I read regularly thanks to our local Public Library. Recently the Tim Ferris podcast has expanded my reading list with lots of interesting books. Luckily the local library has most of these books and hold waiting lists tend to space the reading out well.
One of the the first Tim Ferris podcasts I listened to was with Derek Sivers and he mentioned that he maintains a list of book reviews with ratings on his website. I immediately went to the website and looked through the highest rated books and setup holds at the library.
The first book I read was “So good they cannot ignore you” by Cal Newport. This was a short read and the simplicity of its message resonated with me. The basic message is that our society rewards people with rare and valuable skills, not people with passion. Many sources of career advice talk about “following passion”, but passion without skills is not sufficient. If passion drives the building of valuable skills then it is helpful. The media often portrays having passion as the most important requirement to getting a great job but that is harmful because it often leads to confusion and inflated expectations. Cal calls these valuable skills “career capital” and I really like that perspective. Career capital is skills and experience that can be exchanged for career opportunities.
The best books motivate you to make changes in your life. This book helped me reflect on the career capital that would help me advance my career. For a software developer that would be submitting patches to open source projects and writing technical blog posts. I have decided to commit 10% of my work time to doing this. I haven’t been able to implement it fully, but I am making more of an effort. I have reported bugs and submitted some small patches. Ideally this will grow to more and larger patches.
Rating: Highly recommended.