Good Work (book)
✒️ Note-Making
🔗Connect
⬆️Topic:: Self promotion and Entrepreneurship (MOC)
💡Clarify
🔈 Summary of main ideas
- Work should be something exhilarating - we are led astray by salaries and others expectations that a good job requires sacrifice. This is not the case, a good work is something that sets a fire going within us, that fuels our soul, that we enjoy pursuing, and that connects well with the life we want to live
- Burnout and exhaustion are not a good sign - they are not badges of honor to be displayed proudly, rather a sign that we are not doing what we truly want to do in this life. That this is not the life we want
- Believe in yourself - it takes courage and faith to go on your path, but once you discover it you will want to protect it at all costs
- Your road is unique - going on your path is filled with unknowns because no one has ever gone that path before, it is yours, it is unique, you will face unique challenges following your personal passion. Only you can find the answers to the questions.
🗒️Relate
⛓ by following this method, what will happen? What is the goal of this book?
🔍Critique
✅ relevant research, metaphors or examples that helps to convey the argument
❌ the logical jumps, holes or simply cases where it is wrong...
🧱 Implementations and limitations of it are... So what do I do now? Do I know how to find my good work? Do I know whether my work is just good enough? How do I succeed in following my passion? All these questions are mostly unanswered
🗨️Review
💭 my opinions on the book, the writers style... This book is more about his personal experience through stories about his journey, rather than a dedicated research / deep dive on the subject.
Since his story is so particular, moving to Taipei to start a writing career, it is hard to sympathize. Also, it is meant to inspire, not teach, so while the words are "glamorous", the content is repetitive and shallow.
🖼️Outline
📒 Notes
Introduction
When you feel passionless, burnout, and exhausted, it is probably because you haven't yet found your good work. It is something that resonates within you, that spark you with intrinsic motivation. It is something that we have to discover, to protect, and requires much introspection. Many of us won't find it in a rigid 9-5 editing slides.
- Good work is powerful. It can reshape what you desire from life. It can fill your days with a renewable form of life energy that you want to protect. (Location 116)
- Once you discover your good work, take it seriously and protect it, as it can be one of the most powerful ways to show up in the world, contribute, and feel useful. (Location 123)
- good work is simple, but hard: it requires self-reflection, trial and error, and having faith in yourself and the world. (Location 129)
Awaken to Good Work
Embrace the Unknown
Embarking on the pathless path that needs to be taken to find your good work, requires a leap into faith. It is one of the most scariest things to quit everything and pursue your passions, but it is a leap we must make. You must rid yourself of all ties to the Conventional life in order to start a new clean slate.
At first you won't make any money, it is part of the journey, but you need to be ready for it.
Follow Your Energy
Even when times are tough, it's better to not focus on the money, and focus about pursuing your unique path. Growing is better than earning. Freelancing can often lead to good enough work, because it starts from what you enjoy doing, but as it grows into a business, tasks that you don't like doing are also added, which might bring to closer to where you began.
- “Coming alive over getting ahead.” It was a reminder to choose work that lit me up, rather than work that merely serves to earn more money. (Location 365)
- freelancing is often a useful, but temporary, first stop for people on unconventional paths. It involves work you are good at and perhaps even enjoy somewhat, but if you try to turn this work into a business or your new identity, you end up creating a job for yourself that includes everything you wanted to escape in the first place. (Location 373)
- Once I stopped trying to be successful in other people’s eyes, I was able to slow down, pay attention, and notice the things I did naturally, (Location 417)
Commit to the Journey
Sometimes, acknowledging that you are doing a not-good work, and finding out what you good work is requires slowing down, taking a Break, and reflecting on your life. For example, taking a sabbatical from work creates Empty Space in your mind and time, that enables you to see your life more clearly.
Other's might judge you for it, but it is one of the best things you can do for yourself. Instead of life's linearity, you will see work and life as something that ever changes and flows with one another life as flow
- This is exactly what good work is about: noticing the season of life you are in, right now, and seeing what work you are called to do. (Location 492)
Have Faith in Good Work
Going on this path will be hard, it will take time, but you need to trust the process. Most importantly, it takes confidence. We can be our own worse critics self criticism, so we need someone who we could lean on when we lack the power to support ourselves.
Rewrite Your Work Story
Find a Positive Edge
It's easy to internalize others expectations of ourselves, to go on the popular paths to success in life.
However, it is also easy to go on our own path, once we find a reason to fight for this kind of life
- the only true and worthwhile edge is deeply caring about what you do. (Location 785)
Don't Mistake a Good Job for Good Work
A "good job" might be what we expect, to get a high salary while sometimes doing things we don't like. Don't settle for a good job, your life is yours to life. Find something that lights a fire in your soul. You might sacrifice your earning, but what you get back is the chance to do what you like everyday, while also having a better work-life balance.
- Helping people live courageously so that they can thrive is one of the most important things in the world. I want to see people live the lives they are capable of, not just the ones they think they are allowed to live. (Location 822)
- A life built around good work requires you to be brutally honest about what you truly want and what is actually possible. (Location 858)
- Instead of searching for skill-market fit, you should start with person-interest fit. What are the activities you absolutely must do? What do you truly care about? (Location 867)
Questions Your Job Scripts
we are all born into a world with strong narratives around what a job is. That we have to work hard, that we have to make sacrifices for our family, that enjoyment is not the issue, pay and benefits are. That hustle culture is a good thing, that being busy means doing something worth while, that burnout and exhaustion are things to be proud of.
We have a choice, we can create new narratives, we can choose to see work differently, as something that nourishes us, that fuels us, that we feel a part of. alienation
- You have a choice: you can accept the scripts you grew up with that tell you what a successful work life looks like, or you can author new ones. Life isn’t a single movie script that everyone should perform identically, it’s something we must improvise. (Location 1050)
Embrace the Challenges
Solve the Puzzle of Good Work
Choosing to go on your path to good work is hard. It is unique because it is merged with your identity, with who you are, no two paths will look the same. This means that the challenges are yours alone to face. However, finding your good work is the most energizing thing you can do, and often once you find it you wish to protect it at all cost, because it is part of who you are.
Ask yourself what you are drawn to, what makes you feel alive, and pursue this direction.
- The path to good work is filled with uncertainty. This is because your path will be uniquely yours and the challenges you face will be one-of-a-kind. No one else can take the path you will take. (Location 1177)
Do what Feels Right
Don't be afraid to slow down, to do whatever it takes to maintain the feeling of flow, instead of trying to rush things that eventually will destroy your good work, yourself, or both.
Find the Zeal
Suffering is not a badge of honor, especially not for the sake of suffering. You will face challenges, but you get to choose which. Do the ones that make you feel alive.
See Your Work as it is
Try to gain clarity in how you see your life and your work. Don't listen to the inner critic. The best information comes from focusing on what you do. How do you feel when you do these types of work?
Commit to Good Work
Leave Money on the Table
Leaving money on the table, i.e either to stay in the safe job as an employee, or becoming a sell-out as a writer, is hard. Money seems like a good proxy for all that we want in life. But we need to remember that it's not always the case. When we choose money, we need to think about the Opportunity cost. What are we missing by choosing money? Usually the price is living the life we want, achieving inner peace, spending time with our family, writing about what we care about and not what brings the most clicks. McNamara Fallacy
Reclaim Your Ambition
To be ambitious means pursuing the life you want, nothing more and nothing less.
- Your ambition desires more than a job title, a salary, or a brand-name company. It is a fire that burns inside of you—not for a bigger paycheck, but for a bigger life. (Location 1680)