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Books

So Good They Can't Ignore You

Cal Newport · 2012 · 304 pages

3 people have this book on the record — 1 of 3 verdicts positive. The dissent stays on the page.

The bar next to each date shows how long ago it was said: 6d is days, 4yr is years.

Rakhim Davletkaliyev read it
A nicely written case against the ‘follow your passion’ advice with a well-defined career-building strategy. As many non-fiction sel-help books, could be at least 10 times shorter, but hey, it’s pretty good.

on rakhim.org · 16 Aug 2026

Jason Evanish liked it affiliate
The common advice for Gen Y is to "Follow your passion" and yet so many of us struggle to do so. Cal has an awesome counter argument for a better approach to building a career you'll love. This book logically lays out its case for focusing on developing unique and valuable skills and slowly evolving a core mission that drives you. He also breaks it down so it's clear exactly what *you* can do so you're not feeling like you just have a bunch of empty theories.

on jasonevanish.com · 28 Oct 2020

Radek Pietruszewski read it
Podcast. They always say to follow your passion. But it’s actually a terrible career advice. The book offers an alternative model to think of your career more compelling than that.

on radex.io · 1 Jan 2015

Find it on Open Library →  ·  This book on rcmnd →

That little bar

It says how long ago something was said, so you can tell last month from 2014 without doing the arithmetic. Full and green is recent; it drains and cools as the date gets older, and empties completely at about 6 years.

A striped bar means the date itself is an estimate — the source did not carry an exact one. An entry with no date at all gets no bar.