will be in the show notes.

I will read Scott’s post to you now:

Career Advice

Last night I met a script supervisor. She works with directors to make sure a movie has the right continuity, and one scene fits the next. It’s a fascinating job, hobnobbing with top directors, writers, and celebrities. No two assignments are the same. How do you get that kind of career? She earned a degree in anthropology and just “fell into it” through a series of events.

I know the feeling. I majored in economics, got an MBA, worked at a bank, then a phone company, and became a cartoonist.

For every person who studies something specific, such as the law or medicine, and actually ended up in that sort of career, I think there are five who let chance pick their careers. That works out more often than you’d think, but you can’t recommend it as a career strategy. Instead, I recommend a general formula for success. Allow me to explain.

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

I always advise young people to become good public speakers (top 25%). Anyone can do it with practice. If you add that talent to any other, suddenly you’re the boss of the people who have only one skill. Or get a degree in business on top of your engineering degree, law degree, medical degree, science degree, or whatever. Suddenly you’re in charge, or maybe you’re starting your own company using your combined knowledge.

Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. I didn’t spend much time with the script supervisor, but it was obvious that her verbal/writing skills were in the top tier as well as her people skills. I’m guessing she also has high attention to detail, and perhaps a few other skills in the mix. Probably none of those skills are the best in the world, but together they make a strong package. Apparently, she’s been in high demand for decades.

At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%.  If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that too.

It sounds like generic advice, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any successful person who didn’t have about three skills in the top 25%.

The final line of Adam’s post is a question:

What are your three?

This post by Adams predates Newport’s Book, So Good They Can’t Ignore you by five years, and Ravikant’s How To Get Rich (without getting lucky) tweet storm by 11 years. It has been referenced by Paul Graham (Y Combinator) and Mark Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz). It is definitely an idea that has reach.

I will leave you with this. Quit looking for a job that makes you happy. Start looking for skills that make you so good they can’t ignore you.

Pick the three skills that you can excel in and get to it.

Read Cal’s So Good The Can’t Ignore You. And Subscribe to his podcast. Deep Questions.

Read The Almanac of Naval Ravikant and subscribe to Both Naval Ravikant and Eric Jorgenson’s podcasts.

Links to all this are in the show notes and on the “Links Page” on my website, Eddiekillian.com

Join me next Tuesday as we continue to travel the path of what is difficult, perilous, and uncertain as we explore introducing A New Order of Things.

I am your host, Eddie Killian. And this concludes Episode Four.

References

Adams, S. (2007, June). Career Advice. Retrieved from Dilbert.blog: https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career-advice.html

Jorgenson, E. (2020). The Almanac of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness. Sheridan: Magrathea Publishing.

Newport, C. (2012). So Good They Can’t Ignore You. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

The podcast of Naval Ravikant: https://nav.al

Smart Friends, Eric Jorgenson’s Podcast: https://www.ejorgenson.com/