Full Length Episode | #183 | March 21, 2022 | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:03.040 | I'm Cal Newport, and this is Deep Questions, episode 183.

00:00:08.040 | I'm here at my Deep Work HQ,

00:00:16.960 | joined by my producer, Jesse.

00:00:19.960 | Jesse, we weren't sure if we were even gonna be able

00:00:22.240 | to record this episode this week.

00:00:26.000 | I have a crazy schedule.

00:00:28.360 | It's not really crazy.

00:00:29.200 | It's just a schedule that has me on campus

00:00:33.520 | most days, all days.

00:00:34.760 | So it gets in the way of our podcast recording.

00:00:37.880 | So we didn't even know if we'd have time

00:00:38.920 | to record this episode.

00:00:40.520 | So what we were able to do is we're squeezing this in.

00:00:43.720 | We're doing a shorter form episode.

00:00:46.240 | Now, I always tell Jesse, people don't know this.

00:00:48.080 | I tell him at the beginning of every episode,

00:00:49.920 | we're gonna be quick today.

00:00:50.760 | We never are, but today we have to be

00:00:52.200 | because we have an actual sort of Damocles time limit

00:00:55.680 | hanging over our head here.

00:00:56.820 | So we're gonna be quick, 45 minutes in and out,

00:00:59.000 | clean, we're gonna slip this in.

00:01:02.200 | And then Thursday's episode, we're gonna do

00:01:04.920 | a classic episode from the vault.

00:01:08.320 | So you will get to hear a classic episode from the vault.

00:01:10.760 | We didn't have time to record both,

00:01:12.760 | but I think you'll enjoy it.

00:01:13.840 | You know, Jesse, I'm noticing from my letters

00:01:16.320 | and the statistics, the statistics we get,

00:01:19.040 | that there's a lot of people now who are going back

00:01:22.000 | to the beginning of the show and trying to work their way

00:01:25.240 | forward.

00:01:26.080 | So more and more people, I would say,

00:01:28.920 | typically like, oh, these old episodes,

00:01:30.400 | most people weren't around then,

00:01:31.640 | most people didn't hear them, but people are going back

00:01:33.940 | and playing through the old catalog

00:01:37.600 | 'cause we're honing in now on, I don't know,

00:01:40.880 | say around 100,000 downloads a week.

00:01:43.680 | But no one episode is ever gonna get more than

00:01:48.560 | 20 something thousand downloads in a given week.

00:01:51.360 | So like, actually most of the downloads in a given week

00:01:54.320 | are not for that week's episode.

00:01:56.380 | People that are doing the trip down memory lane,

00:01:59.840 | but we'll select a good one from the archive

00:02:02.680 | to play for Thursday.

00:02:04.320 | - I'm always a fan when you talk longer,

00:02:06.600 | 'cause I think your audience wants you to talk long

00:02:09.120 | and wants to know what you have to say.

00:02:11.080 | That was always the case even before I started,

00:02:12.960 | you know, helping out with the show.

00:02:14.720 | - Oh, I know, yeah.

00:02:15.560 | I don't know if going shorter is good for the show.

00:02:17.460 | That's just my schedule stress.

00:02:18.920 | I'm always like, we're gonna get this thing down short,

00:02:20.960 | we're gonna get the footprint small.

00:02:23.080 | I think in this fantasy world in which I just sort of like

00:02:26.200 | walk by the studio on my way to somewhere else

00:02:28.960 | and Jesse puts a mic in front of me

00:02:30.380 | and without breaking my stride, we do the episode.

00:02:32.600 | No, I love it once we get going,

00:02:34.520 | but whenever I'm moving around the Jenga pieces

00:02:36.640 | on my schedule, I'm like,

00:02:38.280 | the more we can contain the recording,

00:02:40.000 | the more time we have to do innovation and writing.

00:02:43.240 | And so I always joke about that.

00:02:44.800 | But today we actually are,

00:02:46.840 | Joe the engineer is on his way.

00:02:48.280 | We're fixing some of our sound issues.

00:02:49.760 | So we have to be ready.

00:02:51.280 | We have to be ready.

00:02:52.120 | So we're actually gonna stick to it.

00:02:54.760 | We'll stick to it this time.

00:02:56.720 | Before we get into the questions

00:02:58.160 | and I've narrowed it down to five,

00:02:59.720 | we're doing five focus questions today.

00:03:03.920 | I thought we'd play a quick round of a new game show

00:03:06.320 | I came up with, which is called,

00:03:08.400 | Is This Crazy or Deep?

00:03:10.820 | All right, so you're the contestant, Jesse.

00:03:13.040 | I'm gonna explain one of the weird idiosyncratic things I do

00:03:18.040 | and you have to make the judgment,

00:03:19.960 | is it like a cool example of deep living or is it crazy?

00:03:24.600 | All right. - Let's go.

00:03:25.520 | - All right, here we go.

00:03:26.720 | So I was reading a book.

00:03:31.240 | I was reading Thomas Merton's "The Seven Story Mountain"

00:03:36.120 | because I hadn't read it before,

00:03:37.200 | but it's a very influential book,

00:03:39.720 | especially for talking about the deep life

00:03:41.440 | and the things that we talk about here on the show.

00:03:42.800 | It was a problem I had not read that book.

00:03:45.080 | It's sort of an underground classic.

00:03:47.740 | I don't know, have you heard of it before?

00:03:49.040 | - You talked about it either last week or the week before.

00:03:51.440 | So then I looked it up.

00:03:52.400 | - There we go, okay.

00:03:53.220 | So I talked about it before,

00:03:54.480 | Jesse reminded me.

00:03:56.080 | And it's this story, it's the memoir of this Thomas Merton

00:04:01.080 | who grew up actually this interesting lifestyle.

00:04:03.640 | His dad was an artist and they traveled all over Europe,

00:04:06.040 | but then he settled into a cosmopolitan life in New York

00:04:09.080 | and left it all to go to a Trappist monastery in Kentucky,

00:04:14.240 | wrote this book about it in the '40s, 1948 it came out.

00:04:17.880 | And it was a big deal at the time

00:04:19.520 | because the whole country was in this

00:04:20.800 | post-World War II malaise

00:04:22.400 | where there was Korean conflict was starting to heat up

00:04:26.400 | and the war was over and there was economic issues.

00:04:28.680 | It was before things really got fired up again

00:04:31.120 | and people had moved to the suburbs

00:04:33.280 | and were just marching to these sort of generic office jobs.

00:04:36.720 | And this book landed in 1948 and was very influential.

00:04:39.360 | So I was like, I need to read this book.

00:04:41.600 | So I was like, I forgot where I heard about it.

00:04:43.280 | I was like, let's just read it.

00:04:44.120 | I grabbed it on my Kindle.

00:04:45.240 | And I was having a hard time making progress on my Kindle

00:04:50.960 | because it felt like the wrong format.

00:04:53.680 | You know what I mean?

00:04:55.400 | Because it's a 1940s mid-century book

00:04:58.560 | that changed the zeitgeist and it just, I don't know,

00:05:01.560 | it wasn't feeling right on the Kindle.

00:05:03.480 | So I went down this series of escalating conclusions.

00:05:08.240 | So the first conclusion was reasonable.

00:05:10.000 | It was like, I'll just buy another copy of the book,

00:05:11.920 | but a hard, like a real copy, just better than Kindle.

00:05:15.080 | And I do that actually semi-often.

00:05:16.720 | I just did that, I'm reading right now

00:05:18.920 | John McPhee's "Draft No. 4,"

00:05:20.920 | which I started on Kindle and was like,

00:05:22.880 | I think John McPhee should be in paper.

00:05:25.320 | And so I bought the paperback too.

00:05:27.240 | But then I was like, you know,

00:05:29.200 | I don't know if a paperback is gonna do justice

00:05:31.800 | to "Seven Story Mountain" because of the context.

00:05:35.600 | And he's a monk and writing it.

00:05:37.160 | And it's like, maybe I should get an older hardcover copy.

00:05:40.960 | And then I was like, you know,

00:05:41.800 | if I'm gonna get a hardcover copy,

00:05:44.560 | you know, maybe what I really need

00:05:46.400 | is a first edition, first printing version of it.

00:05:49.320 | The first printing done in 1948.

00:05:51.520 | So the exact version of the book

00:05:54.160 | that someone would have held in 1948

00:05:56.040 | when it was first making its cultural impact.

00:05:58.720 | And so I found a first edition, first printed copy

00:06:02.320 | at a rare bookseller in Canada and had it shipped down.

00:06:06.160 | And I have it right here for the viewers at home.

00:06:10.000 | And if you're listening,

00:06:10.840 | you can go to youtube.com/cummingfordmedia.

00:06:14.800 | And I got it, it arrived, right?

00:06:18.000 | First edition, first printing.

00:06:20.000 | So it has the nice and empty,

00:06:22.440 | you know, the page where you have the printings

00:06:25.360 | is nice and empty.

00:06:26.680 | I love these mid-century fonts.

00:06:29.360 | These are some of my favorite fonts.

00:06:30.640 | It's a yellowed, good condition,

00:06:32.880 | little bit of spine damage.

00:06:33.760 | I paid well over $100 for this, Jesse.

00:06:36.000 | So here's the question, deep or crazy?

00:06:39.640 | - Deep. - Deep?

00:06:40.720 | - 100% deep. - All right.

00:06:42.280 | - 'Cause I mean, you could just put the other versions

00:06:44.920 | in the Deep Q library and then whatever.

00:06:48.040 | - But buying the first edition and spending three figures.

00:06:51.280 | - You don't play golf, that's what you do.

00:06:52.680 | - All right. - You buy books.

00:06:53.680 | - That's what I'll tell my wife.

00:06:55.240 | Like, yes, this was expensive, but golf is worse.

00:06:57.320 | - Golf's much worse. (laughing)

00:06:59.560 | - All right, I think, see,

00:07:00.520 | I think this could be a hobby of mine, first edition books.

00:07:03.720 | And I really love the idea that this was like the edition.

00:07:05.880 | When this book first hit the cultural scene,

00:07:08.120 | this is what it looked like.

00:07:09.160 | This is what someone was holding in 1948.

00:07:11.200 | - I mean, it just goes along with everything you talk about,

00:07:13.080 | like setting the ritual of getting your mind right

00:07:14.920 | to do whatever you're doing,

00:07:15.840 | and you're just trying to get through this book,

00:07:17.320 | which you weren't doing when you were doing on the Kindle.

00:07:20.160 | - Yeah, all right, so there we go.

00:07:21.800 | Jesse says it's deep, so it is justified.

00:07:24.580 | There's limits to the strategy.

00:07:25.720 | So then I looked up some other books.

00:07:27.800 | I was like, you know what would be really cool?

00:07:28.920 | We'd have a first edition of this or that.

00:07:31.520 | All right, you gotta be selective here.

00:07:33.040 | - Some of them would get real steep, right?

00:07:33.880 | - It gets pretty steep. - Yeah.

00:07:34.920 | - So I was looking at Walden.

00:07:37.720 | It's like, man, 18, whatever that is, 54.

00:07:40.900 | First edition of Walden.

00:07:42.080 | Now that is such an influential book

00:07:44.000 | on so many people that I followed and on my own work.

00:07:47.520 | We're talking three large, at least.

00:07:51.680 | So that was a limit.

00:07:53.480 | I think we need a few more sponsors of the podcast

00:07:57.200 | before I get a drop three large.

00:08:00.080 | - The Hedgehog Review, they'll pay for it.

00:08:02.360 | - We're paying them.

00:08:03.200 | You forgot, Jesse.

00:08:04.020 | We're paying them because it would be too much

00:08:06.120 | of a whatever it would be,

00:08:09.000 | submission to the capitalist overlords.

00:08:12.920 | So we pay them to sponsor us.

00:08:14.520 | So we'll get there one day.

00:08:16.040 | When I start talking about a first edition of Walden,

00:08:17.960 | then you know the show's doing too well.

00:08:20.240 | All right, well, speaking of sponsors,

00:08:21.560 | before we get to the questions,

00:08:22.720 | let's make enough money to pay for this crazy book purchase.

00:08:27.640 | And let's talk in particular about our good friends

00:08:31.200 | at Blinkist.

00:08:32.640 | Blinkist is a longtime sponsor of this show,

00:08:35.380 | and for good reason.

00:08:37.760 | Blinkist is a subscription service

00:08:39.880 | that gives you access to short summaries

00:08:44.560 | of thousands of best-selling nonfiction books.

00:08:48.180 | These summaries, which are called Blinks,

00:08:49.560 | you can read them in the Blinkist app

00:08:52.040 | or on the Blinkist website,

00:08:53.040 | or you can listen to them.

00:08:54.880 | So you can take in that knowledge on the go.

00:08:58.940 | As we've talked about on the show many times,

00:09:00.360 | both I and Jesse use Blinkist.

00:09:03.080 | The way I use it is to quickly assess a book.

00:09:07.420 | Eight times out of 10,

00:09:09.140 | just getting the main idea from the Blinkist is enough.

00:09:11.620 | I'm like, great, I know what I need to know from this book

00:09:14.020 | so I can be conversant with that idea.

00:09:16.160 | I know what's going on in the cultural trends.

00:09:18.000 | Two times out of 10, I say, you know what?

00:09:19.620 | I'm gonna buy this book now and read it in depth.

00:09:22.780 | Blinkist helps me make that decision.

00:09:24.740 | So it's a fantastic tool for anybody

00:09:27.900 | who is looking to navigate our current world of ideas.

00:09:31.960 | I use it, for example, to make my way

00:09:33.860 | through Yuval Harari's library, Post-Sapiens.

00:09:37.940 | I used a blink of Homo Deus and 21 Lessons

00:09:40.700 | for the 21st Century to figure out

00:09:42.020 | what's going on in those books,

00:09:42.940 | which I needed to buy, which I didn't.

00:09:44.980 | I ended up buying one of those and not the other,

00:09:47.360 | but I will leave that as a riddle

00:09:48.620 | for you to guess which was which.

00:09:51.260 | So right now Blinkist has a special offer

00:09:53.040 | just for our audience.

00:09:54.180 | If you go to blinkist.com/deep

00:09:57.460 | to start your free seven-day trial,

00:09:59.340 | you will get 25% off a Blinkist premium membership.

00:10:03.740 | That's Blinkist, spelled B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T,

00:10:07.940 | blinkist.com/deep to get 25% off

00:10:10.540 | and a seven-day free trial, blinkist.com/deep.

00:10:15.500 | We are also sponsored by Athletic Greens,

00:10:21.000 | a product that I use every morning.

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00:10:57.580 | is 'cause I talk to them.

00:10:59.420 | Deciding whether or not I was going to let them

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00:11:02.900 | I talked to them and what really struck me

00:11:04.940 | and really impressed me is that they just do this one thing.

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00:11:11.580 | and they improve it again and again.

00:11:13.200 | So they don't do new products,

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00:12:19.500 | All right, doing good.

00:12:23.500 | I'm checking our time, 45 minutes today.

00:12:25.480 | You will see, you will be impressed.

00:12:27.600 | This show comes in for a landing on time.

00:12:30.880 | Let's do some questions.

00:12:32.220 | Our first question here is from Madalena,

00:12:37.400 | who says, "Are you familiar with

00:12:42.160 | "perfect practice makes perfect?

00:12:45.620 | "When it comes to knowledge work,

00:12:48.500 | "how can we learn what perfect practice looks like

00:12:51.480 | "without practicing poorly for some time?"

00:12:57.040 | Well, Madalena, at a high level,

00:12:59.240 | deliberate practice is the activity

00:13:01.080 | that makes you better at complex activities,

00:13:03.360 | whether those activities are physical or mental.

00:13:07.740 | So if you're gonna get better at a skill

00:13:09.360 | related to your knowledge work job,

00:13:10.960 | you will be, you really whittle it down to its core,

00:13:14.560 | need to do deliberate practice.

00:13:17.480 | Now, I first introduced this idea

00:13:20.360 | on my blog and email newsletter years ago.

00:13:24.320 | I then generalized it and expanded it some of my book,

00:13:28.320 | "So Good They Can't Ignore You,"

00:13:29.800 | where I talked about applying deliberate practice

00:13:31.920 | to knowledge work.

00:13:33.320 | And I'll tell you, here was the complexity of doing so

00:13:36.280 | is that it's not easy to translate deliberate practice

00:13:41.280 | from the domains where we know how to do it well

00:13:45.080 | to domains like an office job.

00:13:47.220 | The issue was, and I get into this

00:13:50.440 | in "So Good They Can't Ignore You,"

00:13:51.280 | I get into this in some of my articles,

00:13:52.420 | is that if you look at, let's say, an athlete

00:13:54.880 | doing deliberate practice,

00:13:57.120 | and that's an area in which they're very good

00:13:58.760 | at this technique,

00:14:00.200 | what you're gonna see is carefully designed exercises.

00:14:03.560 | These are exercises that have been designed by coaches

00:14:07.600 | and honed through years of experience.

00:14:10.240 | This is the drill you need to do.

00:14:12.000 | This is the weight you need to lift

00:14:14.440 | in this particular type of way.

00:14:15.680 | And these exercises are done with direct feedback

00:14:19.420 | so that you're aiming yourself to be doing it just right.

00:14:22.360 | And if you're getting off of the right way of implementing it

00:14:24.920 | you get pushed back to the right way of doing it

00:14:26.520 | because the way deliberate practice works

00:14:28.000 | is that you are stretching yourself

00:14:29.720 | past where you're comfortable,

00:14:30.720 | doing the thing right past the comfort level,

00:14:33.520 | and you're hardening those neural circuits

00:14:35.060 | so that becomes easier.

00:14:36.000 | So you have to be guided very carefully.

00:14:38.120 | You have to be doing it right,

00:14:39.620 | and you have to be pushing past where you're comfortable

00:14:42.160 | or there's no actual growth happening.

00:14:44.200 | Well, how do you do that

00:14:46.080 | if you're the new associate marketing manager

00:14:48.820 | at a pharmaceutical company?

00:14:51.020 | How do you do that if you're a computer programmer?

00:14:52.800 | How do you do that if you're a young professor?

00:14:56.860 | There's no coach,

00:14:58.060 | there's no one there to run you through drills.

00:15:00.660 | So I got really into this question.

00:15:03.220 | After So Good They Can't Ignore You came out,

00:15:05.260 | I got into this question

00:15:06.140 | because I was designing this online course

00:15:08.180 | with my friend Scott Young

00:15:10.500 | that eventually was called Top Performer.

00:15:13.140 | And at the core of this online course,

00:15:15.920 | Top Performer was let's teach you

00:15:17.620 | how to do deliberate practice in the workplace

00:15:20.740 | 'cause this is what people wanted more details on

00:15:23.580 | after reading So Good They Can't Ignore You.

00:15:24.980 | So So Good comes out in 2012.

00:15:27.180 | We launched the first version of this course in 2014,

00:15:32.180 | and we have had thousands of students.

00:15:34.380 | I forgot the exact count,

00:15:35.360 | but it is multiple thousands of students

00:15:37.380 | go through this course over the years since then,

00:15:38.980 | and we keep evolving it.

00:15:39.980 | So that experience has really helped us

00:15:42.500 | get hands-on knowledge

00:15:44.940 | about how do you make deliberate practice work

00:15:47.540 | in the knowledge work environment.

00:15:49.980 | And I don't mean this to be a plug for Top Performer.

00:15:51.700 | It's not actually open right now.

00:15:52.580 | We typically just open it once a year.

00:15:55.460 | I think I have a link

00:15:57.380 | where you can find out more on my website,

00:15:59.000 | but it's not like it's open right now

00:16:00.200 | I'm trying to get you to sign up for Top Performer.

00:16:01.660 | I'm just saying this was the foundation of me learning

00:16:03.700 | about how do you actually make these principles work

00:16:05.920 | in the office.

00:16:07.540 | Here's three things we learned.

00:16:09.100 | One, identifying the skill

00:16:13.440 | that you want to deliberately practice

00:16:16.420 | is often not obvious.

00:16:19.540 | This was a surprise to Scott and I

00:16:22.140 | when we were working with real students

00:16:23.500 | in all these different industries

00:16:24.500 | is that they didn't know what they should get better at.

00:16:27.540 | Knowledge works jobs these days can be quite ambiguous.

00:16:32.780 | It's kind of amorphous.

00:16:33.700 | I don't know, I'm on email.

00:16:34.620 | I'm involved in a lot of different things.

00:16:36.020 | There's a lot of different things going on.

00:16:37.740 | And I can't tell you exactly what I do here.

00:16:41.420 | I don't shoot baskets.

00:16:43.740 | So I can't tell you what it is I'm trying to get better at.

00:16:46.180 | So identifying the skill that actually matters

00:16:48.140 | is complicated.

00:16:48.980 | And what we ended up eventually recommending people do

00:16:51.500 | is pretend to be a journalist.

00:16:53.980 | I'm gonna go out there and discover

00:16:56.260 | what are the skills that matter in my field.

00:16:58.500 | And you're gonna do this by interviewing people

00:17:00.420 | who are more successful than you in your field,

00:17:02.540 | but not just successful in a generic sense,

00:17:04.340 | but successful in the sense that

00:17:06.100 | something about their status in your field,

00:17:09.620 | what their work is, their position is,

00:17:11.540 | what they do on a day-to-day resonates.

00:17:13.740 | There's a target.

00:17:15.580 | If I could get to where Bob is,

00:17:18.860 | the way he's here half time and he's a consultant

00:17:22.060 | or he's the CFO or whatever it is,

00:17:23.740 | but you have someone like that's where I wanna get,

00:17:25.380 | there's my aspiration.

00:17:26.780 | You interview them.

00:17:27.740 | Can I talk to you about your career?

00:17:30.740 | Over coffee or whatever.

00:17:33.540 | And then when you interview them,

00:17:34.460 | this is the other critical thing we learned,

00:17:36.660 | do not ask them for their advice.

00:17:38.780 | I'm telling you this as someone who writes advice

00:17:41.860 | as a professional.

00:17:42.780 | This is what I professionally do for a living.

00:17:45.220 | People when put on the spot are terrible

00:17:48.620 | at giving you advice.

00:17:50.540 | It is a fraught, stressful situation

00:17:54.780 | when you say, what's your advice?

00:17:55.860 | And what people will do is their mind will seize on,

00:17:57.860 | we need something that is coherent and sounds smart.

00:18:01.940 | And it doesn't matter how real it is or not real it is

00:18:04.700 | or how important it is or not important it is,

00:18:06.700 | they will fix on something

00:18:07.900 | because you have to deliver some advice in those situations

00:18:10.660 | or they will use it as an excuse to give a implicit sermon

00:18:13.780 | about something they don't like about kids these days.

00:18:15.340 | But what you're rarely gonna get is actually good advice

00:18:17.700 | because good advice is hard to develop.

00:18:19.860 | It's a scale you have to get good at

00:18:21.900 | and you have to actually look at a lot of data

00:18:23.700 | and really get a sense of what matters and what doesn't.

00:18:25.700 | So what should you do instead?

00:18:27.260 | Ask them for their story.

00:18:28.860 | I wanna know beat by beat how you move through your career.

00:18:33.860 | All right, when you got from here to here,

00:18:36.460 | when you got this first big responsibility,

00:18:39.220 | what was the thing that allowed you to make that step?

00:18:42.140 | And if possible, ask them this question

00:18:43.580 | in a differential way.

00:18:44.660 | There was other people in your same position.

00:18:47.180 | You're the one who got promoted to be editor.

00:18:49.460 | What do you think you were,

00:18:51.260 | what was it that you were doing different

00:18:52.100 | than the people who didn't get promoted at that point?

00:18:53.820 | So you're really trying to understand

00:18:55.140 | at every step what mattered.

00:18:56.660 | And then you go back and think about what you learned

00:18:59.020 | like a journalist, like an advice guide writer.

00:19:02.380 | And you say, what's the important pattern in here?

00:19:05.940 | Oh, this thing came up again and again.

00:19:08.780 | These other steps forward were generic

00:19:10.860 | like most people could make them,

00:19:11.900 | but this is where the big leap happened

00:19:13.300 | is because he was good at X.

00:19:16.300 | And that X now is a skill you've identified

00:19:18.540 | as being really important.

00:19:19.940 | So yeah, it's a pain that it's not obvious

00:19:21.660 | to identify what skills matter,

00:19:23.020 | but it's also a good thing

00:19:24.780 | because no one else is gonna do this effort.

00:19:27.700 | No one is gonna take people out for coffee.

00:19:29.340 | No one else is gonna interview them like a journalist

00:19:31.420 | and go back and try to extract what really matters,

00:19:33.380 | not just what they want to matter.

00:19:34.460 | No one else is gonna do this.

00:19:36.780 | So advantage to you.

00:19:37.980 | All right, the second thing that matters

00:19:39.180 | for deliberate practice and knowledge work,

00:19:41.900 | the best way Scott and I could figure out

00:19:44.180 | to design practice activities

00:19:46.340 | is to suggest that you commit yourself

00:19:49.980 | to a project carefully designed

00:19:54.620 | to require you to stretch your ability

00:19:57.340 | on the skill in question to complete.

00:19:59.540 | I cannot complete this project

00:20:02.260 | without getting better at this core skill that I identified.

00:20:06.060 | Project-based skilled improvement seems to be the best.

00:20:09.620 | We ended up at some point completely redoing

00:20:11.700 | that top performer course to be built completely

00:20:14.260 | around a project you identify and try to work on

00:20:18.020 | because it was too hard to improve these skills

00:20:20.180 | in the abstract.

00:20:21.420 | You need a public commitment to this project.

00:20:23.620 | So you've told your boss, they're expecting it.

00:20:26.140 | Someone's waiting for it.

00:20:27.980 | Someone's going to evaluate it.

00:20:29.220 | If it's bad, they'll be upset.

00:20:30.980 | You need those public stakes

00:20:32.340 | 'cause that's gonna simulate the coach feedback.

00:20:34.660 | It's gonna push you, okay, I'm gonna push myself

00:20:37.740 | to try to stretch and do well

00:20:38.860 | because I don't want to embarrass myself.

00:20:40.740 | I don't wanna renege on the promise I made to my boss.

00:20:44.140 | I don't wanna upload this thing in the GitHub

00:20:46.260 | like I claimed I would and have people laugh at the code.

00:20:49.260 | So publicly commit to a project

00:20:50.900 | that will force you to stretch with the skill in question.

00:20:52.700 | It's the best we could come up with

00:20:54.460 | for simulating the type of practice

00:20:57.580 | a coach would run you through for another type of skill.

00:21:00.780 | And then finally, put aside regular time for this

00:21:05.180 | or have a scheduling philosophy that makes regular time

00:21:07.700 | same time, same place, the same day

00:21:09.580 | for working on this project.

00:21:10.700 | So it's a protected thing.

00:21:12.540 | Just like if you're training,

00:21:14.380 | I gotta get back in cardio shape for spring training,

00:21:16.900 | you're gonna have regular times

00:21:18.180 | you're out there doing cardio.

00:21:19.340 | You don't just leave it up to,

00:21:20.580 | hey, if I'm in the mood to run

00:21:22.260 | as a professional baseball player, I'll go for a run.

00:21:24.620 | It's no, I do my runs at this time on these days.

00:21:28.180 | So you put those ingredients together,

00:21:29.860 | a well-identified skill

00:21:32.140 | designed with a publicly committed project to stretch it,

00:21:35.980 | executed in times that are set aside and protected

00:21:39.060 | like a dentist appointment or parent teacher conference

00:21:41.260 | with your kids that time is unviolatable.

00:21:45.140 | Do those three things, Madalena.

00:21:48.420 | You can in like a three or four month period

00:21:50.340 | become significantly better at something

00:21:52.700 | that's gonna have a significant impact on your career.

00:21:56.460 | All right, so I appreciate that question

00:21:59.700 | because I've thought a lot about that.

00:22:02.380 | All right, so we got here next,

00:22:04.420 | we have a question from Charles.

00:22:07.980 | This is a question that will get my fellow nerds

00:22:11.660 | in the audience fired up.

00:22:13.180 | The same people that ran me over the coals

00:22:14.900 | for missing out Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rufus.

00:22:16.980 | The same people are about to get upset again.

00:22:19.580 | So beware, Jesse.

00:22:21.460 | Charles says, "Kel, does the experiential difference

00:22:24.500 | "between writing code in a modal editor like Vim or Emacs

00:22:28.740 | "versus doing so in a GUI editor

00:22:30.980 | "like MFT Visual Studio or Eclipse

00:22:34.100 | "inform your thoughts about context continuity

00:22:36.780 | "versus context shifting?

00:22:39.060 | "Your views on context inform any best practices

00:22:41.500 | "for using source code editors?"

00:22:43.820 | I'm gonna send that as a book proposal to my agent.

00:22:49.020 | Just because I think it'd be funny

00:22:50.820 | if I was like, "Lori, I've got a great idea for a book.

00:22:53.580 | "I'm gonna blow the lid off

00:22:56.900 | "the contextual context continuity impact

00:23:01.180 | "of modal source code editors

00:23:02.660 | "versus GUI source code editors.

00:23:05.540 | "We are gonna blow the roof off this thing.

00:23:08.540 | "Think like Seymour Hersh,

00:23:11.300 | "but like if he was a really specialized computer programmer."

00:23:16.300 | I think she'll enjoy that.

00:23:18.500 | Speaking of, okay, and Charles,

00:23:19.780 | I'm gonna get to this in a second.

00:23:20.860 | And audience, I'm gonna generalize it

00:23:22.460 | to not be about source code editors,

00:23:23.740 | so don't worry about this.

00:23:25.340 | But speaking about sending agents bad proposals,

00:23:28.220 | I appreciate it.

00:23:29.060 | I was listening to an interview with Michael Pollan

00:23:31.260 | and he was talking about his agent

00:23:32.340 | who is supposedly famously brash or blunt.

00:23:36.060 | And he was talking about years ago,

00:23:39.620 | Pollan had written "Second Nature,"

00:23:41.580 | his first book, big success.

00:23:42.860 | They gave him a big advance for a second book.

00:23:44.820 | Second book becomes "Place of Your Own."

00:23:46.660 | I like "Place of Your Own," but it didn't do well.

00:23:48.540 | It was about architecture and him trying to build a cabin.

00:23:51.460 | So his third book is really important

00:23:52.940 | because at this point he had left his editorship at Harper's

00:23:56.580 | and was making a go at being a full-time writer.

00:23:58.460 | And they left New York

00:23:59.420 | and moved to a dilapidated house in Cornwall,

00:24:01.860 | Connecticut, like all the stuff I love.

00:24:03.300 | And so this third book needs to be good.

00:24:04.660 | And he sent a pitch to his agent that was about,

00:24:08.300 | he was gonna move to Celebration, Florida

00:24:10.100 | and live there for a year and be like,

00:24:11.900 | what's it like living in this weird plastic,

00:24:14.180 | you know, fake, blah, blah, blah.

00:24:16.660 | And he says his agent called him,

00:24:18.620 | didn't say hello or hi, Mike, or whatever,

00:24:21.220 | just started going, "Boring, boring,"

00:24:26.220 | until he got the hint.

00:24:28.260 | So I think I would have that reaction

00:24:32.940 | if I pitched a book on source code editors.

00:24:35.940 | All right, but Charles, let me get to your question.

00:24:37.820 | You know, by the way, I was asked this question,

00:24:40.140 | a version of this question,

00:24:41.060 | my interview at Georgetown a decade ago,

00:24:43.260 | not modal versus GUI, but within the modal world,

00:24:46.300 | I was asked VIM or EMAC.

00:24:48.340 | So it's like a, it's a key question.

00:24:50.020 | And the thing is the answer I gave them,

00:24:51.740 | which is the answer I will,

00:24:52.820 | the immediate answer I'll give you, Charles,

00:24:54.260 | is that I'm a theoretician.

00:24:56.420 | So I don't know.

00:24:57.580 | I don't write code.

00:24:59.300 | I mean, I know how EMACs works, but I don't write code.

00:25:03.580 | I don't do useful things with computers.

00:25:05.420 | I solve theorems.

00:25:07.620 | And so I'm worthless to that.

00:25:09.620 | But there is a more general question lurking

00:25:12.900 | that I find really interesting,

00:25:14.460 | which is when we're talking about software tools,

00:25:20.340 | writ large, there is a tension

00:25:22.940 | that I don't think we understand or talk enough about

00:25:25.780 | between easy and effective.

00:25:29.900 | So for non-computer code people,

00:25:33.660 | these modal editors like VIM or EMACs,

00:25:35.580 | like in particular VIM are not easy to use.

00:25:39.100 | You know, it's a, they're line-by-line editors,

00:25:42.060 | they're text-based and yeah, EMACs is a little easier,

00:25:46.340 | but with VIM, you know, if you wanna write,

00:25:49.780 | like you actually have to do a command

00:25:50.860 | that says I'm inserting text right here,

00:25:52.280 | like a keyboard command.

00:25:53.540 | So it's not just a GUI, like Microsoft Word type editor,

00:25:57.100 | and you have to memorize lots of complex key combinations

00:26:00.420 | to do almost anything.

00:26:01.940 | But it's this very direct connection between like,

00:26:04.940 | I wanna put this line of code here now, good, and locked it.

00:26:08.420 | Now I wanna do this.

00:26:09.240 | Like it's very bare bones, but powerful,

00:26:12.700 | but you have to know what you're doing.

00:26:13.700 | It's very intentional.

00:26:14.580 | And then there's these modern code editors

00:26:16.820 | like Visual Studio or like Eclipse,

00:26:18.540 | which are like Microsoft Word on steroids.

00:26:20.860 | It's everything is visually around your code

00:26:23.660 | and all the different files that are dependencies

00:26:25.860 | while you're writing code.

00:26:26.780 | It's trying to make suggestions

00:26:27.920 | about what you're trying to type and underline things.

00:26:30.340 | Like, could you put better code here?

00:26:31.620 | I can automatically fill this in for you.

00:26:33.220 | Like, it's all about making the individual things

00:26:36.700 | you might do as a coder as easy as possible

00:26:39.660 | in terms of like reducing friction

00:26:41.420 | and making everything visual and available.

00:26:43.620 | And there's a big war,

00:26:44.940 | Charles calls it an editor war about these things.

00:26:46.660 | But we see the same issue in a lot of software.

00:26:50.080 | A shift away from software that is focused like a laser

00:26:54.060 | on doing one thing towards these sort of bloated packages

00:26:59.060 | where everything is possible

00:27:00.500 | and there's all of these automated tools

00:27:01.980 | to sort of help you and hold your hand and pull you along.

00:27:05.620 | You should be able to just sort of stumble

00:27:07.140 | into the software and pretty quickly be able

00:27:09.020 | to make some progress.

00:27:10.220 | So I think about easy as meaning the software

00:27:14.660 | simplifies the energy and concentration required

00:27:17.100 | to execute individual desired actions

00:27:19.140 | while effective means the software is lined up

00:27:22.520 | with the way your brain operates

00:27:24.040 | to try to extract as much value as possible from your brain.

00:27:27.760 | I don't care if it's easy,

00:27:28.920 | what's gonna let you write the best code in the end?

00:27:32.200 | I think easy is overrated, effective is often ignored.

00:27:38.660 | I think we need more effective software,

00:27:42.800 | software that is pared down, software that does one thing,

00:27:46.040 | software that has a high learning curve.

00:27:47.720 | But if you learn that curve,

00:27:49.120 | if you actually follow that curve,

00:27:51.600 | you're able to really intensely extract value

00:27:55.120 | out of your brain.

00:27:56.960 | If you look at a product like MATLAB or something like this,

00:28:01.040 | you know, it's kind of a pain to learn how to use MATLAB,

00:28:03.240 | but for mathematicians or physicists or engineers

00:28:05.320 | who learn it well,

00:28:06.360 | they can extract a lot of value out of that tool.

00:28:09.420 | That is effective software.

00:28:11.800 | Trying to have something that just makes it natural

00:28:14.120 | and easy to fall into everything else,

00:28:17.040 | I'm less impressed by, I'm less impressed by.

00:28:20.240 | Because here's the thing,

00:28:21.240 | and this is maybe a slow productivity principle

00:28:23.360 | being applied to software,

00:28:24.900 | trying to get rid of little bits of friction, who cares?

00:28:29.720 | Right?

00:28:30.720 | We're not computer chips,

00:28:32.600 | where what matters is how many op codes

00:28:36.240 | we can execute per second.

00:28:38.320 | We're not, we're gonna make more money for our company

00:28:40.320 | if I can do 15 quick things instead of 10 quick things.

00:28:44.440 | Like all that really matters in the end

00:28:45.800 | is what have I produced a value and how quality is it?

00:28:48.960 | What is the value of the things I produce?

00:28:50.760 | And that is often something

00:28:51.840 | where friction could be beneficial.

00:28:56.280 | Having to slow down, take things step by step,

00:28:58.680 | laboriously move things from here to here,

00:29:01.240 | that could be actually what you need to do

00:29:03.280 | to produce the best quality thing.

00:29:04.800 | So why is easy more and more what we see,

00:29:07.720 | especially in business software?

00:29:08.840 | Well, I think it's overload.

00:29:10.720 | I think in a world of chronic overload,

00:29:12.880 | where we all have more on our plates

00:29:14.000 | than we know what to do with,

00:29:16.000 | we've created this weird simulacrum of work

00:29:18.280 | in which all we do is try to get through little things

00:29:21.000 | as quickly as possible and get that churn rate up.

00:29:22.760 | So all we don't want any friction,

00:29:23.920 | we're just emails back and forth.

00:29:25.480 | I got to print this thing.

00:29:26.400 | Let me grab this PowerPoint slide.

00:29:27.680 | Let me expand that.

00:29:28.520 | Can I shoot that over here?

00:29:29.520 | Can I do a quick invite for people to come share

00:29:32.320 | this Google doc because that'll save me some time

00:29:34.160 | versus actually sending it to them one by one.

00:29:36.000 | It's all about just churning

00:29:37.080 | through overhead activities quickly

00:29:38.520 | because we're overloaded

00:29:39.680 | and there's more than we know what to do with

00:29:41.280 | and we're stressed.

00:29:42.120 | And the only metric we have for progress

00:29:43.960 | is we're churning through things.

00:29:45.040 | But in a world without chronic overload,

00:29:47.040 | I'm working on one thing at a time.

00:29:49.440 | I don't have too many things on my plate.

00:29:50.880 | And I don't care if it's slow

00:29:53.120 | to change the format of this thing.

00:29:56.520 | I don't care if it's slow to get a copy

00:29:58.760 | to the three people that need to see it.

00:30:00.920 | Who cares?

00:30:01.960 | Is the thing I'm creating really good?

00:30:03.960 | And so effective is not the same as easy.

00:30:05.680 | And I think that is a principle

00:30:07.760 | that we need to think more about.

00:30:09.520 | And if we embrace slow productivity in general,

00:30:12.320 | then this is a specific consequence

00:30:14.640 | when we look at the world of software.

00:30:17.680 | So I like old school software.

00:30:19.920 | You know, John McPhee has this crazy old software

00:30:24.240 | called K-Edit that he uses to write his articles.

00:30:27.640 | And he explains it in draft number four.

00:30:29.840 | And it's like them.

00:30:31.360 | It's this weird, there's no formatting,

00:30:35.240 | no balding, there's no underlining

00:30:38.840 | or searching or grammar checks.

00:30:40.320 | And you like, it's a line by line editor

00:30:42.720 | and you have to learn these key commands

00:30:44.240 | and it's monochrome as far as I can know.

00:30:46.360 | And he has an old unsupported version

00:30:48.080 | he runs on like a Windows machine

00:30:49.800 | and nothing about it is fast, but it matches his process.

00:30:54.800 | And nothing about his process is fast.

00:30:56.680 | He spends a long time writing his pieces, right?

00:30:59.240 | And we look back at him and say, he's very productive.

00:31:02.920 | So effective is not the same as easy.

00:31:05.800 | I don't know.

00:31:06.640 | I think we get that wrong.

00:31:08.080 | (keyboard clicking)

00:31:10.240 | All right, 31, doing well.

00:31:12.840 | Let's do a question here from Matt.

00:31:15.840 | Matt says, like many of your listeners,

00:31:19.480 | I'm a pastor of a small to medium-sized church.

00:31:22.980 | Sometimes leading this can be a Herculean task.

00:31:28.920 | Beyond your go-to productivity staples,

00:31:32.640 | like capture, time blocking, daily, weekly

00:31:34.600 | and quarterly planning, what would be your best bits

00:31:37.200 | of advice for juggling the people and planning demands

00:31:40.360 | that come with being a church minister

00:31:42.520 | with very few paid staff?

00:31:44.720 | Thanks, Cal.

00:31:46.520 | And at the risk of mixing metaphors,

00:31:48.440 | I hope you'll be the Athena to my Odysseus.

00:31:51.280 | Well, Matt, I think there's a lot of people

00:31:54.840 | in your situation, not necessarily a pastor

00:31:56.880 | of a small church, but someone in charge

00:31:58.940 | of a modest size organization in which they do not have

00:32:03.940 | a lot of administrative or support staff to lean on.

00:32:06.540 | So a lot of things fall on their shoulders.

00:32:09.600 | So it is very easy in that situation

00:32:12.800 | to get overloaded and overwhelmed.

00:32:14.440 | So how do we get out of that beyond just tuning up

00:32:17.120 | your productivity, multi-scale planning,

00:32:19.640 | the stuff I normally talk about,

00:32:20.840 | the stuff I talk about in my time management core ideas

00:32:22.980 | video, what else matters when you're in this situation?

00:32:26.720 | I'm in charge of a lot of things, I'm overloaded.

00:32:30.420 | All right, so there's two things I'm gonna recommend

00:32:33.160 | that you add to your toolkit here, Matt.

00:32:35.560 | One is to get more of an obsession about context shifting,

00:32:39.700 | especially when it comes to dealing with people.

00:32:43.180 | So dealing with your parishioners,

00:32:44.720 | dealing with the various committees

00:32:46.660 | that help run the church,

00:32:48.080 | moving away from a environment in which communication

00:32:53.300 | is ad hoc and unscheduled.

00:32:55.000 | 'Cause you have a lot of people

00:32:56.080 | you have to communicate with.

00:32:57.320 | You have to be in touch with your flock, so to speak.

00:33:00.100 | You have to be in touch with the other people

00:33:01.600 | who help run the church.

00:33:02.940 | You don't have the ability to say,

00:33:04.920 | I don't do that anymore, I'm not there for my parishioners,

00:33:08.240 | I'm not gonna talk to the stewardship committee.

00:33:10.600 | No, you have to talk to all these people.

00:33:12.320 | If it's ad hoc and unscheduled,

00:33:14.260 | you will be forever context shifting, forever.

00:33:19.200 | I have to get back to my email,

00:33:20.500 | there's asynchronous back and forth conversations

00:33:22.380 | happening that I have to keep moving,

00:33:23.720 | my phone is ringing, people are stopping by.

00:33:26.060 | And in that flurry of unpredictable

00:33:28.940 | but constant context shifts,

00:33:31.060 | you're gonna feel completely overloaded

00:33:32.640 | and as if you're never making progress

00:33:34.320 | on anything of substance that you're stuck

00:33:37.120 | in a whirlwind of distraction.

00:33:38.560 | So what you need to do is consolidate those context shifts.

00:33:42.680 | You're not gonna reduce the people you talk with,

00:33:45.720 | you're not gonna reduce what it is that you offer

00:33:48.080 | to those who need you,

00:33:49.120 | but you are going to consolidate when this happens.

00:33:52.180 | You're gonna do this through well-advertised processes.

00:33:56.600 | Now I can give you some off the top of my head suggestions,

00:33:58.740 | but you're gonna have to customize this

00:33:59.960 | for your own situation.

00:34:01.340 | But now you might have twice a week

00:34:02.840 | parishioner office hours where you can come to my office,

00:34:06.320 | I have Zoom on, I have a chat open, this is it,

00:34:10.840 | and I wanna hear anything, any issue you're having,

00:34:14.760 | any question you have, anything you want guidance on,

00:34:18.000 | Tuesday, Thursdays, let's go.

00:34:19.480 | Parishioner office hours, or maybe Sunday after services too

00:34:23.160 | there's a two hour window there.

00:34:25.360 | You're taking a lot of necessary communication

00:34:27.680 | with your parishioners and now consolidating it.

00:34:30.600 | Are they gonna be upset?

00:34:31.440 | No, they want clarity.

00:34:32.480 | Clarity is better than accessibility.

00:34:33.960 | Oh, great, it's a Pastor Matt.

00:34:36.440 | Yeah, so I'm gonna swing by his Thursday office hours

00:34:39.360 | because I wanna tell him about this thing I'm worried about

00:34:42.240 | or get his advice on this,

00:34:43.320 | or I'll give him a quick call at that time.

00:34:45.320 | You also should use a scheduling tool.

00:34:48.340 | So when something requires a longer one-on-one conversation,

00:34:51.840 | have some blocks of time split up into half hour slots.

00:34:55.580 | And when your stewardship committee,

00:34:59.680 | your youth director, the assistant pastor,

00:35:03.320 | like needs you and need to talk something through,

00:35:04.880 | you're like, grab, yeah, absolutely grab a slot.

00:35:07.320 | Grab a slot, you know the link, grab a slot, let's talk.

00:35:09.780 | I'm here, I wanna look you in the eye.

00:35:11.160 | You can even use a justification here,

00:35:12.840 | like, look, I'm a leader of this organization.

00:35:15.040 | I wanna be here to help people.

00:35:16.200 | I wanna look you in the eye.

00:35:17.300 | Like, let's get out of email.

00:35:19.560 | Let's sit down in my office and we'll talk things through.

00:35:22.240 | It'll actually make you seem more accessible,

00:35:23.560 | but you're consolidating.

00:35:24.800 | And all of that asynchronous back and forth communication,

00:35:28.880 | drop-ins and random calls that are requiring 15,

00:35:31.880 | 20 contact shifts every six to 10 minutes

00:35:33.960 | throughout your day, all of that goes away.

00:35:36.120 | And now there's just periods where you're in your office

00:35:39.400 | and you're like, I'm just, people are here,

00:35:40.600 | people are coming in and I'm working on shallow stuff

00:35:43.000 | when people aren't here.

00:35:44.660 | It's predictable, you know what's gonna happen.

00:35:46.360 | People feel like there's structure,

00:35:47.780 | people feel like there's control,

00:35:49.440 | but you're not constantly running around.

00:35:52.440 | So I think that's gonna make a really big deal.

00:35:55.080 | Two, I'm gonna suggest be very wary about chronic overload.

00:35:58.200 | So you're gonna get the sense of chronic overload,

00:36:00.360 | that despairing feeling when your mind perceives

00:36:03.920 | there's more things it needs to plan for and execute

00:36:06.440 | than it can easily imagine doing.

00:36:08.380 | So you wanna fight against chronic overload.

00:36:11.800 | And to do that, a few tricks you can do

00:36:13.560 | if you can't just drastically reduce what's on your plate

00:36:15.800 | is one, you can, to the extent possible,

00:36:17.840 | automate regularly occurring small things.

00:36:20.600 | This person does it, this system does it,

00:36:22.400 | I always do it in this half hour on these days.

00:36:25.000 | It doesn't make those tasks go away,

00:36:27.000 | but it takes it out of that status in your brain

00:36:29.200 | where you feel like you have to plan and make a,

00:36:31.840 | or it's gonna require a plan,

00:36:33.300 | it's gonna require you to think about at some point.

00:36:34.920 | It changes it from an open loop to a background activity.

00:36:37.980 | If you walk your dog every morning before you go to work,

00:36:40.840 | you don't think about walking your dog

00:36:42.440 | as one of these things on your plate

00:36:43.620 | that you have to schedule, it's just something that you do.

00:36:45.520 | So you automate to the extent possible the small things

00:36:47.840 | so they can't lay claim to the planning portion of your brain

00:36:50.400 | and say, I don't have to worry about that,

00:36:51.960 | that's taken care of.

00:36:53.200 | For the large projects, you have to be way more careful

00:36:55.400 | about being sequential about these.

00:36:57.000 | How many large projects can you actually handle at a time

00:37:00.320 | and stick to that?

00:37:01.280 | You can have a big queue of them,

00:37:02.320 | but you say I only do two at a time

00:37:04.240 | and I have two going on right now.

00:37:05.760 | So yes, I love this project, but it's on my queue

00:37:09.180 | because I can only do two big things at a time, right?

00:37:13.120 | So these are the type of things you need to do.

00:37:14.680 | And then for the medium size, one or two week long projects,

00:37:17.540 | again, throw processes at it.

00:37:19.720 | If you have a meeting with a committee

00:37:21.240 | and you're gonna revamp X, here's how we're gonna do it.

00:37:24.420 | Make a plan for it so it's not ad hoc

00:37:26.360 | back and forth communication.

00:37:27.920 | These things are gonna help.

00:37:28.880 | The final thing, Matt, which is specific to your position

00:37:31.880 | that I'm gonna recommend is one day a week

00:37:36.200 | or at least one half day a week,

00:37:37.480 | but I would prefer one day a week that's your sermon day,

00:37:40.760 | sermon reflection contemplative day.

00:37:42.320 | Just work backwards from that goal.

00:37:44.740 | Hey everyone, Fridays, I'm not on screens,

00:37:48.400 | I'm thinking and writing about my sermons,

00:37:50.520 | I'm walking, I'm reflecting, I'm reading,

00:37:53.200 | I'm bettering myself and my soul

00:37:54.600 | so that I can better serve the flock.

00:37:56.140 | I think it's a great example.

00:37:57.900 | You do it on Saturdays, this is when God said to rest,

00:38:01.000 | you're gonna rest on a Shabbat day.

00:38:04.180 | I think that's gonna be a great example

00:38:05.480 | for the congregation.

00:38:06.640 | You can work around losing that one day

00:38:08.760 | with all the stuff I talked about

00:38:10.000 | and it's gonna refresh you,

00:38:11.360 | it's gonna make you better at what you do,

00:38:12.840 | it's gonna keep you connected to why you do it.

00:38:14.420 | So I know that might seem radical,

00:38:16.160 | but that's my past year specific advice,

00:38:18.000 | but one day aside for sermon writing.

00:38:22.680 | All right, well, speaking of sermon writing,

00:38:26.480 | this has nothing to do with sermon writing,

00:38:27.760 | I'm talking about ads.

00:38:29.160 | A sponsor I wanna mention real quick before we move on,

00:38:33.240 | we're at the 38 minute point, so here we go.

00:38:35.240 | I'm gonna do rapid fire questions after this.

00:38:38.040 | The sponsor I wanna talk about is ExpressVPN.

00:38:40.520 | I don't think people realize the degree

00:38:46.080 | to which what you are doing on the internet

00:38:49.040 | can be monitored.

00:38:51.640 | Verizon, for example, has even admitted

00:38:54.040 | that it collects data on where it is you're going,

00:38:57.640 | what webpages you are accessing it.

00:38:59.800 | They say that they are storing your data to,

00:39:02.500 | and I'm reading a quote here,

00:39:03.440 | "Better understand your interest."

00:39:05.280 | Yeah, right.

00:39:06.880 | But really they're gonna sell that information

00:39:08.680 | to advertisers.

00:39:09.660 | This type of nonsense and shenanigans

00:39:11.240 | happens all the time when you're connected to the internet.

00:39:14.480 | This is why you need a VPN.

00:39:16.760 | And if you're gonna use a VPN,

00:39:18.080 | I recommend that you use the VPN

00:39:19.820 | that I personally use, which is ExpressVPN.

00:39:24.560 | So ExpressVPN is an app.

00:39:27.800 | It's a VPN app.

00:39:28.720 | And the way it works real briefly

00:39:30.000 | is that instead of just directly connecting

00:39:32.000 | to the website you care about,

00:39:34.060 | you instead connect to a ExpressVPN server.

00:39:37.740 | You form an encrypted channel to that server

00:39:40.440 | so you can send stuff to that server

00:39:42.120 | that Verizon, your phone carrier,

00:39:44.360 | the access point you're connected to,

00:39:45.480 | have no idea what you're doing.

00:39:47.200 | You tell that server,

00:39:48.240 | "Here's the website I wanna talk to."

00:39:49.800 | And then it talks to you on behalf of,

00:39:52.040 | it talks to that website on behalf of you

00:39:54.080 | that encrypts what the website returns

00:39:56.420 | and sends that back to you securely.

00:39:58.080 | So anyone watching your connection says,

00:40:00.680 | "All I know is this guy is talking to ExpressVPN.

00:40:04.040 | "Everything's encrypted.

00:40:04.880 | "I have no idea what he or she is up to."

00:40:08.080 | ExpressVPN sets this up to run

00:40:09.840 | in the background of your devices.

00:40:11.240 | So then once it's turned on,

00:40:12.560 | you just use your normal apps as you usually would.

00:40:17.420 | I like ExpressVPN in particular

00:40:19.120 | because they have many servers all around the world

00:40:22.040 | with really fast speeds.

00:40:23.440 | You don't even realize that you're going through a VPN,

00:40:25.840 | but you get all of those advantages.

00:40:28.940 | I found out recently, which is good,

00:40:31.880 | one subscription can support up to five devices.

00:40:35.560 | So your one subscription can have your phone,

00:40:37.560 | your iPad, your laptop,

00:40:39.000 | all protected with the same subscription fee.

00:40:41.960 | So when your phone carrier tracks you,

00:40:44.560 | that's a gross invasion of privacy.

00:40:46.480 | You can either keep letting them cash in on you,

00:40:49.720 | or you can visit ExpressVPN.com/deep

00:40:52.500 | to get the same VPN I use.

00:40:55.120 | Take back your online privacy today

00:40:57.140 | and use my link to get three extra months free.

00:41:01.760 | That's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-VPN.com/deep,

00:41:06.760 | ExpressVPN.com/deep.

00:41:10.040 | I also wanna talk about New Relic.

00:41:14.400 | So I think all of my listeners who enjoyed

00:41:17.240 | the recent question I did about source code editors

00:41:20.080 | is going to know what I'm talking about here.

00:41:23.040 | If you're a software engineer,

00:41:25.380 | you have had this happen to countless times

00:41:28.280 | where you think you're done with work, you're at home,

00:41:30.280 | you've put on the Deep Questions podcast,

00:41:32.000 | you're looking to relax and your phone buzzes,

00:41:34.860 | something in your system has broken.

00:41:38.720 | Is it the server? Is it the network?

00:41:40.380 | Is it my front end? What is going on?

00:41:42.300 | Now everyone is scrambling to try to figure out

00:41:44.200 | what broke in your system

00:41:45.640 | and figure out who it is that can fix it.

00:41:48.640 | This is where if you use New Relic,

00:41:51.800 | you can make your life a lot easier.

00:41:54.760 | New Relic combined 16 different monitoring products

00:41:57.380 | that you'd normally buy separately.

00:42:00.280 | This allows your engineering team

00:42:01.680 | to see across your entire software stack in one place.

00:42:05.880 | It can then pinpoint issues down to the line of code

00:42:09.980 | causing the issue.

00:42:11.400 | So you can get to the heart of the matter

00:42:13.080 | and fix it as quickly as possible.

00:42:15.720 | That's why the dev and ops teams at DoorDash,

00:42:18.240 | GitHub, Epic Games, and more than 14,000 other companies

00:42:22.640 | already use New Relic to debug and improve their software.

00:42:25.440 | This is the tool suite to use for this issue.

00:42:29.120 | So whether you run a cloud native startup

00:42:30.940 | or a Fortune 500 company,

00:42:32.960 | spend five minutes to set up New Relic in your environment.

00:42:37.680 | So the next time that evening call is just that,

00:42:41.560 | I was, what I mean to say here is that next evening call

00:42:44.240 | is just waiting to happen.

00:42:45.560 | You should get New Relic before it does.

00:42:48.080 | You can get access to the whole New Relic platform

00:42:50.200 | and 100 gigabytes of data free and forever.

00:42:53.400 | No credit card required.

00:42:54.560 | If you sign up at newrelic.com/deep,

00:42:57.180 | that's N-E-W-R-E-L-I-C.com/deep,

00:43:03.200 | newrelic.com/deep.

00:43:08.560 | All right, Jesse, we are down to a couple minutes

00:43:11.840 | to my promised time, and I'm gonna do it.

00:43:14.680 | And I'm gonna do it by being very fast with my questions.

00:43:19.280 | And to make that even more exciting,

00:43:21.760 | somehow lost my questions.

00:43:23.000 | Oh, here we go.

00:43:24.560 | Behind the scenes, guys, I have so many papers.

00:43:27.400 | We're very old fashioned.

00:43:28.640 | My desk is just full of papers.

00:43:31.840 | All right, rapid fire.

00:43:34.000 | Got a question here from Kobe.

00:43:36.160 | Should I solely focus more on developing my skillset

00:43:39.160 | as a stock investor to the point

00:43:40.920 | where my skillset cannot be ignored,

00:43:42.920 | or should I build my skillset as a stock investor

00:43:45.400 | and at the same time continue to teach live courses

00:43:48.720 | on stock investing?

00:43:51.120 | It's getting to a point where I feel like

00:43:52.320 | I have to convince people to join my program

00:43:54.480 | and that's getting draining.

00:43:56.280 | All right, Kobe, my general answer is focus on the stocks.

00:43:59.240 | All right, focus on the primary thing you're doing,

00:44:03.240 | which sounds like it's stock investing.

00:44:05.400 | The course is a side hustle that do it at this point

00:44:08.920 | only if it was entertaining or relaxing.

00:44:11.120 | You're finding it draining.

00:44:13.120 | Focus on the stocks.

00:44:15.000 | Presumably, if you're good enough at the stocks

00:44:17.520 | to be able to teach a course on it,

00:44:18.960 | you should be making more than enough money

00:44:20.440 | from the stocks to not need the course financially.

00:44:22.920 | If you need the course financially,

00:44:24.240 | then you're not good enough at stocks to teach that course.

00:44:26.720 | So I think we've got a great self-referential solution here.

00:44:30.760 | My tough love specific answer, however, Kobe,

00:44:33.440 | is you're not gonna teach yourself to beat the stock market.

00:44:37.920 | Let me tell you this as someone who comes out

00:44:39.920 | of elite Ivy League schools where I've watched people

00:44:42.520 | go off to prop trading desk at Wall Street firms.

00:44:46.360 | The very smartest people in the world

00:44:48.560 | are incredibly well compensated to do nothing

00:44:50.720 | but spend all day training and executing

00:44:52.880 | the best possible plans to make money on the stock market

00:44:55.200 | and even they can't consistently do it.

00:44:57.240 | I had a friend in college, I remember talking to him

00:45:00.480 | about his job a few years out of college.

00:45:02.120 | All he did was had CEOs, a small number of CEOs

00:45:05.800 | of publicly traded companies and his whole job

00:45:08.080 | was to listen to every public announcement

00:45:11.880 | or discussion or conversation they ever have

00:45:14.840 | and really learn the nuances of this individual person

00:45:17.680 | so they could pick up just subtle edges

00:45:19.240 | and what's going on with this person's company.

00:45:21.280 | You're not gonna learn some momentum trading technique

00:45:23.680 | on the internet that's gonna have you

00:45:24.880 | consistently build the market.

00:45:27.160 | You are probably the sucker there.

00:45:29.280 | And so that's my tough love thing.

00:45:32.160 | Invest in index funds, put your time and energy

00:45:34.640 | into other ways of making money.

00:45:37.280 | All right, one more question.

00:45:39.120 | Poseidon's Trident says, "You mentioned a lot of concepts

00:45:43.400 | "and influences from the military.

00:45:45.760 | "Is there anything you agree with from the military,

00:45:48.300 | "modern military relating to lifestyle design

00:45:50.200 | "or disagree with?

00:45:51.720 | "Who else do you look for?

00:45:52.640 | "What else has influenced you from the military world?"

00:45:55.820 | So I've jotted down here, Poseidon,

00:46:00.600 | four things I've seen in the military world

00:46:04.240 | that have had some influence on me.

00:46:05.600 | So I'll just go through them real quick.

00:46:07.560 | One, have a creed.

00:46:09.660 | So military, especially elite military units

00:46:13.060 | are really big at, let's be clear,

00:46:15.120 | this is our code, this is our creed.

00:46:17.640 | This is what we do and what we value,

00:46:19.520 | even if it is hard and they clarify it

00:46:21.620 | so they can work off of it.

00:46:22.720 | I think Jocko was actually involved

00:46:24.740 | in crafting the Navy SEAL ethos in the 1990s.

00:46:29.000 | I think it was Jocko, maybe it was Mark Devine.

00:46:32.120 | But knowing what you're all about

00:46:33.960 | so that you can stick to that.

00:46:36.720 | I think that's a critical idea,

00:46:38.000 | especially when times get hard.

00:46:39.520 | You can fall back on your creed and get value out of,

00:46:41.560 | I stuck to my code and my creed.

00:46:43.600 | Otherwise, you're bouncing all over the place

00:46:46.320 | and just sort of taking each moment as it comes.

00:46:48.400 | Two, serving others is everything.

00:46:51.080 | This is the main lesson of anyone you talk to

00:46:53.220 | that fought in any war.

00:46:54.920 | Go back and read about World War II

00:46:57.460 | for more modern conflicts,

00:46:59.280 | read Sebastian Younger's book, "Tribe."

00:47:03.240 | Talk to anyone who has been in active warfare.

00:47:05.400 | They say, "It's all about the people around me."

00:47:07.940 | Risking my life, everything is around the people in my unit,

00:47:12.320 | the people in my unit and protecting them,

00:47:14.480 | trying to be there for them, trying to serve them.

00:47:17.160 | It's incredibly powerful.

00:47:18.240 | It goes deep into our wiring.

00:47:19.460 | It's something I think we could all learn.

00:47:20.740 | Serving others is everything.

00:47:23.200 | Way more important than accolades,

00:47:25.040 | way more important than getting a lot of likes,

00:47:26.700 | way more important than your TikTok video,

00:47:28.360 | picking up or trying to impress people.

00:47:30.080 | Serving others is what we're wired to do.

00:47:31.960 | War makes that really clear.

00:47:33.920 | Idea number three, embrace the suck.

00:47:37.680 | This is a Navy SEAL idea.

00:47:39.400 | Brent Gleason wrote a book with that title.

00:47:42.680 | One of the core things they teach you in Navy SEAL training

00:47:44.700 | is to be very comfortable

00:47:45.880 | with being incredibly uncomfortable.

00:47:47.920 | So I can be very uncomfortable and that's okay.

00:47:55.560 | I can be sleep deprived, my skin's abraded,

00:47:57.620 | I'm exhausted, my muscles are barking,

00:47:59.220 | I maybe have a stress fracture,

00:48:00.300 | I'm not telling anyone about it

00:48:01.140 | and I'm still gonna execute.

00:48:02.100 | I can still compartmentalize and execute.

00:48:05.580 | Obviously that's critical

00:48:06.460 | if you're gonna be a special operations operator,

00:48:09.300 | but I think it's important for life in general

00:48:11.340 | because hard stuff happens.

00:48:13.300 | And you kind of have two choices.

00:48:15.820 | Either you are going to obsess about it and fall apart

00:48:18.660 | or say, "Okay, this is hard, I feel bad, what's next?"

00:48:22.940 | Hoo-yah or whatever it is that the SEALs say.

00:48:25.840 | I don't know if you heard about this, Jesse,

00:48:26.920 | earlier this year, it was terrible

00:48:28.080 | at BUD/S training in Navy SEALs.

00:48:30.680 | One of the things they do

00:48:31.600 | that make you really uncomfortable during Hell Week

00:48:33.680 | is you, they call it getting wet and sandy.

00:48:35.920 | You go into the ocean and they make you roll in sand

00:48:38.320 | until every inch of your body is covered in sand.

00:48:41.040 | And then you have to go and do a lot of exercises

00:48:44.000 | and terrible stuff.

00:48:44.820 | So you're just completely uncomfortable.

00:48:46.400 | And so your skin is all just ripped up and abraded.

00:48:49.320 | Well, there was a unplanned release of sewage

00:48:54.300 | or some contaminant got into the water off a Coronado.

00:48:57.540 | And the whole SEAL team was hospitalized.

00:48:59.900 | They all got terrible staph infections from the water.

00:49:02.420 | And one of them even died.

00:49:03.520 | It was terrible, that happened this year.

00:49:05.340 | Because the reason why their whole bodies

00:49:07.420 | was abraded and bloody

00:49:08.580 | was because that's the core of the training.

00:49:10.920 | Little known fact is I have Jesse do that once a week

00:49:16.620 | just to try to make sure that he's completely sharp

00:49:19.720 | for doing the show.

00:49:20.720 | I say, come on, Jesse, get wet and sandy.

00:49:22.720 | Oh man.

00:49:24.560 | Okay, and the last thing,

00:49:25.380 | and you've heard me say this before probably,

00:49:26.720 | is discipline is freedom.

00:49:28.780 | This pops up in a lot of places.

00:49:30.320 | That's Jocko's phrase,

00:49:31.600 | but Admiral McRaven has "Make Your Bed,"

00:49:35.080 | his best-selling book.

00:49:36.020 | You see this a lot in military context,

00:49:37.720 | which is discipline in the moment seems

00:49:40.680 | like you're placing arbitrary restrictions

00:49:42.580 | and wouldn't your life be happier

00:49:43.880 | if people just left you alone?

00:49:45.200 | But discipline is the foundation for freedom.

00:49:47.520 | It's how you teach yourself that you have efficacy,

00:49:50.280 | that you have control over your life.

00:49:51.680 | It's what allows you to uncover and pursue options

00:49:54.000 | that are important and stick away

00:49:55.200 | from the things that are going to hurt you.

00:49:57.160 | The discipline life is often a life

00:50:00.200 | where you feel more confident,

00:50:02.540 | you feel better about yourself,

00:50:03.640 | you feel more resilient.

00:50:05.080 | Obviously, you don't wanna push it to an extreme.

00:50:08.280 | If you're David Goggins,

00:50:09.920 | it gets a little bit out of control.

00:50:13.040 | But discipline should not be demonized.

00:50:16.560 | And I think the military is great at that.

00:50:18.000 | You're gonna do arbitrary things in a disciplined fashion

00:50:20.320 | because when it comes to the non-arbitrary things,

00:50:22.080 | you need that foundation.

00:50:23.880 | And there's a reason why they do that,

00:50:25.520 | why they shine their boots and make their beds.

00:50:27.680 | It matters.

00:50:29.300 | All right, Jesse, I have five minutes late,

00:50:30.840 | but that's pretty good for me, right?

00:50:31.960 | 50 minutes?

00:50:33.440 | - Great. - Pretty tight.

00:50:34.560 | - Good stuff.

00:50:35.400 | - All right, so we gotta wrap this up.

00:50:37.200 | Thank you, everyone, who sent in your questions.

00:50:38.960 | We'll have a classic episode on Thursday,

00:50:41.240 | but then God willing, I will be back as normal

00:50:43.840 | the week after.

00:50:45.160 | If you like what you heard, you'll like what you see

00:50:48.600 | at calnewport.com, no, not calnewport.com,

00:50:51.640 | youtube.com/calnewportmedia,

00:50:54.080 | video of this full episode and every question

00:50:56.160 | that I answered.

00:50:57.400 | You can also read my weekly newsletter

00:50:59.520 | that you can sign up for at calnewport.com.

00:51:02.480 | Until next week, stay deep.

00:51:06.440 | (upbeat music)

00:51:09.020 | (upbeat music)

Full Length Episode | #183 | March 21, 2022 | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

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