You may be wondering why this book is listed under Mindset. Simply put, there’s been so much talk about doing what you love and you will never work another day in your life and finding your passion. Well, I love speaking French and that doesn’t mean I will translate for the United Nations unless I put in a lot, and in my case, a very lot of work to get there. It’s not enough to just say “merci beaucoup monsieur!”

After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do. Spending time with organic farmers, venture capitalists, screenwriters, freelance computer programmers, and others who admitted to deriving great satisfaction from their work, Newport uncovers the strategies they used and the pitfalls they avoided in developing their compelling careers.

Matching your job to a preexisting passion does not matter, he reveals. Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.