How Should One Combine Having Young Kids With New Ambitions?

00:00:04.320 | All right, we got a question here from Jonas.

00:00:07.840 | Jonas asks, "How should one combine having young children and integrate newfound ambitions to one's life?

00:00:17.120 | Should both be balanced or approached in a seasonal way?"

00:00:20.720 | So he says, "Hi Cal, I'm a father of two young children, age one and three.

00:00:25.840 | Having them into my life made me realize some of the potential I had in me but left untapped.

00:00:30.960 | I now want to realize it, but I find myself limited by my responsibilities as a father.

00:00:36.720 | Should I still aim for big ambitions and find a way to balance both, or should I view the current times as seasonal

00:00:43.120 | and wait for them to grow up a bit before seriously getting after it?"

00:00:46.880 | Now Jonas, I would say some seasonality here is probably warranted.

00:00:52.800 | When my kids were one and three, I would have been, it was a hard time just from an overhead admin

00:01:03.200 | just trying to make the work schedules work and it was not the easiest of times.

00:01:09.600 | I was trying to get tenure at that time.

00:01:11.760 | This was this period I've alluded to before where I had really taken my foot off the gas pedal in my writing career.

00:01:20.160 | So Deep Work came out, I've got to get this timeline right.

00:01:24.160 | So Deep Work, I finished writing Deep Work before my second was born.

00:01:28.640 | I think maybe it came out, I'm trying to get the timeline just right here.

00:01:35.040 | I was working on it before he was born, but obviously it took me a long time to finish.

00:01:40.480 | Because he was born in 2014, the book came out in 2016, but I finished it in 2015.

00:01:47.680 | And then I kind of walked away.

00:01:49.680 | I do have memories of editing that book with a baby on my shoulder.

00:01:53.680 | And then I was like, "Okay, I need to take a break."

00:01:55.680 | And it wasn't until years later that I got going again on Digital Minimalism and A World Without Emails.

00:02:01.680 | So I remember taking my foot off the writing gas pedal.

00:02:04.480 | Deep Work came out in that period and ultimately did become a very successful book,

00:02:09.680 | but it was not a big deal when it came out.

00:02:11.680 | I was not like I have to do today, doing publicity tours.

00:02:14.480 | I would do some podcast from our basement.

00:02:18.480 | And that was basically it.

00:02:20.480 | I wrote a couple of op-eds, but there was no big deal with that book coming out.

00:02:22.480 | It took up very little time.

00:02:24.480 | I did not write new books.

00:02:26.480 | I wasn't getting after it with Let's Get Going.

00:02:28.480 | When I saw that Deep Work had traction, I wasn't saying like, "Let's go.

00:02:32.480 | We got to get some new books out of here right away."

00:02:36.480 | So I remember that as being a pretty slow period where all I wanted to do was focus on getting enough research done that I could get tenure.

00:02:42.480 | I just really remember that's what I was focused on.

00:02:44.480 | Then a couple of years later, I put my foot back on the gas pedal again.

00:02:46.480 | I mean at some point, I remember having this conversation with my agent where I basically said, "I'm ready to work."

00:02:52.480 | And that's when we turned around and wrote a proposal for digital minimalism and a world without email.

00:02:56.480 | I said, "Look, I'm going to write these beasts back to back. Let's roll."

00:03:00.480 | As soon as I finished the first one, I'll go into the second one.

00:03:02.480 | And so I think seasonality matters with kids.

00:03:06.480 | Professional ambitions, let's go up and down.

00:03:10.480 | I think you're in a period now where you want a good steady state.

00:03:12.480 | It's also a great time to daydream and let me read and think.

00:03:16.480 | And these kids are going to open up, as you noted, they're going to open up a new understanding of your world and your potential and what's important to you.

00:03:24.480 | Tap into all of that daydream plan, figure out things you might do, read inspiring things, watch documentaries.

00:03:30.480 | But I would say wait to put the foot down on that gas pedal until maybe things are going to seem a little bit calmer.

00:03:38.480 | Finally, by the way, being a good dad to two young kids is a pretty ambitious thing to do.

00:03:44.480 | So it's not like you're stripping ambition from your life.

00:03:48.480 | It's just you are focusing on a related ambitious project right now.

00:03:52.480 | It just doesn't happen to involve how you make money.

00:03:56.480 | [Music]

How Should One Combine Having Young Kids With New Ambitions?

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