My Honest Advice For Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom In 2025

00:00:00.000 | We don't talk a lot about money on this show,

00:00:03.200 | but today I want to touch on the topic.

00:00:06.520 | Why?

00:00:07.520 | Well, if we think about it,

00:00:08.560 | money can play a critical role

00:00:10.240 | when it comes to the goal of cultivating a deep life

00:00:13.760 | in our digital distracted world.

00:00:16.280 | Now, I want to focus here in particular

00:00:18.400 | on an idea that comes from my most recent book,

00:00:21.880 | Slow Productivity.

00:00:23.480 | In fact, I'm going to even read a little segment

00:00:25.240 | from this book and then we're going to analyze it

00:00:26.860 | because it's a small concept

00:00:28.120 | that I think could have a big impact

00:00:31.400 | on how you think about money

00:00:33.580 | and its role in crafting a deep life.

00:00:36.480 | All right, so let's start with the action.

00:00:37.500 | I'm going to read to you

00:00:39.220 | and then we'll figure out what it means.

00:00:41.180 | All right, so this is coming from my book.

00:00:44.460 | I am talking here about Paul Jarvis is his name.

00:00:48.220 | This is a case study.

00:00:49.280 | All right, Jarvis studied computer science in college,

00:00:53.000 | but also had a natural feel for visual design.

00:00:56.300 | During the first internet boom of the 1990s,

00:00:58.460 | these two skills proved to be the perfect combination

00:01:00.680 | for success in the emerging medium of website design.

00:01:04.500 | Jarvis produced several eye-catching sites on his own,

00:01:06.840 | which soon led to job offers.

00:01:08.760 | Look, Jesse, I'm holding up the book so that it's visible.

00:01:11.100 | They call that marketing.

00:01:12.020 | For those who are listening, not watching,

00:01:13.260 | I've realized if I hold the book up,

00:01:15.420 | you can see it on the camera

00:01:17.140 | because I'm a natural marketer.

00:01:18.940 | Anyways, back to what I'm reading.

00:01:20.220 | Jarvis produced several eye-catching sites on his own,

00:01:22.140 | which soon led to job offers.

00:01:23.460 | Before long, he was a busy web designer

00:01:25.460 | living in downtown Vancouver in a quote,

00:01:27.860 | "glass cube in the sky," end quote.

00:01:30.300 | He felt the normal pressure to grow a small business.

00:01:32.940 | More revenue would mean a better apartment

00:01:34.500 | and more prestige, but even though his growing skills

00:01:37.100 | would support this well-trod professional path,

00:01:39.660 | his heart wasn't in it.

00:01:41.900 | "My wife and I had just had enough of the city,"

00:01:46.580 | he recalled in a 2016 interview.

00:01:48.940 | "We did our time in the rat race

00:01:50.220 | "and we wanted something different."

00:01:52.700 | Recognizing that his freelance design work

00:01:54.380 | could be accomplished from any location

00:01:56.140 | with an internet connection,

00:01:57.140 | they moved to the woods outside Tofino

00:01:59.940 | on the Pacific shore of Vancouver Island,

00:02:02.140 | so his wife, who is a surfer,

00:02:03.300 | could enjoy the sleepy town's famed breaks.

00:02:06.620 | As they discovered, frugality is easy

00:02:08.620 | when you're living in the woods of Vancouver Island

00:02:10.580 | as there aren't that many opportunities to spend money.

00:02:13.340 | When you're remote, there's nobody to do things for you,

00:02:15.780 | so you just have to do a lot for yourself, Jarvis explained.

00:02:18.940 | Freed from the need to increase his income

00:02:20.980 | to keep up with city expenses,

00:02:22.700 | Jarvis leveraged his growing skills

00:02:24.340 | to keep his work responsibilities flexible and contained.

00:02:28.660 | At first, he focused on freelance design contracts.

00:02:30.900 | Because he was in demand,

00:02:31.820 | he could keep his hourly rate high

00:02:34.140 | and his number of projects small.

00:02:36.060 | Eventually, tired of deadlines and client communication,

00:02:38.100 | he explored ways to further transform

00:02:39.580 | his notable skills and reputation

00:02:41.460 | to achieve even more slowness.

00:02:45.260 | All right, that is the story of Paul Jarvis.

00:02:48.220 | I wanna pull a key lesson out of here,

00:02:50.180 | but first, let's all just get on the same page

00:02:53.020 | about the way, on this show and in that book,

00:02:55.340 | we think about cultivating a deep life.

00:02:58.020 | My approach is what I call lifestyle-centric planning,

00:03:01.620 | which says instead of just pursuing a grand goal

00:03:04.860 | that you hope will make everything better,

00:03:06.900 | like make a ton of money,

00:03:08.860 | break into this particular industry,

00:03:11.580 | become really good at this hobby,

00:03:14.420 | instead of pursuing a singular grand goal,

00:03:17.420 | lifestyle-centric planning says you should start

00:03:19.100 | by identifying your ideal lifestyle

00:03:22.620 | in all of its different elements,

00:03:25.060 | what it feels like, what it looks like,

00:03:27.540 | what it smells like, what your daily routine is like,

00:03:29.780 | where are you, what's it around,

00:03:31.100 | what's the rhythm of your days,

00:03:32.260 | all of the elements of your ideal lifestyle.

00:03:34.540 | You then evaluate different concrete instantiations

00:03:37.500 | of this lifestyle, so different concrete ways

00:03:39.440 | you might seek a life that has more of these properties

00:03:43.340 | of your ideal lifestyle.

00:03:44.820 | You pick one that seems most feasible

00:03:47.300 | and you make a plan to work towards it.

00:03:48.580 | That's lifestyle-centric planning.

00:03:50.280 | Now, when evaluating potential instantiations

00:03:56.580 | of your ideal lifestyle, a common metric

00:04:00.140 | that people think about is how much

00:04:03.420 | would this instantiation, so this particular concrete life,

00:04:07.860 | how much would it cost?

00:04:08.980 | What I wanna argue here, and this is where

00:04:11.500 | the Jarvis story is gonna point us,

00:04:13.740 | is that asking how much a given instantiation

00:04:17.580 | of your ideal lifestyle costs

00:04:19.460 | is not quite the right question.

00:04:22.060 | And the problem here is that it doesn't take into account

00:04:25.700 | what's involved in acquiring those needed funds.

00:04:29.220 | So let me give you an extreme example

00:04:30.460 | to try to make this a little bit more clear.

00:04:32.940 | All right, let's say I'm a professor here in D.C.,

00:04:36.660 | and I decide I wanna move to rural Pennsylvania,

00:04:41.540 | and I'm gonna homeschool my kids and live on a farm,

00:04:44.100 | and right in a barn, and that's what I really wanna do.

00:04:47.420 | But there's no university there,

00:04:49.420 | so maybe my plan is, okay, but I can write from anywhere,

00:04:52.580 | so I'm gonna be a freelance writer.

00:04:55.100 | I'll be a freelance writer, and we'll live in the farm

00:04:58.220 | and homeschool my kids.

00:05:00.140 | If I'm just looking directly at the question

00:05:01.980 | of how much would this lifestyle cost,

00:05:04.740 | this particular instantiation

00:05:06.180 | of my ideal lifestyle properties,

00:05:08.780 | I might be very pleased.

00:05:10.280 | I'm like, well, this is cheap compared to living in D.C.

00:05:12.420 | Maybe this is like half the expense of living in D.C.

00:05:16.020 | But that would be the wrong question,

00:05:17.400 | because it might turn out to earn that money,

00:05:19.980 | even though it's like half the money

00:05:21.260 | I would need to survive in D.C.,

00:05:23.980 | because I'm making so much less money

00:05:25.740 | doing freelance writing, I might have to work all the time.

00:05:28.740 | In fact, my working hours might be even larger

00:05:30.980 | than they are in D.C. as a professor.

00:05:32.820 | And so the fact that it's cheaper

00:05:35.900 | doesn't necessarily mean that that lifestyle

00:05:38.720 | is gonna get closer, that instantiation's gonna get closer

00:05:40.980 | to my properties.

00:05:41.820 | Here's a more realistic example,

00:05:43.020 | because this is actually based off a real story.

00:05:45.960 | Imagine you're working, again, you're in D.C.

00:05:47.900 | and you're working at, let's say, the home office here

00:05:51.460 | for a big consulting firm, right?

00:05:53.660 | So you're working for one of the big consulting firms

00:05:55.780 | here in D.C.

00:05:56.620 | You get this idea, you have this ideal lifestyle vision

00:05:59.860 | that involves more nature and slowness or whatever,

00:06:02.540 | and maybe what you really wanna do

00:06:04.540 | is move to the upper peninsula of Michigan,

00:06:06.920 | like your family's long had a cabin

00:06:08.580 | and you have this whole vision

00:06:09.540 | of what you're gonna do up there,

00:06:10.940 | and you talk to your employer and they're like,

00:06:12.420 | yeah, that's fine, because if you move over to this group,

00:06:15.780 | the clients for this group are all around the country,

00:06:17.520 | so it doesn't matter where you're based, right?

00:06:19.760 | So maybe when you're in D.C.,

00:06:21.280 | you're dealing with political government relations clients

00:06:23.840 | and they're all kind of local.

00:06:24.680 | They're like, you know what, if we move you over

00:06:25.720 | to the energy group, these clients are all around,

00:06:29.120 | you have to be on site anyway,

00:06:30.340 | so it doesn't matter where you're based.

00:06:31.280 | So sure, if you wanna move to the upper peninsula,

00:06:33.160 | move to the upper peninsula.

00:06:34.560 | Now again, if you just asked, great,

00:06:37.640 | how much does this particular instantiation

00:06:39.600 | of my ideal lifestyle cost?

00:06:41.880 | You could be led astray.

00:06:44.200 | 'Cause again, almost certainly it will be cheaper

00:06:46.100 | to live in the upper peninsula of Michigan

00:06:47.860 | than to live in Washington, D.C.

00:06:49.500 | But the issue with this plan

00:06:52.420 | is now you have to travel to all these clients.

00:06:55.220 | When you live up in the U.P.,

00:06:56.180 | you're not really close to an airport.

00:06:57.500 | You're gonna have to take a puddle jumper to Detroit,

00:06:58.920 | and then from Detroit,

00:06:59.760 | you're gonna have to take the longer flights,

00:07:01.460 | and you're gonna actually be working way more

00:07:04.700 | than you were in D.C.

00:07:06.540 | So the fact that the lifestyle instantiation's

00:07:08.980 | actual cost is cheaper,

00:07:11.580 | in some sense doesn't matter that much.

00:07:14.540 | So what's the better metric to use?

00:07:17.960 | I'm gonna argue it's what I call hour cost, H-O-U-R, cost.

00:07:22.960 | What this stands for is how many hours of work per week

00:07:29.740 | does a particular lifestyle instantiation require.

00:07:33.540 | That's actually the financial metric you care about

00:07:36.740 | when evaluating these different scenarios.

00:07:39.400 | When you use the hour cost in our prior examples,

00:07:42.460 | that's where you see, wait a second,

00:07:43.300 | I'm moving to the farm in rural Pennsylvania,

00:07:45.340 | has a really high hour cost.

00:07:47.340 | So maybe I'm gonna keep looking at other instantiations

00:07:49.580 | to get that hour cost down,

00:07:50.820 | because the whole point of me moving to the farm

00:07:52.460 | is to spend more time outside and doing farm things,

00:07:54.980 | being with my kids, so I need a lower hour cost.

00:07:57.300 | You would have the same insight

00:07:58.720 | if you evaluate the hour cost of our Michigan example.

00:08:01.940 | You would say, man, the hour cost of my living,

00:08:04.660 | if we move up there, is gonna double.

00:08:06.580 | I'm gonna be on the road all the time.

00:08:08.400 | What's the point of, again,

00:08:09.980 | living in a place where I have access

00:08:11.460 | to these other things that are important

00:08:12.740 | to my ideal lifestyle if I'm gonna have much fewer,

00:08:15.500 | many fewer minutes to actually take advantage of them?

00:08:19.060 | So hour cost is very important.

00:08:22.060 | Now, it's important beyond, however,

00:08:24.620 | just this particular application

00:08:28.180 | of making sure that a cheaper place to live

00:08:30.140 | doesn't actually make you work just as much, if not more.

00:08:33.200 | It has a more advanced application,

00:08:35.140 | which is what was demonstrated in the story of Paul Jarvis.

00:08:40.140 | So what Paul Jarvis discovered

00:08:41.780 | is that once you started thinking about hour cost,

00:08:45.140 | instead of just using this

00:08:46.620 | to help evaluate different scenarios for your life,

00:08:51.380 | it gives you a different way

00:08:52.460 | of thinking about your current work.

00:08:54.940 | And the insight that Paul Jarvis had

00:08:57.460 | is that as his skills got better, he had two choices.

00:09:02.460 | The common choice was, I will make more money.

00:09:09.260 | I'm in more demand.

00:09:10.620 | I can have a bigger list of clients.

00:09:13.820 | I can be a more prestigious firm.

00:09:15.860 | I can make more money.

00:09:17.140 | But that didn't necessarily, by itself,

00:09:20.700 | reduce the hour cost of living in Vancouver Island.

00:09:25.180 | And if anything, it could actually increase the hour cost

00:09:27.380 | because maybe he would have to travel more.

00:09:29.100 | So he said, my other option

00:09:31.220 | is I could just charge more money

00:09:32.440 | for what I'm already doing.

00:09:34.500 | I can get to the amount of money required

00:09:37.980 | to support this particular instantiation

00:09:39.940 | of my ideal lifestyle that I have in mind

00:09:41.380 | in Tofino and Vancouver Island.

00:09:43.140 | I can bring the hour cost of that lifestyle down.

00:09:45.760 | So instead of making more money,

00:09:48.940 | I'm going to work less to make the same money.

00:09:51.620 | I'm going to drive the hour cost down.

00:09:53.540 | And you don't think about this dynamic

00:09:55.100 | when all you think about is raw revenue, right?

00:09:57.980 | When all you think about raw revenue,

00:10:00.460 | in the worst case,

00:10:01.560 | you just begin trying to maximize that number

00:10:04.460 | and now you're just in the singular grand goal theory.

00:10:06.580 | In the best case, you just say, okay,

00:10:08.060 | I make enough to support this lifestyle instantiation,

00:10:11.620 | so let's go for it,

00:10:12.860 | but your hour cost might be much higher

00:10:14.300 | than it really needed to be.

00:10:16.020 | Jarvis's lifestyle, which really is cool,

00:10:17.900 | and I go on in the book and I detail

00:10:19.620 | what it's like on his property and the greenhouses he has

00:10:22.140 | and how he doesn't own an alarm clock

00:10:23.680 | and what their daily schedule is like,

00:10:25.420 | what made this instantiation really cool

00:10:27.940 | and close to the values that they identified

00:10:30.820 | when going through their ideal lifestyle

00:10:32.420 | is that he brought the hour cost of this lifestyle down.

00:10:36.220 | So that is kind of where the magic becomes.

00:10:39.180 | If you want to bring down the hour cost of your lifestyle,

00:10:41.380 | you can go somewhere cheaper,

00:10:43.300 | but that's only half the battle.

00:10:45.820 | You can also use your skills not to make more money,

00:10:48.740 | but to work less for the same money.

00:10:50.620 | That also drives down hour cost.

00:10:52.260 | So that's why I think it's a cool metric

00:10:54.580 | is because it opens up approaches

00:10:57.660 | to thinking about money in the deep life

00:10:58.940 | that you might not have otherwise thought about.

00:11:01.060 | You avoid traps, but you also find new opportunities

00:11:05.820 | to build a life that's even cooler

00:11:08.540 | than you might have imagined is possible.

00:11:09.740 | And it doesn't require some grand windfall.

00:11:14.740 | It doesn't require what I really need

00:11:17.740 | is this book I write to become the next "Atomic Habits."

00:11:20.900 | And then with the riches I have from that,

00:11:22.500 | now I can finally live on an island

00:11:24.620 | and work on my gardens and surf

00:11:26.260 | and only work a couple hours a day.

00:11:28.100 | It turns out if you care about hour cost,

00:11:29.620 | you find ways of getting those goals

00:11:31.500 | that don't require the windfall.

00:11:33.460 | It's wait, I'm really good now at web development.

00:11:38.020 | So I'm gonna triple my hourly rate,

00:11:40.580 | cut my number of clients by a factor of four,

00:11:43.140 | just have a few clients,

00:11:44.260 | but I have a really high hourly rate, boom, I'm good.

00:11:47.260 | So the hour cost metric

00:11:48.380 | really gets you to some interesting places.

00:11:50.260 | Hey, it's Cal.

00:11:51.140 | I wanted to interrupt briefly to say

00:11:53.020 | that if you're enjoying this video,

00:11:55.100 | then you need to check out my new book,

00:11:57.300 | "Slow Productivity,

00:11:59.060 | "The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout."

00:12:02.980 | This is like the Bible for most of the ideas

00:12:05.700 | we talk about here in these videos.

00:12:08.460 | You can get a free excerpt at calnewport.com/slow.

00:12:13.460 | I know you're gonna like it, check it out.

00:12:16.500 | Now let's get back to the video.

00:12:18.500 | A key point about this,

00:12:19.980 | it requires hard work to do any interesting things here.

00:12:23.420 | This is not a bypass around my maxim from my 2012 book,

00:12:28.420 | "Become so good they can't ignore you."

00:12:32.980 | Bringing down your hour cost is something you can do

00:12:34.740 | if you keep getting better.

00:12:36.340 | It has to do with how you apply your career capital

00:12:39.460 | as you get better.

00:12:40.580 | It's when you make the choice as you get more talented

00:12:44.420 | to say, "I don't want more work.

00:12:46.420 | "I wanna do less work for the same amount of money.

00:12:48.700 | "I wanna go to three days a week

00:12:50.940 | "and get 2/3 of the income."

00:12:52.580 | Like it's using your skills to gain leverage.

00:12:56.060 | You still have to build up skills,

00:12:57.220 | but it helps you aim your skills in directions

00:13:00.700 | that you might not have thought as possible

00:13:01.940 | if you were just using standard ways of thinking

00:13:03.580 | about money, your job, and your life.

00:13:06.580 | Now, how does this connect?

00:13:09.980 | I like to connect this all back

00:13:12.060 | to the general theme of this show,

00:13:14.020 | which is more technology-centric.

00:13:16.780 | As we talked about a couple of weeks ago

00:13:18.140 | in my Tao of Cal episode,

00:13:20.340 | the general unifying principle for this show

00:13:24.100 | is to look at ways in which our Paleolithic brain

00:13:27.060 | and Neolithic culture conflicts

00:13:29.860 | with our modern digital environment

00:13:31.180 | and then come up with solutions to those disorders.

00:13:33.740 | So how does this fit into that general theme?

00:13:35.500 | Well, we talked about this a little bit

00:13:36.860 | in the Tao of Cal episode.

00:13:38.860 | One of the big disorders that comes from these mismatches

00:13:41.940 | is that as work gets more digital and abstract,

00:13:44.580 | so it's just moving information around on a computer screen.

00:13:48.500 | It's not tangible. It's not connected to a location.

00:13:51.620 | It's often what you're doing is disconnected

00:13:53.500 | even from a particular outcome.

00:13:55.020 | It's emails and Zoom and PowerPoint slides,

00:13:57.060 | like this abstract thing we all do.

00:13:58.900 | And as our time outside of work

00:14:00.140 | increasingly gets colonized

00:14:01.900 | by algorithmically optimized distraction and diversion

00:14:04.340 | delivered through screens,

00:14:06.100 | life can turn into this relatively dull slurry

00:14:09.700 | of just, I don't know, I'm manipulating the digital

00:14:13.620 | and being manipulated by the digital

00:14:15.540 | until it's time to go to sleep.

00:14:17.260 | In that circumstance, which is unique,

00:14:20.900 | or at least superpowered by our current digital conditions,

00:14:24.020 | in that circumstance, we've lost track

00:14:25.740 | of how to build an intentional life,

00:14:27.780 | how to figure out what's important to you

00:14:30.460 | and to pursue those.

00:14:31.780 | We're too distracted. We're too numb.

00:14:33.380 | Our lives are too abstracted and screen-mediated

00:14:35.780 | for us to be good at intentional living.

00:14:39.940 | So that's why we talk about the deep life here,

00:14:41.820 | not just because it's a good thing to do.

00:14:44.340 | You only get one run, right?

00:14:47.020 | You only get one run here on this planet.

00:14:48.460 | Might as well make it interesting.

00:14:50.180 | But because it is a direct response,

00:14:51.980 | we have to get much more systematic about lifestyle crafting

00:14:54.700 | because we've lost all the cues and wisdom

00:14:56.940 | that we used to have about how to do that.

00:14:58.900 | All right, so that's how we can connect things

00:15:00.540 | like hour cost and lifestyle-centric planning

00:15:03.340 | back to the central theme of this show,

00:15:04.820 | which is the disorders of the modern digital environment.

00:15:08.020 | So there you go.

00:15:08.940 | Paul Jarvis, from the book I will hold up,

00:15:13.900 | teaches us about hour cost.

00:15:18.420 | I'm thinking now, so Jesse,

00:15:21.700 | you always discover these things when you write

00:15:23.300 | and then you talk about what you write.

00:15:24.820 | Hour cost kind of sounds like, oh, you are cost.

00:15:28.060 | You don't necessarily, on paper, it's perfectly clear.

00:15:30.780 | - Yeah.

00:15:31.620 | - But when you say it out loud,

00:15:32.540 | and I have this issue, like the word minimalism,

00:15:35.620 | perfectly clear on paper.

00:15:37.380 | Actually kind of hard to say without practice, minimalism,

00:15:41.020 | but hour cost with an H.

00:15:43.060 | - Yeah.

00:15:43.900 | - My latest catchy idea.

00:15:45.340 | - What was the monster book before "Atomic Habits"

00:15:48.380 | in the nonfiction?

00:15:49.420 | - "The Subtle Art," Mark Manson's book.

00:15:52.620 | That's even bigger than "Atomic,"

00:15:56.660 | though "Atomic" might catch up.

00:15:58.460 | But I think "Subtle Art of Not Giving a Bleep Word"

00:16:02.060 | is, oh, it was like 12 million copies.

00:16:04.980 | It was insane.

00:16:05.820 | Yeah, you should see, if you like that book,

00:16:08.780 | check out my, I went on Mark's show.

00:16:11.820 | It's on YouTube.

00:16:13.140 | Yeah, he's got a cool YouTube show.

00:16:15.620 | - I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:16:16.940 | - Filmed it out there in Santa Monica.

00:16:19.140 | It's nice out there, Jesse.

00:16:20.500 | Hanging out in Santa Monica and LA,

00:16:24.420 | and Rich rolls out in Calabasas,

00:16:27.740 | and Mark Manson's in Santa Monica.

00:16:29.840 | Oh God, who else was I doing out there?

00:16:32.860 | Anyways, it's nice out there.

00:16:33.980 | - Your hour cost might go up if you move out there, though,

00:16:36.220 | 'cause your expenses would go up.

00:16:37.940 | - I think the hour cost of, yeah, I would have to write,

00:16:41.060 | if I do the math, like to live in Mark's house,

00:16:44.140 | I think I'd have to write four books a year.

00:16:45.620 | Is that sustainable?

00:16:46.660 | I'm just gonna take the graph on my end.

00:16:49.580 | Can I just extrapolate that up?

00:16:51.300 | If we just do four episodes of this show a week,

00:16:54.540 | and I write like four books a year, what's the problem?

00:16:57.600 | I could live by the beach.

00:17:00.200 | All right, we got a bunch of cool questions

00:17:01.720 | coming up to cover a lot of topics,

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00:20:28.880 | All right, Jesse, let's do some questions.

00:20:31.760 | Who do we got first?

00:20:32.920 | - First question's from Joseph.

00:20:35.040 | Whenever I try reading a book,

00:20:36.380 | within a couple of minutes,

00:20:37.360 | my mind drifts off to something slightly relevant

00:20:39.960 | or completely irrelevant.

00:20:41.960 | Is experiencing this just part of a process

00:20:44.760 | for a person who is cognitively out of shape

00:20:47.480 | and trying to cultivate his ability to focus?

00:20:50.160 | - Yes.

00:20:51.000 | You telling me, and I'm quoting you here,

00:20:55.760 | my mind drifts off to something slightly relevant

00:20:58.500 | or completely irrelevant

00:20:59.520 | within minutes of starting to read,

00:21:01.600 | that's the same, from a cognitive perspective,

00:21:04.520 | that's the same as you telling me

00:21:06.240 | I get winded when I walk up the stairs.

00:21:08.040 | I'd be like, yeah, you're out of shape.

00:21:10.080 | No surprises.

00:21:11.560 | Also, the solution's easy.

00:21:12.560 | Get in better shape.

00:21:13.400 | You're gonna have to eat better, you're gonna have to exercise.

00:21:15.260 | That's all that's going on here, right?

00:21:17.720 | You're out of practice with reading

00:21:19.640 | and you're doing the cognitive equivalent of smoking

00:21:21.840 | by being on your phone all the time.

00:21:23.800 | So you gotta practice, practice, practice

00:21:25.640 | to get better at it.

00:21:27.320 | There's the obvious things to do.

00:21:29.100 | The biggest thing you can do

00:21:30.140 | is rewire your phone when you're at home.

00:21:32.180 | Treat your phone like an old-fashioned hardwired landline

00:21:35.040 | by plugging it into an adapter

00:21:36.380 | in one place in your house when you get home.

00:21:38.860 | If you need to look something up,

00:21:40.020 | you go to where your phone is.

00:21:41.340 | If you need to check your text messages

00:21:43.260 | or do a text conversation, you go to where your phone is.

00:21:46.500 | If you wanna listen to something,

00:21:47.940 | well, you can put on wireless headphones.

00:21:49.460 | So like, if you wanna listen to my podcast

00:21:51.280 | while you clean the dishes, that's fine.

00:21:52.560 | Use wireless headphones, but keep the phone wired.

00:21:55.400 | This means when you're at home,

00:21:56.800 | it cannot become a default distraction crutch.

00:21:59.940 | So you're watching TV or you're reading a book

00:22:02.700 | and you have that twinge of boredom,

00:22:04.820 | it's not there for you to pick up.

00:22:06.820 | And the friction of getting up and walking to another room

00:22:08.860 | and picking it up where it's plugged in,

00:22:10.020 | that's too high for you to do that.

00:22:11.340 | So you overcome that moment.

00:22:12.620 | And in doing so, every time you overcome that urge

00:22:15.060 | and keep doing what you're doing,

00:22:16.580 | that's like doing another pushup in the physical space.

00:22:18.820 | That's like walking another quarter mile.

00:22:20.980 | It adds up.

00:22:22.300 | You're gonna get into better shape.

00:22:23.780 | All right, so rewire your phone.

00:22:25.820 | That's a big one.

00:22:26.660 | Two, keep pushing yourself to read books.

00:22:28.700 | Start with books that you absolutely are fascinated by.

00:22:32.760 | Right, so whatever that is for you.

00:22:33.980 | It could be sports nonfiction.

00:22:35.740 | Like I just read the Agassi memoir, open.

00:22:40.600 | Yep, that was fun.

00:22:41.680 | So if you're into like sports nonfiction

00:22:43.360 | or like techno thrillers,

00:22:45.560 | I've read three so far for Thriller December.

00:22:48.240 | Just dumb, fun, techno thrillers.

00:22:50.680 | Just don't read "Eruption" by Michael Crichton.

00:22:55.160 | And Patterson, don't read that one.

00:22:58.360 | But whatever it is, or maybe it's like romance fiction

00:23:00.720 | or business advice books or self-help books

00:23:04.120 | like David Goggins, whatever it is,

00:23:05.840 | start with books that you love

00:23:08.720 | and you're most likely to keep reading

00:23:10.400 | because all you're practicing here

00:23:11.520 | is just the literal act of keeping your eyes

00:23:13.260 | on the page and going.

00:23:14.360 | So whatever makes that easier is gonna be better.

00:23:16.680 | You can read Ulysses later.

00:23:18.020 | Let's just get used to books.

00:23:19.680 | So read more, but start with stuff that you really like.

00:23:22.500 | And then spend more time doing thinking walks

00:23:24.500 | on a regular basis, go for a walk without a phone.

00:23:27.400 | You have no choice, but to get used to your own head.

00:23:30.440 | What's in the world around me?

00:23:33.360 | What am I thinking about?

00:23:34.720 | Having thoughts, exploring thoughts.

00:23:36.580 | You just get more comfortable

00:23:37.680 | in your own interior cognitive space.

00:23:39.580 | It's gonna make it much easier

00:23:41.440 | to tackle hard thoughts later in books, all right?

00:23:43.060 | So do those three things, you'll get better.

00:23:44.280 | It takes time, but you'll get better.

00:23:45.320 | Rewire your phone, read more books,

00:23:47.660 | but start with fun ones and do thinking walks.

00:23:50.480 | You'll get stronger, Joseph.

00:23:51.720 | - The ghost writer for "The Agassi" was J.R. Moringa, right?

00:23:55.820 | He wrote "The Tender Bar."

00:23:56.940 | - Oh, really?

00:23:57.860 | - Pretty sure.

00:23:58.700 | He wrote an article about it in "The New Yorker"

00:24:00.500 | not too long ago either.

00:24:01.660 | - Oh, yes.

00:24:04.500 | But was that the article about,

00:24:06.460 | he also, the ghost writer for "Prince Harry's."

00:24:09.700 | - Yes. - It's the same guy?

00:24:11.500 | Interesting.

00:24:12.320 | So he's good at capturing emotional realities.

00:24:14.500 | It's an interesting book.

00:24:17.660 | Man, "Agassi" had a-

00:24:19.380 | - Did you read "The Tender Bar?"

00:24:21.140 | - No, I heard it's great though.

00:24:22.740 | - That's good, that was a movie too.

00:24:24.060 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:24:25.820 | Well, anyways, who do we got next?

00:24:28.700 | - Next up is Adam.

00:24:30.260 | I'm a real estate agent, receive calls, emails,

00:24:32.780 | and texts randomly throughout the day.

00:24:34.420 | The faster I respond, the happier the client.

00:24:37.020 | What is the best process to be effective in my work

00:24:39.540 | if I still need time blocks for non-distracted work?

00:24:42.280 | - Real estate is a good case study.

00:24:47.180 | Funny story about real estate and distraction and deep work.

00:24:51.520 | When I bought, when we bought our current house in like 2018,

00:24:56.520 | we bought our current house in Tacoma Park.

00:24:59.200 | I remember, because at some point when you're buying a house

00:25:03.380 | you have to like disclose assets

00:25:07.000 | and like income that's coming in.

00:25:09.140 | And it's obviously for me that looks different

00:25:12.700 | than most people because I make a lot of money

00:25:14.260 | from like books.

00:25:15.620 | So it's not, here's my W-2

00:25:17.780 | and here's how much money I make a year.

00:25:19.180 | It's like, I just got this huge check the other day

00:25:22.040 | because it's like the advance payment

00:25:23.440 | for like some new book or whatever.

00:25:25.480 | So my real estate agent figured out,

00:25:29.100 | oh, this guy writes books.

00:25:31.520 | He wrote a book called "Deep Work."

00:25:32.880 | After we handed in those financial disclosures,

00:25:35.460 | then she began talking to me about how distracted she was

00:25:38.420 | with clients always trying to contact her

00:25:40.020 | and what her life was like

00:25:41.100 | and what it's like being a real estate agent.

00:25:42.380 | So it was, Adam, I understand.

00:25:44.100 | I've heard this story before.

00:25:46.060 | My rule here, my general rule

00:25:48.260 | is that clarity trumps accessibility.

00:25:50.660 | The problem you're solving for your clients

00:25:56.200 | is that they encounter something

00:25:58.140 | that they need your input on.

00:25:59.500 | Like, what about this listing?

00:26:01.300 | Is this something we should be looking at?

00:26:03.980 | Or is this price, I'm thinking our price for the house

00:26:06.580 | we're selling is too low.

00:26:07.460 | Like, you know, you have something

00:26:09.460 | that you want their feedback on.

00:26:11.200 | Because this is outside of like your normal cycle of work,

00:26:14.040 | it's also something that you're gonna pretty much

00:26:15.860 | be keeping track of on your own in your own head

00:26:17.680 | until you get an answer back.

00:26:19.300 | So you kind of would just like an answer right away

00:26:21.580 | so you don't have to worry about this anymore.

00:26:24.220 | But you can solve their problem just as easily

00:26:26.260 | if they have clarity about how they're gonna hear back

00:26:28.460 | from you and how they're gonna get information.

00:26:30.100 | And if they have clarity, they know what to expect

00:26:32.420 | and you meet those expectations, they'll be just as happy.

00:26:35.760 | So in the lack of any expectations,

00:26:39.660 | just get back to me right away

00:26:40.500 | because otherwise I don't know how long it's gonna take

00:26:42.420 | till I hear from you.

00:26:43.260 | And what if I forget?

00:26:44.080 | And what if I forget?

00:26:44.920 | Just get back to me right away

00:26:45.760 | so I don't have to think about this.

00:26:46.700 | But imagine instead you have like a really clear,

00:26:48.760 | very optimistic forward policy where you say,

00:26:52.080 | I'm here for you.

00:26:54.860 | Here's my number for texting, in fact,

00:26:56.700 | like you have a question, you see a listing,

00:26:58.220 | you think I should care.

00:26:59.060 | Send it to me by text, that's even faster.

00:27:01.980 | Every two hours I clear out my text inbox

00:27:04.020 | so you will, I guarantee you'll hear back from me

00:27:06.740 | within two hours at the most when you text me.

00:27:09.800 | That actually solves the same problem

00:27:12.940 | because there's clarity about the policy here.

00:27:16.460 | Your client knows if I send this text,

00:27:19.820 | like I send this listing to my agent,

00:27:22.460 | I can trust I'm gonna hear back from the agent

00:27:26.620 | and I'm gonna hear back from the agent really soon, right?

00:27:28.820 | Like within an hour or so.

00:27:30.060 | So like really timely, I can let this go.

00:27:33.400 | I don't have to keep track of this anymore.

00:27:34.700 | I'm gonna hear from you in like an hour or so, that's fine.

00:27:37.420 | So if you have clarity,

00:27:39.540 | you don't have to be completely accessible.

00:27:42.860 | And now you've built yourself like a nice system.

00:27:44.780 | Like yeah, every two hours I sit down

00:27:47.220 | and I go through my text messages

00:27:48.540 | and I answer them all in one batch and I'm less distracted.

00:27:51.140 | And in between I can work on the other things I'm doing

00:27:52.940 | without having to be distracted.

00:27:54.500 | And most people end up okay.

00:27:56.260 | The 5% rule applies here,

00:27:58.540 | which says about any policy like this,

00:28:00.100 | about 5% of people won't like it.

00:28:01.840 | That is a fair tax to pay for reclaiming your attention.

00:28:06.440 | For those of you who are not real estate agents,

00:28:08.300 | this same thing applies

00:28:09.860 | if you have any sort of client situation

00:28:11.700 | or even a situation where you're dealing with a boss,

00:28:14.380 | people only want you to reply immediately

00:28:16.820 | if they have no other structure expectations

00:28:18.820 | for when they're gonna hear back.

00:28:20.120 | With no other structure expectation,

00:28:21.820 | it's up to them to keep track of this in their head

00:28:23.500 | until they hear from you.

00:28:24.340 | So they'd rather you be as quick as possible.

00:28:26.220 | If they have other expectations,

00:28:29.380 | oh, I'll hear back at noon.

00:28:31.260 | This is when they don't do email in the morning.

00:28:34.020 | They have an office hours that afternoon.

00:28:35.420 | I can just call them and I know they'll be there

00:28:36.940 | and I'll get the answer.

00:28:38.060 | You're solving their problem of I know what to do with this

00:28:40.620 | and I don't have to keep track of it.

00:28:41.980 | So expectations often trump accessibility

00:28:46.460 | or clarity that is often trumps accessibility.

00:28:49.720 | That would be, actually, that'd be a bad shirt.

00:28:54.340 | I think if we put that on a shirt.

00:28:55.900 | - You could make it an acronym.

00:28:57.140 | It could be like one of your Russian spy acronym.

00:28:59.620 | - An acronym would be better.

00:29:00.700 | I think if I put it on a shirt,

00:29:01.820 | the problem is accessibility also means,

00:29:03.820 | like from disability studies,

00:29:05.460 | like making more services accessible

00:29:07.120 | to a wider range of people.

00:29:08.620 | So saying like clarity trumps accessibility,

00:29:11.660 | it kind of seems like an anti-disability statement

00:29:16.660 | or something like that.

00:29:17.580 | But yeah, acronym.

00:29:19.120 | See, clarity trumps CTA.

00:29:23.220 | That means a lot of other things.

00:29:25.340 | The call to action, I don't know about that.

00:29:28.020 | CTA all day.

00:29:29.840 | CTA all day.

00:29:30.680 | All right, what do we got next?

00:29:32.000 | - Next question's from Vishal.

00:29:33.900 | I'm a knowledge worker and a young father.

00:29:35.700 | I started my journey with David Allen's

00:29:37.500 | Getting Things Done framework

00:29:38.820 | and successfully emptied my mind into a digital tool.

00:29:41.620 | It's working.

00:29:42.540 | However, I'm having a hard time

00:29:43.860 | coming up with quarterly goals

00:29:45.300 | as I'm so focused on getting things done week over week.

00:29:48.180 | How do I think in terms of a quarter

00:29:49.820 | as it relates to my personal and professional life?

00:29:53.180 | - Well, this can be the danger of getting things done

00:29:56.100 | is it feels like it's a totalizing system,

00:30:01.420 | like it's an approach to productivity.

00:30:03.520 | But I often argue that it's just one piece of many

00:30:06.000 | that you need to actually fully take control

00:30:08.580 | of your time and your obligations and time.

00:30:10.960 | So what Getting Things Done gives you

00:30:13.700 | is this notion of full capture.

00:30:15.140 | This is its biggest idea.

00:30:17.220 | It was an idea that David adapted from Dean Atchison,

00:30:21.540 | who was a business consultant who Allen knew

00:30:24.900 | and had pioneered this idea,

00:30:26.140 | and then Allen then developed it further

00:30:28.780 | into the Getting Things Done methodology.

00:30:30.620 | Full capture says, and it's correct,

00:30:32.940 | do not keep track of obligations only in your head.

00:30:36.200 | If it's only in your head, it's gonna generate stress

00:30:38.920 | because your mind worries about forgetting it,

00:30:40.760 | and it's gonna take up cognitive resources

00:30:43.440 | because your mind is so focused on not forgetting it

00:30:45.400 | that those are cycles

00:30:46.240 | that can't be spent doing something else.

00:30:48.780 | So everything you need to do needs to exist in a system

00:30:51.280 | that your mind trusts,

00:30:52.980 | you're gonna check on a regular basis

00:30:54.480 | and it won't be forgotten.

00:30:55.360 | This gives you peace.

00:30:57.420 | This reduces stress.

00:30:59.400 | And that, I think, is the brilliance of Allen's system.

00:31:02.200 | But then Allen goes on and says,

00:31:04.760 | let me tell you now how to control your attention,

00:31:08.140 | which is what you need to do in your day

00:31:10.320 | is basically have this list of things you need to do

00:31:15.240 | organized by context, like places you might be,

00:31:18.940 | and then whatever context you're currently in,

00:31:20.740 | just pull up the list and start executing things.

00:31:23.960 | And there's this real, he calls it mind-like water,

00:31:26.960 | this almost factorization of knowledge work

00:31:30.160 | of like you're just cranking widgets,

00:31:32.720 | executing next task,

00:31:34.400 | and you don't have to think about anything,

00:31:35.680 | just execute, execute, execute.

00:31:37.480 | It was a way to reduce the stress generated by overload

00:31:40.600 | that Allen was correctly pointing out in the early 2000s

00:31:43.080 | was becoming a real issue

00:31:44.920 | as we had the email revolution

00:31:46.420 | and they got much worse with the mobile

00:31:48.100 | and then smartphone computing revolution that followed.

00:31:50.840 | That's not, however, a sufficiently advanced system

00:31:56.400 | for controlling your attention.

00:31:57.840 | So what I argue is you need full capture

00:32:00.160 | for all the reasons that David Allen says,

00:32:02.780 | but you need to couple this with multi-scale planning.

00:32:06.160 | So you got to make decisions

00:32:07.240 | about what to do with your time at multiple scales.

00:32:09.660 | What's my goal for the quarter?

00:32:11.120 | How does this influence my plan for the week?

00:32:13.160 | How's that influence my plan for the day?

00:32:16.000 | How's that influence what I'm doing right now?

00:32:18.440 | So you have this link of connections that expands in scope

00:32:21.200 | so that your actions right now

00:32:22.720 | has at least some sort of tangential connection

00:32:24.880 | to your bigger picture goals.

00:32:27.440 | So you need something like time block planning in the day,

00:32:29.560 | but time block planning has to be supported

00:32:31.120 | by a weekly plan that you do every week

00:32:32.480 | and that weekly plan has to be informed

00:32:33.800 | by your quarterly plan.

00:32:35.740 | That combined with the full capture of David Allen's system

00:32:39.520 | is what I think is table stakes

00:32:42.540 | for sort of non-trivial complexity knowledge work today.

00:32:45.560 | I wish it wasn't the case, by the way.

00:32:47.000 | I had this conversation with Oliver Berkman.

00:32:49.080 | I wish it was the case you didn't have to do that

00:32:51.000 | in most knowledge work jobs.

00:32:52.240 | I'm jealous of the fact that him, for example,

00:32:55.240 | just doing writing full-time

00:32:57.280 | doesn't have to plan like that.

00:32:59.040 | That's probably more natural,

00:33:01.240 | but in a standard job where you have a desk

00:33:03.200 | and an email inbox and more than a few Zoom invites

00:33:05.940 | coming at you every day,

00:33:07.020 | this is sort of table stakes for not losing your sanity

00:33:09.600 | and for building career capital.

00:33:11.720 | So if you're struggling with your quarterly planning,

00:33:13.660 | that's just practice.

00:33:15.500 | What I would argue is what's more important

00:33:17.680 | is that you're actually following

00:33:19.120 | the framework of multiscale planning

00:33:21.200 | is more important than the content of those plans at first.

00:33:23.700 | That will come if you build some sort of quarterly plan,

00:33:27.680 | and it really could just be keep up with the big contract

00:33:31.200 | I'm working on this quarter, right?

00:33:32.420 | It could start simple.

00:33:33.720 | And then you build an actual weekly plan

00:33:35.320 | and look at that quarterly plan when you do so.

00:33:37.840 | And then you build a daily time block plan

00:33:39.400 | and look at your weekly plan when you do so.

00:33:41.120 | The rhythm of working at multiple scales is what matters.

00:33:45.080 | Those plans will become more complicated

00:33:46.800 | and more meaningful through experience,

00:33:48.080 | so I wouldn't worry about it.

00:33:49.680 | But if you don't have the full framework in place,

00:33:51.600 | it's not gonna work very well.

00:33:53.000 | If you're running a David Allen system

00:33:54.420 | of just churning through next actions

00:33:56.420 | based on your context and you're somewhere else,

00:33:59.100 | like I wanna write a quarterly plan,

00:34:00.700 | there's no connection between those two,

00:34:02.860 | and so that's not gonna be as successful.

00:34:05.260 | So use multiscale planning,

00:34:07.460 | care about the mechanics at first more than the content,

00:34:10.460 | and the content of those plans will improve with experience.

00:34:13.980 | - I need to look at my quarterly plan more.

00:34:16.660 | - You should look at it every week, yeah.

00:34:18.340 | And then we have a big update coming up.

00:34:20.900 | I mean, I recommend people do an update

00:34:22.460 | during the holiday at the end of December

00:34:24.640 | 'cause you have a week off at least,

00:34:26.040 | which is a good time to think about the winter quarter.

00:34:29.680 | So if you're hearing this podcast,

00:34:32.460 | you should be planning to do a big update

00:34:35.220 | of your winter quarterly plan

00:34:36.780 | within a week or so after hearing this.

00:34:38.980 | - And you have a personal and a professional one, right?

00:34:41.500 | - I do, I've been messing around recently

00:34:43.700 | with combining them.

00:34:44.700 | So we'll see how that goes.

00:34:47.620 | So I'm doing a big update right now,

00:34:50.620 | and in the current edition of the update,

00:34:53.220 | so the drafts of my new plans,

00:34:55.080 | I'm combining the personal and the professional.

00:34:58.220 | So we'll see how that goes.

00:34:59.980 | Part of the way I, so this is, all right,

00:35:02.100 | this is kind of in the weeds.

00:35:03.740 | I often have, it's like hypertext plans.

00:35:07.260 | So like in my, I call them strategic plans

00:35:09.380 | instead of quarterly plans, but in my strategic plan,

00:35:11.860 | there might be a link to another document

00:35:13.980 | that elaborates like a piece of it.

00:35:16.300 | So I was like, as long as I'm doing that,

00:35:18.600 | I probably should just have one.

00:35:20.540 | One unified plan.

00:35:21.900 | Because I can just link to another document

00:35:24.060 | if I wanna have more, like a more detailed strategy

00:35:26.020 | laid out for like our media empire or something like that.

00:35:30.260 | So I am thinking about combining them,

00:35:31.980 | but yeah, traditionally I've had a personal and professional.

00:35:34.660 | All right, who've we got next?

00:35:37.340 | - Next question's from Sirtak.

00:35:39.700 | My sole focus has been to work hard

00:35:41.740 | and build a career in aviation.

00:35:43.340 | The idea of achieving more constantly occupies my mind.

00:35:47.300 | No matter how hard I push myself,

00:35:48.900 | I feel like it's never enough.

00:35:50.500 | - Well, Sirtak, it's a common, it's a common issue.

00:35:55.700 | And it's an issue that comes out of

00:35:57.740 | using as your philosophy or strategy

00:36:00.100 | for constructing a good life, the grand goal strategy.

00:36:03.740 | But the grand goal strategy says

00:36:04.900 | you pick something that's important to you,

00:36:06.700 | you put all of your energy into mastering that thing,

00:36:10.420 | and in that success, your life will become good.

00:36:13.360 | That's what's going on now.

00:36:14.820 | You've implicitly put all of your eggs

00:36:16.420 | in the aviation basket.

00:36:17.500 | And because of that, your mind is like,

00:36:18.620 | well, this is gonna be the key

00:36:20.140 | to us feeling like our life is meaningful,

00:36:24.620 | is succeeding in this goal of aviation,

00:36:26.860 | then why are we doing anything else?

00:36:28.340 | So of course, your attention keeps coming back to this,

00:36:31.340 | and you're having a hard time enjoying

00:36:32.460 | or being present for anything else,

00:36:33.660 | because you have set this up in your mind as the key,

00:36:37.820 | the thing you were doing to make your life better.

00:36:40.700 | What is the contrast, as we talked about in the deep dive,

00:36:43.460 | is lifestyle-centric planning,

00:36:45.460 | where you say, what I wanna build is a vision

00:36:47.120 | of my ideal lifestyle in all of its elements,

00:36:49.540 | not just professional, but in all of its elements,

00:36:51.420 | what is the general properties of my ideal lifestyle?

00:36:56.420 | And then you work backwards, asking, how do I get there?

00:36:58.660 | And you do that by coming up with different instantiations,

00:37:00.860 | like different concrete scenarios

00:37:02.300 | that move you closer to that,

00:37:03.340 | and you see which of these is most feasible,

00:37:05.180 | and then you begin pursuing

00:37:06.660 | the one you choose very systematically.

00:37:09.340 | When you do this, almost certainly aviation

00:37:11.540 | will be a big part of the instantiation that you care about.

00:37:15.380 | Is that my phone, Jesse?

00:37:16.680 | Guys, I gotta take a phone call, so I'll be back.

00:37:22.760 | Would that reduce the quality of the show

00:37:26.200 | if I took phone calls and checked social media

00:37:28.400 | in the middle of it?

00:37:29.720 | Now, the reason why my phone,

00:37:31.400 | there's actually a reason why my phone is on.

00:37:33.320 | I was expecting a call back from my doctor's office

00:37:35.880 | about something, and I forgot that I had it.

00:37:38.080 | I had it with me and on so that I could take that call

00:37:40.880 | when it came, then I forgot I had it with me.

00:37:44.200 | People don't know that in front of me right now

00:37:46.020 | is a screen that I've split

00:37:48.760 | between it's TikTok and YouTube shorts.

00:37:51.920 | And the whole time I'm talking to people,

00:37:53.420 | I'm just furiously swiping.

00:37:55.740 | That's where the money is made, watching TikTok videos.

00:38:00.380 | Now, going back, aviation will probably be a big part

00:38:02.880 | of whatever instantiation you hook into

00:38:04.660 | because you really like it,

00:38:06.140 | there's elements you like of it.

00:38:07.260 | So probably your lifestyle-centric plan,

00:38:10.460 | the instantiation you come up with

00:38:12.100 | will involve a aviation career.

00:38:14.520 | But when you look at all of the properties of your lifestyle

00:38:16.680 | that might control, for example,

00:38:18.040 | or influence how that aviation career looks like

00:38:20.280 | because of the other properties that are important to you,

00:38:22.440 | where in the country are you flying out of,

00:38:24.120 | what type of flights are you doing?

00:38:26.040 | Is it working your way up at one of the big airlines,

00:38:29.200 | or is it doing some private jets, or is it doing,

00:38:32.240 | like your navigation of the possibilities,

00:38:36.440 | even within the world of aviation in your career,

00:38:39.460 | will be influenced when you're thinking

00:38:41.000 | about the impact of your various paths to that career,

00:38:44.020 | their impact on the other properties

00:38:45.260 | you care about in your ideal lifestyle.

00:38:46.740 | So lifestyle-centric planning is the approach.

00:38:49.180 | Now, once you've done the lifestyle-centric planning,

00:38:53.080 | a couple of things happen.

00:38:54.900 | A, you're just much more likely to pursue and enjoy

00:38:57.580 | the other stuff that's part of that plan right away.

00:39:00.300 | You're not gonna push the stuff aside

00:39:03.140 | that you've just identified as important

00:39:04.580 | just to focus on this one thing

00:39:05.740 | because they're part of what you want in your life,

00:39:08.060 | that time with friends, the outdoor hobbies,

00:39:10.060 | the community leadership, whatever it is.

00:39:12.120 | Like, well, that's part of my plan,

00:39:13.400 | so I'm gonna give that attention now.

00:39:15.120 | It makes no sense for me not to do that

00:39:16.680 | just to work on this one thing because this one thing,

00:39:18.680 | the aviation career, is just part of my bigger vision.

00:39:21.980 | The other thing it does is it reduces this pressure

00:39:25.480 | from I gotta just crush this

00:39:28.460 | to I wanna succeed in implementing my plan.

00:39:31.680 | And what you need to do in aviation

00:39:34.440 | to implement the particular instantiation you care about

00:39:37.440 | might be challenging but not crazy hard.

00:39:39.920 | And so you're very comfortable

00:39:41.000 | with a reasonable amount of work towards it.

00:39:43.300 | The final thing you can do is once you know

00:39:44.820 | what the particular target you're aiming for in aviation

00:39:46.980 | and why is you can care about process.

00:39:49.460 | Once a quarter when you're doing your quarterly plan,

00:39:51.460 | go back and review my process for working on this career,

00:39:55.120 | like how I'm studying, how I'm training, how I'm trying to,

00:39:57.380 | like, how is that going?

00:39:58.840 | Just like I advise students do at college

00:40:02.180 | where I say my famous advice was to study like Darwin.

00:40:05.220 | Always go back and evaluate all the things you're doing

00:40:08.380 | as part of your academic activities.

00:40:10.300 | Get rid of the stuff that's not working

00:40:11.580 | and prove the stuff that is.

00:40:13.220 | You evolve your study habits over time.

00:40:16.400 | Do the same thing with your process.

00:40:17.700 | Okay, here's a good process that I think

00:40:20.060 | is gonna keep me on track for my goals in aviation,

00:40:22.220 | which is part of my bigger lifestyle vision.

00:40:23.560 | Let's try this for a quarter.

00:40:24.860 | At the end of the quarter, I will evaluate

00:40:26.660 | and maybe we'll make some changes.

00:40:29.060 | Then during the quarter itself, you can just execute.

00:40:32.420 | Yeah, I'm just focusing.

00:40:33.340 | I have a process I execute.

00:40:34.500 | Here's how much time it takes.

00:40:35.760 | I just trust this is right.

00:40:37.060 | If it's not right, within a few months,

00:40:38.900 | I'll notice that and we'll change it.

00:40:39.940 | It's not the stakes aren't so high.

00:40:41.880 | And again, you're able to pay attention

00:40:43.380 | to things outside of it.

00:40:44.280 | So you become more process focused as well.

00:40:46.220 | Lifestyle-centric planning is really at the key

00:40:49.740 | of navigating this tightrope that we talked about

00:40:53.300 | in the in-depth episode, I guess it was last week.

00:40:58.100 | Man, my time might've been the week before.

00:40:59.460 | Jesse, when was the in-depth episode with Kendra?

00:41:02.140 | Did that come out last week?

00:41:04.220 | - Yes.

00:41:05.060 | - Okay, so last week's in-depth interview episode

00:41:07.620 | with Kendra Adachi, we're talking about-

00:41:09.220 | - But when they hear this, it's gonna be Monday.

00:41:11.760 | - So two weeks ago. - So it'll be like 10 days ago.

00:41:13.340 | - 10 days ago, that's right, that's right.

00:41:15.380 | 10 days ago, the in-depth episode with Kendra Adachi.

00:41:18.780 | Oh, we have another one of these coming out too.

00:41:20.500 | I like these in-depth things.

00:41:21.900 | - Yeah.

00:41:22.740 | - Yeah, we have another cool interview coming up.

00:41:25.260 | Anyways, I keep diverting myself

00:41:27.180 | because I'm looking at TikTok on my tablet right here.

00:41:29.540 | We got into this tension between greatness

00:41:31.340 | and everything else and the pursuit of greatness

00:41:34.460 | and why that can be very motivating,

00:41:36.020 | but also the other stuff that matters in life.

00:41:38.260 | Navigating that tension is critical

00:41:40.300 | for cultivating a deep life.

00:41:41.500 | Lifestyle-centric planning helps you do it.

00:41:43.660 | Singular grand goal theory doesn't.

00:41:46.580 | If you say this is all that matters

00:41:49.500 | is succeeding in this career,

00:41:50.420 | how are you ever gonna do anything else?

00:41:51.700 | It's illogical.

00:41:52.860 | But when getting to this place in this career

00:41:55.380 | by this point as part of this overall vision

00:41:57.380 | for a lifestyle, you're much more likely to say,

00:41:59.380 | well, I have a process I trust for getting there.

00:42:02.180 | And this process says I'm done working now,

00:42:04.340 | so let me go to enjoy something else tonight.

00:42:06.300 | All right, so Sirtak, give lifestyle-centric planning

00:42:09.860 | more of a focus in your aspirations.

00:42:13.460 | And I think you're gonna find,

00:42:14.780 | I don't wanna say balance,

00:42:16.580 | but you're gonna find something more sustainable.

00:42:19.580 | All right, what do we got next?

00:42:20.500 | - We have our corner.

00:42:21.900 | - Ooh, excellent.

00:42:22.740 | This is where each week we play a question

00:42:24.900 | that is related to my book, which I'll hold up

00:42:27.220 | 'cause I'm an awesome marketer, "Slow Productivity."

00:42:30.180 | We call it the "Slow Productivity Corner,"

00:42:31.580 | and we do it so that we can play this theme music.

00:42:34.860 | (upbeat music)

00:42:37.440 | All right, go ahead.

00:42:44.140 | What's our "Slow Productivity" question of the day?

00:42:45.660 | - It comes from Howard.

00:42:46.820 | I'm a product manager who was laid off in September.

00:42:49.620 | In light of how many, so many businesses

00:42:51.740 | use pseudo productivity to measure work,

00:42:54.420 | how do I, as a job seeker, show actual productivity?

00:42:57.480 | - Well, Howard, that's a good question

00:42:59.940 | because it addresses pseudo productivity

00:43:02.940 | as introduced in the Globe and Mail's,

00:43:07.180 | one of the Globe and Mail's best business books of 2024,

00:43:09.780 | "Slow Productivity."

00:43:11.220 | I don't know if I'd focus on that

00:43:12.180 | as my main accolade I give the book,

00:43:14.080 | but I'm trying to give it more accolades.

00:43:16.560 | Let me, first of all, give a key reminder

00:43:18.280 | for the audience who didn't read the book.

00:43:19.780 | Pseudo productivity is the idea that visible activity

00:43:24.060 | is a proxy, a reasonable proxy for useful effort.

00:43:27.340 | It's what most knowledge work managers

00:43:28.940 | actually manage for because it's too difficult

00:43:31.740 | to manage in the moment for actual productivity.

00:43:34.780 | They focus on pseudo productivity.

00:43:36.360 | The more activity I see you doing, the better.

00:43:39.540 | And I argue in the first part of the book

00:43:41.020 | why that became common and why it's actually also a disaster.

00:43:45.500 | All right, but here's what's important about this question.

00:43:48.400 | What's happening to Howard now,

00:43:51.220 | and Howard, I'm sorry to use you as like a cautionary tale,

00:43:54.140 | but what's happening to Howard now

00:43:56.400 | is something that you should keep in mind

00:43:58.000 | every day of your current knowledge work job.

00:44:00.940 | You look at what you're actually doing.

00:44:02.840 | What you should ask is, is what I'm doing right now

00:44:07.760 | going to help me get the next job?

00:44:10.260 | Because this is the reality of pseudo productivity,

00:44:12.900 | and it's what makes it sort of insidious.

00:44:14.940 | In, that's not how you say that, is that how you say that?

00:44:18.520 | - Insidious? - That's not right.

00:44:19.960 | - I was just gonna look it up. (laughs)

00:44:21.700 | - I pronounced that, I pronounced that dead wrong.

00:44:24.540 | - I was literally just about to look it up.

00:44:27.020 | - I mean, I can spell it.

00:44:27.860 | Again, I'm a writer, not a speaker.

00:44:29.600 | That's what makes it dangerous.

00:44:32.620 | Let's use simple words here, insidious.

00:44:35.060 | That's not how you say that.

00:44:37.060 | Well, anyways. - Insidious?

00:44:38.800 | - Maybe, insidious?

00:44:40.480 | No, oh my God, we're going down a rabbit hole now.

00:44:43.380 | - We're gonna get a lot of emails on this.

00:44:44.700 | - Oh my God, we have to distract people from this

00:44:47.820 | so they don't email us about this.

00:44:49.780 | Brandon Sanderson wrote "Name of the Wind."

00:44:52.300 | See, I'm trying to distract the audience

00:44:54.620 | so they forget about insidious gate.

00:44:56.420 | (keyboard clacking)

00:44:58.380 | I just, blocking on things.

00:45:00.360 | But here's what makes pseudoproductivity dangerous

00:45:03.540 | is that within a current job,

00:45:05.220 | it feels like what's giving you good attention.

00:45:07.240 | It feels like this is what matters.

00:45:09.820 | Visible activity, my boss sees,

00:45:11.300 | I respond to those emails so quickly.

00:45:14.740 | I am on that Slack channel so fast,

00:45:17.660 | like you're not even done sending your Slack message

00:45:20.740 | and you see the dots that indicate

00:45:22.060 | that I'm typing back in response, right?

00:45:24.900 | In the moment, this feels like the most important thing

00:45:27.340 | you can do to help your career.

00:45:29.340 | But as soon as you're left that job

00:45:32.740 | and someone says, "Why should we hire you?"

00:45:34.380 | None of that matters.

00:45:35.600 | Pseudoproductivity doesn't actually directly create value.

00:45:40.500 | You are not going to impress an employer

00:45:42.260 | if you say my average interval between inbox checks

00:45:46.060 | is only four minutes.

00:45:47.540 | I was a Slack champion.

00:45:50.140 | I was on Slack all the time.

00:45:51.140 | I forced us, I was the employee that forced us

00:45:53.660 | to have to upgrade our Zoom package, enterprise package,

00:45:56.380 | because I did so many Zoom meetings.

00:45:57.740 | None of that actually matters to an employer

00:46:00.180 | that you're trying to get hired by

00:46:01.220 | because none of that directly produces value.

00:46:04.240 | So that is what's dangerous about pseudoproductivity.

00:46:06.860 | In the moment, it feels like the most important thing

00:46:08.700 | you can do for your career,

00:46:10.060 | but from a distance, it's meaningless, right?

00:46:15.540 | So the stuff that is gonna make it easier for you

00:46:17.740 | to get a job is less comfortable in the moment

00:46:21.300 | because it's that I'm not answering this email right away.

00:46:24.060 | I've said no to more things.

00:46:25.420 | I keep an active waiting list,

00:46:26.620 | so my active projects are much reduced at any one moment,

00:46:29.340 | but I'm finishing stuff that has objective value,

00:46:32.060 | the stuff I can put on my resume and talk about.

00:46:33.780 | I finished this project.

00:46:35.140 | I introduced this new technology.

00:46:36.940 | I innovated the way that we do this approach,

00:46:39.060 | and it increased customer conversions by 15%.

00:46:41.860 | That's the stuff that matters

00:46:43.060 | when you're trying to get hired for your next job,

00:46:44.660 | and that stuff has nothing to do

00:46:45.940 | with how fast you answer emails,

00:46:47.260 | how quick you're on Slack, or how many Zoom meetings you do.

00:46:50.420 | So there's like a lesson in this, right,

00:46:52.220 | is that pseudo productivity is empty calories

00:46:56.740 | from a business value perspective.

00:46:58.980 | Feels good in the moment,

00:47:00.340 | but doesn't give you what you need in the long term.

00:47:02.740 | All right, Howard, now that I'm done using you

00:47:04.140 | as a cautionary tale, let's get to your actual question.

00:47:07.240 | The key is to focus when you're trying to get hired

00:47:11.300 | on concrete value that you're gonna add to their life.

00:47:14.300 | There's this cool book written by Jeff Fox years ago,

00:47:17.820 | Jeff Fox, who wrote "How to Become CEO,"

00:47:21.900 | which was the inspiration for my first book,

00:47:23.940 | "How to Win at College," which I pitched to Jeff's agent,

00:47:28.940 | or no, it was Jeff, the editor who bought that book for Jeff

00:47:31.780 | who became an agent, Lori, my longtime agent.

00:47:34.100 | I pitched to her.

00:47:34.940 | I said, "I wanna write 'How to Become a CEO,'

00:47:36.440 | "but for college kids."

00:47:37.660 | He then wrote a follow-up book

00:47:39.540 | called "Don't Send a Resume" about getting hired,

00:47:41.740 | and he had this sort of extreme idea

00:47:43.620 | that's more relevant to sales than other places,

00:47:45.540 | but I think the core of the idea is critical.

00:47:48.100 | He said, "Here's how you get hired.

00:47:49.080 | "If you get your resume,

00:47:50.380 | "quantify how much money you're gonna bring in

00:47:52.180 | "above your salary, right?

00:47:55.300 | "I'm gonna cost you this much money in salary.

00:47:57.380 | "I'm gonna bring in this much money.

00:47:59.420 | "The second number is this much larger,

00:48:01.780 | "so by hiring me, you're getting this much money."

00:48:04.700 | So that's ultimately what matters.

00:48:06.400 | Now, in sales, you can actually do that calculation.

00:48:09.580 | You can say, "I expect to bring in $3 million in sales

00:48:14.100 | "per year, here's my salary,

00:48:16.780 | "so this is how much profit you're gonna make off.

00:48:18.980 | "I'm gonna increase the bottom line by this much."

00:48:22.320 | But you can hint at this in non-sales jobs as well

00:48:24.780 | by focusing relentlessly on the things you can do

00:48:26.800 | that directly brings in value to the company.

00:48:29.940 | That's what matters.

00:48:32.860 | Not generic skills, not your people skills,

00:48:36.220 | not your character, not what you're owed.

00:48:38.900 | None of that really matters to them.

00:48:40.180 | What matters is, does our bottom-line number,

00:48:43.620 | our profit number, get larger or smaller

00:48:46.340 | once we have you on board?

00:48:48.540 | We have to take away the expense of your salary?

00:48:50.940 | Is the value you bring push us more to the other side?

00:48:53.540 | Money as a neutral indicator of value.

00:48:56.540 | So that's what you wanna focus on.

00:48:58.240 | Here's what I did at my last place,

00:49:00.500 | here's what I can do here.

00:49:01.800 | Let's see, Howard is what, a product manager?

00:49:05.900 | All right, so here is how I have

00:49:08.340 | a product management methodology

00:49:09.980 | that increases the value of what we produce.

00:49:13.340 | I can handle these types of projects, which you need.

00:49:16.700 | These are higher, these types of projects

00:49:18.700 | are higher profit margin.

00:49:19.660 | I know how to manage those, so you can immediately expand

00:49:21.920 | the pool of your projects that are here.

00:49:23.920 | You know, I can expand this business you have on this side.

00:49:28.760 | I know how to, you know, double the speed

00:49:32.160 | with these things get done because I use like

00:49:33.980 | Newportonian non-overload style workload management.

00:49:38.300 | Whatever it is, what you wanna pitch

00:49:40.460 | when you're trying to get hired is how much more money

00:49:42.260 | they will have after they hire you.

00:49:43.960 | And you wanna remember that.

00:49:46.820 | How much money am I bringing in?

00:49:48.580 | And how is this current activity helping

00:49:51.740 | the bottom line I bring in?

00:49:53.060 | That's really the right meta mindset

00:49:54.940 | for evaluating how you're spending your day.

00:49:57.580 | And it goes back again to the dangerous nature

00:49:59.500 | of pseudoproductivity is that it feels so useful

00:50:02.660 | in the moment, but it does nothing in the long term

00:50:06.780 | that really matters.

00:50:07.780 | So Howard, I appreciate your question

00:50:09.860 | because it gives us an excuse to talk about

00:50:11.480 | that bigger principle about the real subtle danger

00:50:14.140 | of pseudoproductivity.

00:50:15.240 | All right, should we play a theme music again?

00:50:18.460 | - Yes.

00:50:19.480 | (soft music)

00:50:21.900 | - All right, sufficiently relaxed from insidious gate.

00:50:29.740 | That's just how I'm gonna pronounce it from now on.

00:50:31.980 | I don't care.

00:50:33.220 | That's how I pronounce that word.

00:50:35.100 | I'm old enough now that I can decide

00:50:37.380 | how I wanna pronounce words.

00:50:39.340 | All right, what do we got next?

00:50:40.300 | - We have a call.

00:50:41.140 | - Ooh, let's hear this.

00:50:42.300 | - Hey Kel, last time we chatted at your meetup

00:50:45.660 | in Washington this past March,

00:50:47.660 | I mentioned that I had my first child on the way

00:50:49.900 | and he's here now.

00:50:51.260 | Not gonna lie, it was a lot to handle at the start

00:50:53.460 | and I even took your advice from an earlier episode

00:50:55.660 | to take some time off.

00:50:57.260 | I actually took a month off work and business

00:50:59.340 | to help with the new transition.

00:51:01.380 | Now that I'm back at work, how do I continue to work

00:51:03.680 | on being so good I can't be ignored

00:51:06.220 | whilst raising a new son?

00:51:07.940 | I have a feeling your main advice might be

00:51:09.620 | to just scale back and go a lot slower,

00:51:12.180 | which I've started to do as per slow productivity.

00:51:15.380 | But I'll be honest, going this slow makes me feel

00:51:19.060 | like I'm not moving at a fast enough pace that I'm used to.

00:51:22.220 | And maybe I need to be more patient, I'm not sure.

00:51:25.420 | Any advice you can offer a new father

00:51:27.140 | who wants to be both an excellent husband,

00:51:29.940 | excellent father, and a skilled data analyst

00:51:32.340 | with multiple business goals ahead of him?

00:51:34.580 | Looking forward to your answer

00:51:35.780 | and keep up the amazing work you do.

00:51:38.940 | - Well, good to hear from you again.

00:51:41.180 | I guess he's probably talking about,

00:51:42.580 | we had a couple of meetups in Washington.

00:51:43.960 | We had the Politics and Pros.

00:51:44.800 | - He came down from Toronto, it's Kobe.

00:51:46.900 | - Oh, from Toronto.

00:51:48.040 | Gave me a copy of a Michael Crichton book.

00:51:51.700 | Yeah, Kobe, good to hear from you.

00:51:54.180 | Okay, so I would say new kid at home,

00:51:58.420 | first of all, there's two different phases.

00:52:00.620 | The first four months,

00:52:01.980 | in my sort of three-time experience here,

00:52:03.860 | the first four months is basically all hands on deck, right?

00:52:06.740 | So first four months is kind of survival mode, scale back.

00:52:10.460 | It feels like in the moment forever.

00:52:13.220 | Like, I guess I have just stepped out of the world of work.

00:52:16.940 | I guess I have given up all ambitions.

00:52:19.500 | This is it, my life has changed, but four months is nothing.

00:52:22.500 | In retrospect, it's nothing.

00:52:25.260 | So just give yourself a break

00:52:27.060 | and be much more useful to your partner

00:52:29.540 | for about three to four months.

00:52:30.820 | All right, after four months,

00:52:33.460 | you're not in survival mode anymore.

00:52:35.740 | I typically use that threshold

00:52:37.060 | because it's the point

00:52:37.900 | at which you have consistency in schedule,

00:52:40.220 | especially if you're careful about it.

00:52:41.620 | This is like when in the US context,

00:52:43.140 | a lot of maternity leaves have ended,

00:52:45.140 | sleep training is done, you have your childcare,

00:52:47.300 | your childcare setup for the next couple of years

00:52:49.980 | is kind of in place and you can begin to build like,

00:52:52.380 | oh, this will be my routine for a while.

00:52:54.740 | In those first few months,

00:52:55.620 | you're not in your routine

00:52:57.700 | that you're gonna have for a while.

00:52:59.060 | So that's why I think of that as like all hands on deck.

00:53:01.620 | Okay, so after three to four months,

00:53:03.780 | I do recommend, yeah, you scale back longer term,

00:53:08.100 | slow down for a bit.

00:53:09.380 | This is a big transition.

00:53:11.380 | But I think this helps people who struggle with this,

00:53:14.060 | don't just messily do less,

00:53:17.820 | use this as an excuse to clean up what's going on.

00:53:20.960 | So after you get out of that first all hands on deck period

00:53:23.380 | so I don't wanna go back to super busy-ness,

00:53:25.740 | let me start cleaning out the stuff

00:53:27.420 | I don't wanna be doing in general.

00:53:29.500 | Maybe this is a good time to say no more X, no more Y.

00:53:32.620 | Like I wanna take this off my plate to focus more on this.

00:53:35.100 | Maybe I wanna tighten up my processes a little bit more

00:53:38.380 | so that the work I'm doing is more contained

00:53:41.620 | or more predictable or a little bit less interruptive,

00:53:44.600 | has less of an overlap with the other stuff

00:53:46.500 | that matters in my life.

00:53:47.820 | This is an important transition

00:53:48.980 | that most people go through with their working life

00:53:50.620 | when you're younger.

00:53:51.980 | Like, why am I demanding, you know,

00:53:54.100 | to have other people have more structure

00:53:55.900 | in how we work together?

00:53:56.900 | I have time, I'm around, I just wanna be useful.

00:54:00.260 | I'm on my way up.

00:54:01.400 | But then once you have your first kid,

00:54:03.140 | now you can start to say, okay,

00:54:04.680 | I also care about me as well and how work affects me.

00:54:08.300 | So clean things up.

00:54:09.580 | Get rid of the dead weight.

00:54:10.940 | Get in place, like better processes.

00:54:14.340 | The other thing I recommend so that that ambition itch

00:54:20.080 | doesn't turn into like an all-out metaphorical rash,

00:54:23.740 | as part of sort of cleaning things up

00:54:25.820 | and simplifying what you're working on

00:54:27.260 | and getting your schedules tighter

00:54:28.460 | and not taking on too much work,

00:54:30.780 | make sure you have a slow but steady project in there

00:54:35.500 | that's just straight up ambition.

00:54:37.520 | Slow but steady.

00:54:39.420 | So something where there's not a deadline,

00:54:40.740 | no one's waiting for this.

00:54:41.960 | It's not a source of stress,

00:54:44.160 | but that you're making regular progress

00:54:46.860 | on some sort of bigger timeframe goal

00:54:50.100 | that you're excited about.

00:54:51.660 | And maybe prioritize that like first thing.

00:54:53.740 | Like first thing I do every morning

00:54:55.780 | after we, you know, get the kid to daycare

00:54:59.220 | or whatever's going on is I spend this like first hour

00:55:01.980 | working on learning this new skill.

00:55:04.780 | That's gonna be part of my vision

00:55:06.980 | for two or three years from now of like mastering the skill

00:55:09.140 | and completely changing my work life.

00:55:11.380 | Or we're gonna move to Vancouver Island

00:55:12.660 | and this is gonna be a thing that's built off of.

00:55:14.160 | So have this aspirational thing you're working on.

00:55:16.740 | That scratches your ambition itch

00:55:18.660 | in a way that's gonna be much more sustainable

00:55:21.260 | in this moment than just trying to take on lots of stuff.

00:55:24.940 | You don't wanna be overly busy.

00:55:26.380 | You wanna avoid overload

00:55:27.500 | for at least the first year if possible.

00:55:30.060 | All right, so let me put all this advice together.

00:55:31.980 | First three to four months, all hands on deck.

00:55:33.620 | It's okay, it's gonna go faster than you think.

00:55:36.500 | Rest of that first year,

00:55:37.980 | you still wanna be going slower than normal.

00:55:40.420 | It's a huge adjustment.

00:55:42.220 | You're also, you're changing you.

00:55:44.540 | You're a dad now.

00:55:45.400 | That's like a completely different type of role

00:55:46.940 | you're adding to your life.

00:55:48.460 | But to help support that,

00:55:49.620 | so you don't just feel like you're giving up business

00:55:51.780 | or being irresponsible.

00:55:52.620 | Clean up, get rid of dead weight work

00:55:54.580 | that you've been meaning to get rid of.

00:55:55.780 | Clean up the processes for what remains

00:55:57.460 | and keep that ambition itch scratched

00:56:00.420 | by having a slow but steady, non-urgent but exciting project

00:56:03.340 | that you're working on regularly.

00:56:04.780 | Those things all together, that's the right way,

00:56:06.660 | I think as like a new dad,

00:56:08.460 | to go through this sort of period of new kiddom.

00:56:12.800 | I mean, I remember this with all three kids,

00:56:16.260 | but especially the first two.

00:56:18.140 | In that first three to four month period,

00:56:20.440 | like walking my dog and having this thought,

00:56:22.580 | like this is chaotic now,

00:56:24.700 | but don't extrapolate now is what your life is like.

00:56:28.460 | Think ahead to four months, the four month mark

00:56:31.500 | where we are gonna have our, we're back to a new routine.

00:56:35.460 | And that new routine is gonna be different but sustainable.

00:56:38.660 | We're getting there and it's gonna be better

00:56:41.020 | when we get there and it always was.

00:56:42.260 | So I remember clearly thinking about that.

00:56:45.060 | I don't really remember our third at all.

00:56:46.460 | By that point, it was just too chaotic.

00:56:48.540 | Two other boys who were older that I was thinking,

00:56:50.900 | it's all a blur to me, I don't know.

00:56:53.300 | I know he was a baby at some point.

00:56:55.100 | And I know, I mean, COVID came, I don't, I just.

00:57:01.180 | - You started a podcast.

00:57:02.700 | - Yeah, well, he was older then, he was older.

00:57:05.740 | Well, I guess he went to, oh man, I just,

00:57:09.900 | I was so busy with the other two kids by then

00:57:12.580 | that the baby stuff was going on,

00:57:17.420 | but I was just like driving toddlers places

00:57:20.780 | and then COVID came.

00:57:22.780 | All right, got a call, oh, we have a case study.

00:57:25.740 | All right, so case studies where people write in

00:57:27.900 | to talk about how they have applied the type of ideas

00:57:29.820 | we talked about on the show in their own life.

00:57:32.460 | If you have a case study you wanna share on the air,

00:57:34.300 | send it to jesse@calnewport.com.

00:57:37.740 | Today's case study is from Sarah.

00:57:40.260 | Sarah says, "I hope this message finds you well.

00:57:43.700 | "My name is Sarah and I'm a commercial photographer

00:57:45.980 | "based in Texas."

00:57:49.460 | All right, "As a photographer,

00:57:51.380 | "the freedom of working for myself has its perks.

00:57:53.980 | "No tedious busy work or endless meetings

00:57:55.780 | "like when I worked for a company.

00:57:57.540 | "I've been able to set a high enough rate

00:57:59.220 | "that a few shoots a month keep me afloat.

00:58:01.380 | "The flip side though is that without a boss

00:58:03.220 | "or external structure, I fall into the habit

00:58:05.700 | "of only doing the bare minimum to get by.

00:58:08.180 | "I hardly market myself, never pitch

00:58:09.940 | "and don't prioritize networking.

00:58:12.420 | "While inbound inquiries have kept me going,

00:58:15.300 | "I know there's potential for so much more,

00:58:17.060 | "probably double what I'm making now.

00:58:19.500 | "With my current workload averaging just 15 hours a week,

00:58:22.420 | "I have so much free time

00:58:23.460 | "that I can take month-long sabbaticals

00:58:25.140 | "going on meditation and therapy retreats.

00:58:27.380 | "While this might sound like a dream setup,

00:58:29.140 | "I often feel like I'm at the mercy

00:58:30.580 | "of whatever comes my way

00:58:31.700 | "rather than actively shaping the life I want.

00:58:34.260 | "I lack the discipline to work on my business

00:58:37.140 | "rather than just in it,

00:58:38.380 | "and I know there's so much untapped potential.

00:58:41.500 | "With all this extra time,

00:58:42.540 | "I decided to go back to school

00:58:43.580 | "to pursue a degree in mental health counseling.

00:58:45.620 | "I'm about halfway through my three-year program.

00:58:48.500 | "I'm passionate about healing

00:58:49.620 | "and want to make a slow transition into this field.

00:58:52.500 | "While commercial photography feels like

00:58:53.860 | "it has a limited shelf life for my age,

00:58:56.020 | "I can see myself running a private therapy practice

00:58:58.180 | "well into my 50s and beyond."

00:59:01.460 | All right, so I'm going to cut that there

00:59:04.820 | because there's some observations

00:59:06.260 | I want to make about this.

00:59:07.140 | So Sarah, thank you for sharing.

00:59:08.660 | There are some positive things I want to say about this

00:59:12.100 | and some lessons/advice to give.

00:59:16.180 | On the positive side,

00:59:17.540 | I love the idea here of there's intention

00:59:22.660 | in how Sarah's crafting her life.

00:59:24.980 | I like that she's thinking ahead, right?

00:59:28.260 | She's thinking about in her 50s, in her 60s.

00:59:31.860 | Okay, being a commercial photographer might not work then,

00:59:34.900 | but if she gets a therapy license now,

00:59:37.300 | that is highly autonomous.

00:59:38.900 | I know several people my age are going through this now.

00:59:42.100 | That could be highly autonomous

00:59:43.380 | because once you're licensed,

00:59:45.140 | you can decide how many clients you have.

00:59:47.940 | There's only so many jobs

00:59:52.420 | in which you can transmute education,

00:59:56.340 | like an undergrad degree and a graduate degree,

00:59:58.340 | into something with a high hourly rate

00:59:59.780 | and a lot of autonomy.

01:00:00.820 | Therapy, mental health counseling

01:00:03.700 | is one of those things.

01:00:04.660 | So I like that way that you're thinking.

01:00:06.660 | I also like the fact that your lifestyle,

01:00:08.180 | you have a lifestyle right now where you're working

01:00:10.180 | until you went back to grad school,

01:00:11.060 | 15 hours a week and showing that's a possibility,

01:00:15.700 | depending on where you live

01:00:16.500 | and what your expenses are and if you're careful.

01:00:18.340 | All of that's really cool.

01:00:19.380 | The thing I would add,

01:00:21.380 | like the lesson I would draw out of this

01:00:22.660 | and the advice I would give

01:00:23.860 | is that I would lean in more

01:00:25.540 | into a lifestyle-centric planning approach.

01:00:29.700 | It sounds like to me from reading this

01:00:31.780 | that this is more ad hoc.

01:00:33.620 | Photography is fine.

01:00:36.340 | I like doing it.

01:00:37.140 | It doesn't take you much time.

01:00:38.740 | It seems to meet my expenses.

01:00:41.140 | So you can go in and you're able,

01:00:42.580 | it's flexible enough,

01:00:43.220 | you can do other things like these retreats.

01:00:45.860 | But you also have this vague unease of,

01:00:48.100 | "I should probably be doing more of this.

01:00:49.620 | I could probably double this.

01:00:51.140 | I feel guilty that I'm not,

01:00:53.220 | like in creating this business or making it longer.

01:00:57.140 | I'm going to grad school because like,

01:00:58.500 | I think maybe it'll be better

01:01:00.340 | to be a counselor in the future."

01:01:01.620 | All of these instincts can be structured

01:01:05.300 | and understood better

01:01:06.100 | in the framework of lifestyle-centric planning.

01:01:10.340 | Like figure out now your ideal lifestyle

01:01:13.140 | in this sort of decade that you're in right now.

01:01:15.460 | Do this same exercise for your 60s and 70s.

01:01:19.700 | Like what are the elements that matter?

01:01:21.540 | This will give you a lot of clarity

01:01:23.300 | about things like the therapy practice

01:01:26.020 | that you're thinking about creating.

01:01:28.100 | It'll allow you, for example,

01:01:29.140 | like does this make sense?

01:01:30.340 | And if so, I know exactly what I need out of this.

01:01:32.260 | Let me talk to real people and see, is that possible?

01:01:34.500 | And if it is possible,

01:01:35.220 | what do I have to be doing now

01:01:36.180 | to set that up for 10 or 15 years from now?

01:01:37.940 | So make sure that you have

01:01:38.660 | evidence-based pursuits here,

01:01:40.580 | not just dream-based pursuits.

01:01:41.780 | A lot of people in this situation

01:01:44.580 | don't want to talk to real people

01:01:46.180 | because they don't want to know the reality,

01:01:47.380 | because the reality might mismatch

01:01:48.500 | with their dream of what's possible.

01:01:50.020 | Get the real information.

01:01:51.300 | It will also help you better make sense

01:01:52.900 | of what's going on right now.

01:01:54.020 | Is it a problem that you're working

01:01:57.220 | 15 hours a week and not 30?

01:01:58.980 | I mean, what are you not able to do

01:02:02.020 | in your lifestyle-centric plan?

01:02:03.140 | Is there something you can't do

01:02:04.100 | that that will unfold?

01:02:05.140 | Like you might turn out like,

01:02:06.180 | "Actually, this is great.

01:02:08.020 | The amount of money I'm making now is enough

01:02:10.100 | because my instantiation

01:02:11.620 | and my lifestyle-centric plan

01:02:12.820 | survives on it."

01:02:13.700 | Or maybe you realize,

01:02:14.580 | "Oh, I'm really held back.

01:02:15.860 | If I made this much more,

01:02:17.220 | then it would unlock

01:02:20.740 | all of these other things.

01:02:21.540 | I could move to this part of Texas

01:02:22.740 | from this part,

01:02:23.220 | and I could start doing this thing

01:02:24.100 | that matters to me

01:02:24.660 | and be closer to family."

01:02:25.780 | Maybe you'll realize like,

01:02:26.660 | "If I had this much more dollars,

01:02:29.460 | I could have a much better instantiation."

01:02:30.980 | It would give you clarity.

01:02:32.100 | And with this clarity

01:02:34.260 | could come clear plans.

01:02:35.300 | So if you found out like,

01:02:37.700 | "Actually, if I could make

01:02:38.500 | this much more money,

01:02:39.460 | I could shift to this instantiation

01:02:41.460 | of my ideal lifestyle,

01:02:42.180 | which is gonna be much better."

01:02:43.620 | Now, hearkening back

01:02:44.980 | to our deep dive from today,

01:02:46.180 | you could start doing

01:02:47.860 | hour cost computations.

01:02:50.980 | "Well, with the current rate I do

01:02:53.300 | in professional photography,

01:02:54.500 | the hour cost of this is pretty high.

01:02:56.340 | But if I increased my rate,

01:02:59.220 | I could get the hour cost down to this,

01:03:00.820 | which would make this lifestyle

01:03:02.180 | instantiation much better.

01:03:03.540 | How do I get my rate up to this?

01:03:04.820 | Oh, I got to learn this skill

01:03:05.940 | and that skill.

01:03:06.500 | I got to invest in this equipment.

01:03:07.860 | Good, I have a plan to go after."

01:03:09.220 | Or, "Okay, I have this instantiation

01:03:11.620 | of my ideal lifestyle vision,

01:03:12.580 | which I'm not gonna be able to get to

01:03:13.700 | with commercial photography.

01:03:15.140 | I see a way with counseling

01:03:16.660 | I could get there.

01:03:17.380 | And I have hard evidence.

01:03:19.460 | Like if I had this practice

01:03:20.420 | with this many clients,

01:03:21.380 | I did it this way,

01:03:22.100 | I could do it.

01:03:22.660 | Okay, this will work.

01:03:23.700 | Now I have my crystal clear vision.

01:03:25.860 | How do I get to this type of practice

01:03:27.380 | as quickly as possible?"

01:03:28.500 | On the other hand,

01:03:30.660 | if you're like, "This is fine

01:03:31.460 | what I'm doing."

01:03:32.500 | It gives you structure

01:03:33.540 | for what else to do with your time,

01:03:34.820 | because you've identified

01:03:35.700 | the other things that matter

01:03:36.580 | to your ideal lifestyle vision,

01:03:38.020 | so that you can with confidence

01:03:39.860 | do these things with your time

01:03:41.220 | that you're not working.

01:03:42.260 | And not just feel generally like,

01:03:43.700 | "I guess I should work more

01:03:44.660 | or go on a month-long meditation retreat."

01:03:46.500 | You can have a structure

01:03:47.460 | to your everyday life

01:03:48.500 | that's meaningful and intentional.

01:03:50.660 | So you're in a perfect position, Sarah,

01:03:52.420 | for lifestyle-centric planning

01:03:53.540 | to take this great setup you have

01:03:55.300 | and all these options you have

01:03:56.580 | and structure them

01:03:58.340 | and get the most out of them,

01:03:59.460 | both right now and in the future.

01:04:00.820 | So fantastic case study,

01:04:02.340 | but also a fantastic example

01:04:04.740 | of where lifestyle-centric planning

01:04:06.500 | can make a big deal going forward.

01:04:07.860 | All right.

01:04:10.760 | Well, we got a final segment coming up

01:04:12.980 | where I react to the internet.

01:04:14.020 | But first, hear from another sponsor.

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01:05:37.060 | Well, we don't know for a fact, Jesse,

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01:05:42.180 | quantum qubit computer

01:05:43.620 | that could break factoring problems

01:05:46.100 | at a sufficient scale

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01:05:48.820 | He probably has one.

01:05:49.700 | He probably does.

01:05:50.340 | I am going to assume

01:05:53.700 | Santa might have a 2048-qubit

01:05:56.980 | quantum computer

01:05:57.700 | with which he can run

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01:06:57.460 | uh-oh, Santa Claus.

01:06:58.740 | He's upset because we talked

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01:07:01.300 | Only during an ExpressVPN ad

01:07:04.740 | do I feel okay

01:07:06.260 | being sufficiently nerdy

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01:07:09.140 | My people out there

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01:07:33.380 | I'm just going to put that out there.

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01:09:48.660 | All right, Jesse,

01:09:49.860 | let's go to our final segment.

01:09:50.900 | So one of the final segments

01:09:53.460 | we'd like to do here on the show

01:09:54.580 | is me reacting to stuff

01:09:55.780 | that you, my listeners, have sent me

01:09:57.460 | that have been making the rounds

01:09:59.300 | on the Internet.

01:09:59.940 | Here's something that

01:10:01.620 | many of you sent me,

01:10:02.500 | which is that Oxford

01:10:04.740 | has named their annual

01:10:07.140 | Word of the Year for 2024.

01:10:10.500 | Jesse, you might be surprised to learn

01:10:13.060 | that word is insidious.

01:10:14.980 | And they say that's how it's pronounced.

01:10:19.060 | Anyone else who says it's wrong.

01:10:21.380 | No, the Word of the Year is brain rot,

01:10:24.740 | which actually created some controversy

01:10:27.540 | because grammar people are saying

01:10:29.220 | that's two words.

01:10:29.780 | I thought it was two words.

01:10:31.700 | Two words.

01:10:32.260 | But I guess the Word of the Year

01:10:33.140 | can be two words, whatever.

01:10:34.660 | This is interesting.

01:10:36.340 | Let me read a little bit about it.

01:10:37.460 | I have the article up here on the screen

01:10:39.620 | for those who are watching

01:10:40.340 | instead of just reading.

01:10:41.220 | Here's from Oxford University Press.

01:10:42.820 | Brain rot is defined

01:10:45.460 | as the supposed deterioration

01:10:47.140 | of a person's mental

01:10:48.100 | or intellectual state,

01:10:49.620 | especially viewed as the result

01:10:51.060 | of overconsumption of material,

01:10:52.420 | now particularly online content,

01:10:55.060 | considered to be trivial or unchallenging.

01:10:56.900 | Also, sometimes something characterized

01:10:59.220 | as likely to lead to such deterioration.

01:11:01.300 | Our experts noticed that brain rot

01:11:04.100 | gained new prominence this year

01:11:05.780 | as a term used to capture concerns

01:11:07.700 | about the impact of consuming

01:11:10.180 | excessive amounts

01:11:10.900 | of low-quality online content,

01:11:12.340 | especially on social media.

01:11:13.700 | Its usage has increased by 230%

01:11:16.820 | between 2023 and 2024.

01:11:20.420 | That's a cool concept, brain rot.

01:11:21.860 | It's a good way of describing

01:11:24.660 | what I argue you have to avoid

01:11:27.700 | en route to cultivating a deep life

01:11:30.660 | in our modern digital environment.

01:11:31.860 | This is one of the biggest disorders

01:11:33.460 | of the modern digital environment,

01:11:36.100 | is that these empty calorie,

01:11:40.100 | highly alluring,

01:11:41.140 | algorithmically optimized

01:11:43.060 | digital diversions

01:11:44.100 | that have billions of dollars

01:11:46.180 | of market capitalization invested

01:11:47.620 | behind them being irresistible

01:11:50.020 | conflict with our Paleolithic brains.

01:11:51.620 | And our brains rot

01:11:55.140 | in some sort of symbolic way

01:11:56.500 | when we immerse them in the world

01:11:59.380 | of the digital trivial.

01:12:01.300 | And it's not just a bad habit.

01:12:05.140 | It changes your brain.

01:12:06.180 | It rots your brain.

01:12:08.020 | I love this term.

01:12:08.660 | It rots your brain.

01:12:09.780 | It makes your experience

01:12:10.820 | of the world worse.

01:12:11.700 | It makes your understanding

01:12:13.620 | of yourself impoverished.

01:12:14.660 | And it makes the subjective feeling

01:12:17.780 | of your day-to-day degraded.

01:12:20.820 | So what is the solution to brain rot?

01:12:22.580 | I talked about it earlier.

01:12:24.660 | Rewire your phone.

01:12:26.340 | Plug it in when you get home.

01:12:28.420 | If you need it,

01:12:30.260 | go to where it is.

01:12:31.140 | Don't have it with you

01:12:32.580 | as a default crutch.

01:12:33.540 | Read more books.

01:12:35.220 | Spend more time walking

01:12:37.300 | and reflecting outside

01:12:38.180 | with no digital

01:12:39.460 | connected devices with you.

01:12:40.660 | Do those three things in 2025.

01:12:44.580 | So instead of brain rot

01:12:46.660 | being the word of the year,

01:12:47.540 | it can be like brain recovery.

01:12:49.860 | Which is absolutely possible

01:12:51.220 | when you disconnect

01:12:54.420 | from the constant drip

01:12:56.180 | of the digital.

01:12:56.740 | So brain rot.

01:12:58.500 | What would you have chosen

01:12:59.300 | for the word of the year?

01:13:00.180 | I was thinking about this.

01:13:01.220 | Brain rot's pretty good.

01:13:03.460 | What do you think?

01:13:05.300 | Slow productivity is two words.

01:13:08.180 | If we're going to do two words,

01:13:09.700 | I'm in business.

01:13:11.300 | If we're able to do two words,

01:13:13.380 | I'm in business.

01:13:13.940 | I'm the king of two words.

01:13:14.900 | Yeah, slow productivity.

01:13:18.340 | Or as we now refer to it,

01:13:19.620 | Globe and Mail's best book of the...

01:13:22.580 | What is the award it got?

01:13:24.900 | One of the Globe and Mail's

01:13:27.620 | best business books of 2024,

01:13:29.540 | slow productivity.

01:13:30.500 | That should be a word of the year.

01:13:31.540 | I agree. I like that.

01:13:32.420 | Actually, there's a term

01:13:33.700 | that a lot of young kids use.

01:13:35.540 | Sigma. What does that mean?

01:13:37.700 | I give a young kid a lacrosse lesson.

01:13:39.460 | He always talks about that.

01:13:40.580 | Like it's sigma.

01:13:41.220 | Do your kids use that term?

01:13:42.500 | You tell me sigma

01:13:43.460 | and I'm thinking of the Greek letter.

01:13:45.540 | Like I'm thinking capital sigma,

01:13:47.620 | which I'd use for summation

01:13:48.900 | or lowercase sigma,

01:13:49.860 | which I'm thinking about

01:13:50.660 | standard deviation.

01:13:51.540 | Is it possible that the student

01:13:53.620 | you're giving lacrosse practice to

01:13:55.620 | was referring to a statistical

01:13:56.820 | standard deviation?

01:13:57.620 | The people I give lessons to,

01:14:02.340 | that would be what they're...

01:14:04.260 | That might be what they're...

01:14:05.380 | He uses it all the time.

01:14:06.500 | I was like, and he said,

01:14:07.540 | it's used by everybody.

01:14:09.060 | What's the content?

01:14:10.020 | Give me like a context.

01:14:11.140 | It's kind of like cool.

01:14:11.940 | So you would say, for example,

01:14:14.260 | here's a new way to hold a lacrosse stick.

01:14:17.380 | And he would say like that's sigma.

01:14:19.140 | Kind of, yeah.

01:14:20.180 | All right, hold on.

01:14:20.740 | I'm looking it up.

01:14:21.460 | If we use more slang, Jesse,

01:14:23.780 | people will think we're

01:14:24.500 | much cooler than we are.

01:14:25.620 | All right.

01:14:27.320 | Sigma is a slang term

01:14:29.300 | used by Generation Alpha

01:14:30.580 | to describe a person or thing

01:14:32.500 | as cool, confident, or independent.

01:14:34.820 | A sigma is a lone wolf

01:14:37.140 | who prefers their own company

01:14:39.060 | and isn't trying to be the most popular.

01:14:40.660 | They are confident, but humble

01:14:42.500 | and earn respect for their actions

01:14:43.860 | rather than words.

01:14:44.980 | Oh, we could start using this.

01:14:47.300 | It's used a lot in the younger generation

01:14:49.140 | or Generation Alpha.

01:14:50.420 | I'm a sigma, right?

01:14:51.620 | I'm going to call myself a sigma.

01:14:53.220 | Is it sigma to refer to yourself as sigma?

01:14:55.380 | What I'm going to refer to myself as

01:14:58.020 | is sigma squared, right?

01:15:00.740 | Because if you square sigma,

01:15:03.060 | well, then you're super sigma.

01:15:05.060 | Yeah.

01:15:05.700 | So that's how you know I'm sigma

01:15:07.620 | is because I'm going to put my,

01:15:09.060 | you know what I'm going to do?

01:15:09.540 | I'm going to put my sigma

01:15:10.660 | designation in a power law.

01:15:12.020 | I'm like, yeah, man, I'm like

01:15:15.220 | two to the constant factor times sigma.

01:15:17.620 | Lone wolf, am I right, buddy?

01:15:20.500 | And then we do like you do a wolf call.

01:15:21.940 | I'm glad we're figuring out how to be cool.

01:15:25.300 | All right, here's another article about it.

01:15:26.820 | Reddit, what does sigma mean

01:15:30.980 | in middle school slang?

01:15:32.020 | Ooh, look at this answer.

01:15:36.980 | Interesting.

01:15:37.460 | Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate,

01:15:40.100 | right wing machismo BS.

01:15:42.020 | Laugh in their face and tell them

01:15:45.140 | to can it or get it written up.

01:15:47.220 | Oh, so there's like a

01:15:48.100 | controversial interpretation.

01:15:50.020 | This is a fun discussion.

01:15:50.900 | Now I'm into this.

01:15:52.100 | If eighth graders are comfortable

01:15:53.380 | enough around you to use

01:15:54.660 | ironic, goofy slang,

01:15:56.100 | but respect you enough to be nervous

01:15:57.620 | to tell you that the urban dictionary

01:15:58.820 | definition of it,

01:15:59.540 | you've hit that sweet spot,

01:16:00.420 | carry on shoulder.

01:16:01.620 | Nah, this is toxic little boy BS

01:16:03.620 | and needs to be addressed.

01:16:04.580 | JP and AT to use at work.

01:16:07.140 | Someone else says, I swear to God,

01:16:08.580 | this Tate guy is some folks.

01:16:10.260 | Oh my God, look at this.

01:16:12.180 | They're really getting into this.

01:16:14.100 | Here's what I'm learning from Sigma.

01:16:15.940 | And someone else is like,

01:16:16.740 | it's a harmless, ironic joke

01:16:18.820 | and telling eighth graders not to say it

01:16:20.420 | is most def not going to make it work.

01:16:22.180 | Oh, so I bet.

01:16:23.460 | Okay.

01:16:25.540 | It's even before eighth grade

01:16:26.580 | because the kid I gave a lesson to

01:16:27.540 | is in six or fifth.

01:16:28.820 | Here's what I think is happening.

01:16:30.100 | So I think there was like originally

01:16:33.220 | a way it was used

01:16:35.220 | sort of like manospherically,

01:16:36.900 | somewhat like straightforwardly,

01:16:39.220 | like maybe it's better than being an alpha

01:16:40.820 | is being a Sigma, right?

01:16:41.940 | So that's like the Andrew Tate reference, right?

01:16:44.100 | Like guys our age with like big biceps

01:16:45.940 | doing videos about like whatever.

01:16:48.820 | And that younger kids

01:16:50.740 | are ironically using the term

01:16:52.500 | because it's cringeworthy

01:16:55.220 | the way that it was being used.

01:16:56.580 | So you can kind of like reappropriate it

01:16:58.180 | and be like, yeah, I'm Sigma.

01:16:59.140 | Is that what, maybe that's what's going on here.

01:17:01.620 | But this is complicated enough,

01:17:05.460 | I guess we shouldn't call ourselves Sigma.

01:17:06.900 | We will invent our own.

01:17:09.140 | Can we invent our own term?

01:17:11.140 | I know all the Greek letters.

01:17:12.020 | I do a lot of mathematics.

01:17:13.220 | Well, I think we should be,

01:17:14.180 | we could be Epsilon.

01:17:15.700 | That was my fraternity in college.

01:17:17.940 | Yeah, we could be Gammas.

01:17:18.980 | Psi.

01:17:20.680 | PSI.

01:17:22.200 | Hey man, that's really Psi of you.

01:17:24.420 | All right, we're going to invent our own term

01:17:26.900 | so it doesn't have all this baggage.

01:17:28.340 | We are Epsilons,

01:17:31.940 | which means like

01:17:33.700 | a small degree of improvement over a term.

01:17:36.980 | All right, so forget Sigma.

01:17:38.740 | The new thing Generation Alpha is to be Epsilon.

01:17:41.140 | And that's our word of the year, I guess.

01:17:44.500 | And what I'm really learning reading Reddit about this

01:17:47.220 | is how much brain rot you get

01:17:49.140 | reading Reddit about things.

01:17:50.180 | This is like people fighting about Andrew Tate

01:17:53.380 | and going back and go do something useful.

01:17:55.860 | Be a leader in your community.

01:17:57.860 | Read a book, learn something hard.

01:17:59.620 | This is crazy.

01:18:00.180 | The internet's crazy.

01:18:00.980 | Brain rot indeed.

01:18:01.940 | All right, that's enough nonsense.

01:18:03.220 | Thank you everyone for listening.

01:18:05.620 | I guess next week,

01:18:07.620 | yeah, it's going to be like a Christmas Eve episode.

01:18:10.980 | What's a week from Monday?

01:18:12.900 | Yeah, the 20th.

01:18:14.980 | All right, we recorded the week before.

01:18:18.340 | Maybe we'll have to get some decorations

01:18:20.260 | in here for that one.

01:18:20.900 | We'll go crazy on that one.

01:18:22.420 | No one listens to the Christmas episode

01:18:24.500 | because they're all off on vacation.

01:18:25.860 | So like we're going to go crazy on that one.

01:18:27.300 | I'm going to think of something interesting to do.

01:18:28.660 | We are going to get Sigma in here

01:18:31.060 | with our Christmas episode,

01:18:33.060 | which I guess means like we'll be shirtless

01:18:35.300 | and doing creature curls.

01:18:36.980 | With lacrosse sticks.

01:18:39.300 | I want to start every podcast

01:18:40.900 | with me doing creature curls

01:18:42.020 | and looking up and saying,

01:18:42.820 | "Oh, I didn't see you come in.

01:18:43.700 | Oh, hi there.

01:18:44.740 | I didn't see you come in here."

01:18:45.700 | All right, everyone.

01:18:48.260 | Thanks for listening.

01:18:48.820 | We'll be back next week with a crazy episode.

01:18:50.660 | And until then, as always, stay deep.

01:18:52.820 | Hey, if you like today's discussion about our cost

01:18:58.500 | and want a more general discussion

01:19:00.100 | about cultivating a deep life,

01:19:02.180 | check out episode 329,

01:19:04.260 | the Tao of Cal,

01:19:05.860 | where in 10 minutes or less,

01:19:07.220 | I summarize all of my big ideas.

01:19:09.380 | I think you'll like it.

01:19:10.340 | Check it out.

01:19:10.900 | So I thought it might be fun

01:19:12.820 | to try to do something sort of crazy today

01:19:15.140 | to try to summarize

01:19:17.380 | most of the main ideas I talk about

01:19:20.260 | in five minutes or less.

My Honest Advice For Someone Who Wants Financial Freedom In 2025 | Cal Newport

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