Comments on: Disruptive Thinkers: Marty Nemko Wants You To Forget Your Boring Passions

By: Study Hacks

Study Hacks — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:48:22 +0000

My motto is “If I have to do something, I might as well do it well”

I hear you on that…

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:24:43 +0000

This guy sounds like a fame-monger who is willing to sacrifice principle for the vague notion of ‘being great’. Being the best acid broker simply because it’s not a very popular career? Please.

My motto is “If I have to do something, I might as well do it well”. Working in a pet store, for example. I need the money for school and I certainly don’t want to work in a pet store as a career but if I have to spend 30 hours a week there, I might as well strive to be the best worker they ever had.

By: Scott H Young » Why You Should Be a Geek

Scott H Young » Why You Should Be a Geek — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:17:24 +0000

[…] week Cal Newport interviewed career coach Marty Nemko on his blog. Nemko’s advice was that you should drop your boring passions: Forget passion unless it’s a […]

By: Study Hacks

Study Hacks — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 20:09:41 +0000

@Grad Hacker:

Yeah, it’s weird with Oprah, people either seem to love her or hate her. I wonder what it is about her that makes her so polarizing? I guess, if you’re a TV personality, better to inspire strong emotions than for people to not care about you?

By: Michael | University Scholar

Michael | University Scholar — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 19:33:03 +0000

I agree with David’s excellent point.

By: Grad Hacker

Grad Hacker — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:11:17 +0000

Why the completely unnecessary jab at Oprah? Because she doesn’t think boys are the “the most under-served and worthy kids”? Wow.

By: Study Hacks

Study Hacks — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:56:22 +0000

@David:

Nice nuance. I think you’re on to something there. Saying “I want to help poor people,” for example, sounds, on its face, boring. However, if your approach was to invent micro-lending — then you win a Nobel Prize.

By: David

David — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:46:33 +0000

I think this is only partially correct. He thinks that what makes a passion boring is it’s popularity. I say it’s a failure to pursue a problem that hasn’t been undertaken in that passion. In other words, the extent to which you can use your knowledge/experience to carve out a niche for yourself in your field is a more valid predictor of success within your passion/field than simply the number of people in it.

A subtle point in this idea is the difference between new solutions to old problems and new perspectives on old problems. For example, one of the posts here talked about living an Automatic lifestyle
I’ve seen this idea of breaking down tasks into their smallest, non-trivial steps before several times, but I’ve never seen someone relate the ideas of mechanism and policy in computer science to lifestyle design. This framework has actually proven to be more conducive to helping me understand why it’s good to do this than just telling myself “I need to break down my tasks.”