Ep. 204: Working Less, Overthinking, and Deep Life Principles

00:00:00.000 | I'm Kyle Newport and this is Deep Questions,

00:00:08.200 | episode 204.

00:00:10.680 | I'm here at my Deep Work HQ joined by my

00:00:14.580 | producer, Jesse.

00:00:16.440 | Jesse, in between the last episode we

00:00:19.440 | recorded and this one, I drove my family

00:00:23.060 | down to Knoxville, Tennessee for a family

00:00:26.240 | reunion.

00:00:28.080 | I will tell you, if you look up Deep Work

00:00:30.420 | in the dictionary, you know, they have

00:00:32.600 | antonyms, like, okay, what is the exact

00:00:34.200 | opposite of this word?

00:00:35.520 | Next to that, it says driving eight hours

00:00:39.260 | with three kids under the age of 10.

00:00:41.940 | That is the opposite of Deep Work.

00:00:43.980 | That is the state that is the

00:00:45.120 | opposite of Deep Work.

00:00:46.160 | I was right.

00:00:47.340 | How many stops?

00:00:48.120 | Uh, quite a few.

00:00:49.520 | Uh, but there's one we made, it reminded

00:00:52.020 | me a little bit of the show.

00:00:52.860 | So there's a stop we made.

00:00:54.040 | We're doing some tourist trap type stuff.

00:00:57.820 | It was fun.

00:00:58.300 | So we stopped in a natural bridge,

00:01:01.600 | Virginia, which is where natural bridges,

00:01:03.920 | natural bridges, uh, geological formations,

00:01:07.220 | like a giant stone bridge.

00:01:09.720 | It's actually a cave that collapsed, but

00:01:11.600 | George Washington went by there supposedly

00:01:14.460 | when he was surveying Virginia, Thomas

00:01:16.900 | Jefferson owned that land for a while,

00:01:18.600 | built a cabin there, maybe a Deep Work

00:01:20.620 | cabin next to this state park, historical,

00:01:24.160 | whatever is nonsense.

00:01:27.040 | All sorts of nonsense, uh, because

00:01:28.760 | it's a, it's a tourist stop.

00:01:29.740 | So we went to this one place

00:01:31.180 | called Dinosaur Kingdom 2.

00:01:34.440 | And it was actually kind of interesting,

00:01:36.620 | right?

00:01:36.780 | So this was a place, uh, a tourist

00:01:39.040 | attraction created by Mark Klein, who

00:01:43.500 | is an expert, maybe the world's expert

00:01:46.180 | in making large novelty statuettes

00:01:49.900 | or figures out of fiberglass.

00:01:51.320 | Right.

00:01:51.600 | So, so, uh, I looked them up as I do

00:01:53.820 | and read some profiles and I'm now a

00:01:56.280 | pseudo Mark Klein expert, but he's the

00:01:58.260 | guy you go to if you're on route 66.

00:02:01.420 | And they call these muffler men, but

00:02:03.300 | the giant fiberglass figures by the

00:02:05.440 | old timey gas stations, he's the guy

00:02:07.500 | you go to, to fix yours or to build

00:02:09.020 | yours.

00:02:09.300 | He did the fiberglass figures for this

00:02:11.660 | wizard of, uh, wizard of Oz themed park.

00:02:14.820 | That's over, uh, off the Beltway

00:02:17.240 | called Watkins park.

00:02:18.180 | So anyways, he built this attraction

00:02:20.400 | where the, the, the main part of it is

00:02:22.440 | you walk through the woods and he's

00:02:23.600 | built all these giant fiberglass

00:02:25.700 | dinosaurs, it's a little bit weird

00:02:28.040 | because the premise of the park is that

00:02:29.740 | the dinosaurs are involved in the civil

00:02:32.420 | war.

00:02:32.820 | So it's these dinosaurs that are

00:02:35.840 | attacking and, or being ridden by

00:02:38.300 | fiberglass mannequins of civil war

00:02:41.980 | fighters.

00:02:42.820 | So we're not talking about a, uh, a,

00:02:45.900 | uh, enlightening scientifically,

00:02:47.900 | historically accurate experience.

00:02:49.560 | I mean, at some point there's a

00:02:50.480 | hadrosaur with a saddle and two

00:02:53.000 | Gatling guns on it, but anyways, it's

00:02:54.860 | this weird labor of love, all these

00:02:58.000 | figures, fantastical figures.

00:02:59.900 | There's a water gun fight with big foot

00:03:02.180 | every hour where you get super soakers,

00:03:03.880 | but you get to the end.

00:03:05.660 | This is what made me think about the

00:03:07.120 | show.

00:03:07.480 | You get to the end of this park.

00:03:09.380 | And the final thing is there's an

00:03:11.260 | outhouse and you open the door and you

00:03:13.580 | press a button and the back wall of the

00:03:15.700 | outhouse, it's like, there's a hole in

00:03:17.820 | the wall and it's screen and you press a

00:03:20.300 | button and a giant Tyrannosaur head

00:03:22.300 | comes down like animatronically and

00:03:23.980 | starts like, you know, growling like

00:03:25.880 | right there, like this big, this big

00:03:27.380 | head that comes down.

00:03:28.140 | And I took a picture of this, but

00:03:29.940 | there's a sign in that final attraction.

00:03:32.020 | So let's see here.

00:03:33.820 | All right here, I'll show you Jesse.

00:03:36.380 | All right.

00:03:37.580 | What's the, what's the sign read is the

00:03:40.420 | final attraction of this weird park.

00:03:41.980 | I done all this while you was at your

00:03:44.180 | computer.

00:03:44.740 | Yeah.

00:03:45.620 | I was like, that's pretty, that's

00:03:47.880 | pretty appropriate.

00:03:48.820 | It's kind of like a deep work or a deep

00:03:51.480 | life, I should say case study.

00:03:53.460 | There's a guy who built an for sure

00:03:56.420 | remarkable life in the sense is remarkable

00:03:58.500 | love.

00:03:58.660 | He builds his random fantastical whimsies.

00:04:01.420 | That's his job.

00:04:02.740 | He actually has a workshop there in

00:04:04.180 | Virginia called the enchanted castle.

00:04:05.700 | That's just full of all these figures

00:04:07.020 | he's working on.

00:04:07.500 | So I liked that epithet.

00:04:08.580 | I built this all whilst you were on your

00:04:10.860 | computer.

00:04:11.340 | It reminds me of the final scene of the

00:04:13.260 | movie, the wizard.

00:04:13.940 | Remember that movie way back in the day,

00:04:15.140 | the video game player with Fred Savage.

00:04:17.380 | Yeah.

00:04:17.980 | Yeah.

00:04:18.300 | What's the final scene of the wizard.

00:04:19.860 | I know that they were, he was like

00:04:20.980 | running away and there was like that big

00:04:22.820 | dinosaur or something like that.

00:04:24.020 | Oh, I thought you were going to say the

00:04:25.380 | final scene of the wizard was about like

00:04:27.580 | not using your computer.

00:04:28.540 | Yeah.

00:04:28.820 | No, the dinosaurs and stuff.

00:04:30.580 | I'll have to go back and watch it.

00:04:32.140 | I've considered that's interesting.

00:04:33.860 | Movie super Mario three.

00:04:35.300 | They debuted that it was a big tie-in.

00:04:38.300 | They debuted super Mario brother three in

00:04:40.620 | the movie because they knew the game was

00:04:42.260 | coming out.

00:04:42.820 | Yeah.

00:04:43.780 | I should watch that again.

00:04:44.500 | Anyways.

00:04:45.540 | I like that.

00:04:46.140 | So while we're all on our computer doing

00:04:49.100 | email and checking social media, Mark

00:04:51.460 | Klein was putting Gatling guns on Hadrosaurs.

00:04:55.180 | All right.

00:04:57.020 | So we got a good show.

00:04:58.100 | We got some written questions.

00:05:00.580 | We got some calls.

00:05:01.820 | We'll do a books I read in June summary

00:05:05.740 | coming up since our first episode of the

00:05:08.740 | new month.

00:05:09.500 | But before we get into all of that, I

00:05:11.500 | want to do a quick deep life, slow

00:05:15.540 | productivity themed reaction.

00:05:18.260 | And in particular, the, the article I want

00:05:21.060 | to react to here is my own.

00:05:22.260 | So I published this just on my, my

00:05:25.380 | newsletter yesterday, July 5th, the day

00:05:28.740 | before we were recording this episode.

00:05:31.620 | And this is based off of a article that

00:05:34.460 | many different readers sent to my

00:05:35.820 | interesting@calnewport.com email address.

00:05:38.260 | All right.

00:05:39.540 | So the title of this, of this article,

00:05:41.220 | which I wrote for my newsletter, and if

00:05:42.220 | you don't subscribe to that newsletter,

00:05:43.420 | calnewport.com, you should, it's once a

00:05:46.220 | week, I've been doing it since 2007.

00:05:48.980 | All right.

00:05:49.300 | So the title I had for the article was

00:05:51.940 | the three hour fields, metal, little

00:05:54.500 | Tim Ferriss nod, colon, a slow

00:05:56.940 | productivity case study.

00:05:58.460 | But really what I'm doing here is

00:05:59.940 | reacting to this article.

00:06:01.580 | And again, if you're listening, I'm

00:06:03.300 | showing this on the screen.

00:06:04.660 | So if you watch the episode at

00:06:06.060 | youtube.com/calnewportmedia, you'll,

00:06:09.140 | you'll see what I'm talking about,

00:06:10.300 | but I'll walk you through it.

00:06:11.060 | This essay was in reaction to this

00:06:13.780 | profile from quantum magazine about June.

00:06:18.860 | Huh.

00:06:19.260 | H U H.

00:06:20.180 | June is a 39 year old Princeton professor.

00:06:23.780 | Why we care about him is that yesterday

00:06:27.380 | he was awarded the 2022 fields metal.

00:06:31.100 | This is often referred to as the

00:06:33.220 | Nobel prize of mathematics.

00:06:34.980 | It's given out once every four years, I

00:06:36.900 | believe, and it's given out to the

00:06:39.180 | mathematical professional 40 or younger,

00:06:42.940 | whose work done to date and promise for

00:06:46.300 | future work is the, let's say most

00:06:48.940 | impressive among all working mathematicians.

00:06:51.740 | So it's really one of the highest honors

00:06:53.260 | you can win, uh, in mathematics.

00:06:56.700 | And he won it for work he's doing

00:06:59.300 | on geometric combinatorics.

00:07:00.700 | All right.

00:07:02.060 | So this profile, which was quite long,

00:07:03.340 | quantum magazine is great.

00:07:04.260 | Uh, this profile is quite long, had

00:07:06.220 | some interesting points in it.

00:07:07.700 | So for example, if you look at June's

00:07:10.940 | trajectory, he did not get serious

00:07:13.660 | about mathematics until late in his

00:07:15.620 | undergraduate career, he went to college

00:07:18.260 | university in South Korea, where

00:07:20.100 | it's a six year system.

00:07:21.100 | It wasn't until his sixth year that he

00:07:23.220 | even got serious about mathematics.

00:07:24.700 | And that's because he took a class from

00:07:26.980 | a well-known eccentric fields prize

00:07:30.780 | winning fields, metal winning

00:07:31.900 | mathematician, Japanese mathematician,

00:07:33.780 | Hayasuke Hironaka, who was teaching a

00:07:37.620 | class where it wasn't well-established

00:07:40.500 | results, he was actually teaching

00:07:41.940 | stuff he was working on.

00:07:43.620 | June falls under his sway,

00:07:45.300 | uh, applies to graduate school.

00:07:47.700 | He's applying to graduate school, having

00:07:49.620 | only been serious about math for one year.

00:07:51.420 | So he applies to around a dozen schools.

00:07:53.340 | Everyone rejects them except for one.

00:07:54.980 | Urbana-Champaign lets him in.

00:07:56.580 | They're glad they did because within a

00:07:58.820 | year or two, he solved Reed's conjecture.

00:08:01.900 | So he immediately solves a 40 year, 40

00:08:05.580 | year, uh, open problem for the nerds out

00:08:11.020 | there, uh, you can, you can bound the

00:08:13.940 | chromatic number of graphs with certain

00:08:16.260 | characteristic polynomials, the chromatic

00:08:18.820 | number of a, of a undirected graph being

00:08:20.900 | the minimum number of colors by which

00:08:22.980 | you can color the vertices such that no

00:08:24.460 | two adjacent vertices have the same color.

00:08:26.140 | All of my, hopefully all my algorithms

00:08:28.940 | and discrete mathematics students know

00:08:30.340 | what I'm talking about here.

00:08:31.300 | You can bound the chromatic

00:08:32.820 | number with a polynomial.

00:08:34.260 | The polynomial has coefficients.

00:08:35.780 | The coefficients of these characteristic

00:08:37.580 | polynomials have certain properties

00:08:39.420 | that had long been observed, such

00:08:41.260 | as their log concavity, but it had

00:08:43.860 | never been proved that that was.

00:08:45.220 | Unavoidable.

00:08:46.820 | Reed's conjecture said it was June proved it.

00:08:50.260 | All right.

00:08:51.940 | So there you go.

00:08:52.340 | There's a summary of the first thing he

00:08:53.380 | proved, uh, he then went on to generalize

00:08:55.860 | those results to something called

00:08:57.300 | matroids, blah, blah, blah, long story short.

00:09:00.820 | Uh, it was, it's a very innovative

00:09:03.220 | approach that showed that, I mean, again,

00:09:05.820 | I don't know how to summarize this too

00:09:08.380 | succinctly, but, but essentially a

00:09:10.700 | technique that before people thought

00:09:14.940 | only applied to problems where there

00:09:17.540 | was a geometric grounding, like the

00:09:19.820 | chromatic number of a graph, he showed

00:09:21.540 | you could apply this technique to a much

00:09:24.500 | broader class of objects called matroids.

00:09:27.380 | Let's just, let's just leave it at that.

00:09:29.580 | Anyways, it won him a Fields Medal.

00:09:31.100 | It was a really good result.

00:09:33.020 | Um, I also found that interesting that

00:09:34.820 | after he solved Reed's conjecture, the

00:09:36.660 | schools who had rejected him came back

00:09:39.300 | and courted him, U Michigan actually

00:09:41.020 | convinced him to transfer from Urbana

00:09:42.660 | Champaign to Michigan after he

00:09:44.020 | solved Reed's conjecture.

00:09:44.940 | So they, they sort of realized they

00:09:46.300 | made a mistake on that one.

00:09:47.260 | Anyways, the reason why I wanted to talk

00:09:51.420 | about this profile of this young professor

00:09:54.420 | was the following quote that came from

00:09:58.020 | the profile, "On any given day, Poe does

00:10:01.540 | about three hours of focused work."

00:10:04.300 | You might think about a math problem

00:10:06.500 | or prepare to lecture a classroom of

00:10:08.380 | students or schedule a doctor's

00:10:09.660 | appointment for his two sons.

00:10:10.820 | Then I'm exhausted.

00:10:12.340 | He says, doing something that's

00:10:13.380 | valuable, meaningful, creative, or a

00:10:15.980 | task that he doesn't particularly want

00:10:17.340 | to do like scheduling those appointments

00:10:18.540 | takes away a lot of your energy.

00:10:21.180 | This guy's doing productive work

00:10:24.020 | about three hours a day, not even just

00:10:26.420 | three hours of deep work on math.

00:10:28.020 | And then I do the rest of

00:10:28.740 | the stuff later in the day.

00:10:29.500 | He spends about three hours a day

00:10:31.420 | actually exhausting energy from his mind.

00:10:35.940 | Now I thought that was really telling

00:10:37.340 | because it provides an extreme example

00:10:41.060 | of one of these principles that is a

00:10:44.780 | part of my emerging philosophy of slow

00:10:47.580 | productivity and that principle is that

00:10:50.380 | busyness and exhaustion, that sense of

00:10:52.340 | overload and frenetic movement is often

00:10:55.780 | quite unrelated to producing valuable work.

00:11:00.220 | These are two unrelated things.

00:11:02.940 | The, the, the pace and effort

00:11:05.660 | required to do things of note, to prove

00:11:08.860 | things about matroids or to

00:11:11.180 | solve Reed's conjecture.

00:11:12.380 | Those efforts do not require and have

00:11:15.660 | very little to do with I am overloaded.

00:11:18.340 | I'm burnt out.

00:11:19.100 | I'm burning the midnight oil.

00:11:20.780 | I am working all day long.

00:11:22.820 | I'm frantic.

00:11:23.500 | I'm frenetic.

00:11:24.180 | Two unrelated, two unrelated states.

00:11:28.460 | A little bit of intense work.

00:11:32.460 | Done at a natural pace, given the

00:11:34.860 | breathing room to aggregate over time

00:11:36.580 | can lead to really big results.

00:11:38.380 | So that got me thinking, why are we then

00:11:42.660 | in so many roles, especially even

00:11:44.460 | specialized knowledge worker roles,

00:11:46.380 | where producing complex things out of

00:11:48.460 | our minds is ultimately what moves the

00:11:49.940 | needle, why in so many of these roles,

00:11:51.260 | are we so busy and why are we so overloaded?

00:11:54.020 | And I think there's two

00:11:55.380 | different things going on here.

00:11:56.540 | One is I talk about a lot on the show

00:11:59.260 | and in my writing, the way we organize

00:12:02.060 | work, especially knowledge work

00:12:03.340 | today is haphazard.

00:12:05.460 | Anyone can grab anyone's

00:12:07.540 | attention at any time.

00:12:08.820 | We have no sort of systematic

00:12:10.420 | thinking about workload.

00:12:11.660 | We have no systematic thinking about

00:12:13.700 | collaboration or communication,

00:12:15.700 | how this should actually unfold.

00:12:17.100 | It is a free for all of obligation

00:12:19.220 | hot potato where everyone's just

00:12:20.540 | shooting things off to everyone else.

00:12:22.020 | You put something on my plate, I send

00:12:23.820 | you a clarifying question so I don't

00:12:24.940 | have to worry about it for a couple hours.

00:12:26.540 | Something pops up.

00:12:28.140 | I say, why don't you handle this?

00:12:29.380 | It's a world without specialization.

00:12:31.580 | Where we say, why can't everyone just

00:12:32.980 | handle all of the various administrative

00:12:34.660 | logistical tasks that are relevant to

00:12:36.140 | them because then we don't have

00:12:36.860 | to hire support staff.

00:12:37.660 | It's a chaotic haphazard world.

00:12:39.260 | And that creates overload.

00:12:42.100 | That creates busyness.

00:12:43.060 | The second reason why we feel that is,

00:12:45.060 | uh, we don't have a good

00:12:46.380 | definition of productivity.

00:12:47.860 | So we, we, we create this new world of work.

00:12:51.980 | Create this new world of work in which

00:12:54.620 | you're using your mind instead of

00:12:55.740 | building things with your hands.

00:12:57.900 | So we have to think what

00:12:59.140 | does productivity mean?

00:13:00.580 | And I'm talking now mid 20th century.

00:13:02.500 | What does productivity mean if we're

00:13:04.460 | not counting the time required

00:13:07.260 | to produce a Model T?

00:13:08.820 | What does it mean?

00:13:10.260 | Well, we leaned into industrial metaphors.

00:13:13.140 | Why?

00:13:13.460 | Well, where were the first big offices?

00:13:16.860 | Where were the first big collections of

00:13:18.940 | hundreds or thousands of people in the

00:13:20.620 | same place doing work with their

00:13:21.980 | mind and not their hands?

00:13:22.980 | It was the front offices of

00:13:24.740 | large industrial corporations.

00:13:27.060 | The early 20th century, you get the

00:13:29.180 | rise of the mega corporation, you get

00:13:31.220 | the efficiencies of scale of acquiring

00:13:34.700 | competitors and building

00:13:35.860 | up very large companies.

00:13:37.220 | This, this, this idea of the very large

00:13:39.140 | company emerges in the early 20th century.

00:13:41.940 | We, we, we see it, uh, with the, the

00:13:44.220 | robber barons, the late 19th century,

00:13:45.860 | early 20th century, by the 1940s, you

00:13:47.860 | have, you know, General Motors as this

00:13:49.660 | massive consolidated company that has

00:13:51.820 | all these different verticals.

00:13:52.940 | Well, that requires a huge amount

00:13:54.820 | of administrative support.

00:13:56.060 | They were all put into the same big

00:13:57.540 | buildings there you have the first

00:13:59.180 | big knowledge worker setting.

00:14:01.300 | So of course, when the same CEO that is

00:14:04.020 | overlooking 700 clerical workers,

00:14:06.860 | administrative workers and managers is

00:14:09.260 | also overlooking industrial assembly

00:14:12.220 | lines, we're going to adopt by default

00:14:15.780 | industrial productivity metrics, effort,

00:14:19.380 | time spent working, uh, minimizing

00:14:22.380 | idleness, the things you would care

00:14:23.700 | about with an assembly line.

00:14:26.500 | So we have adopted sort of by default,

00:14:28.580 | these industrial metrics.

00:14:29.820 | And then as we begin to get some

00:14:31.580 | separation, we get the rise of knowledge

00:14:33.820 | work that's completely disconnected

00:14:36.420 | from industrial production.

00:14:37.580 | We do have a chance to try to evolve

00:14:39.300 | our understanding of productivity, but

00:14:41.100 | then we get the computer revolution and

00:14:42.900 | it completely shakes up the whole

00:14:44.860 | proverbial snow globe.

00:14:45.940 | Suddenly we have networks and email and

00:14:48.540 | everything gets thrown up into the air.

00:14:50.020 | Again, all these revolutions sort

00:14:51.420 | of get in the way the disruption gets

00:14:52.860 | in the way of maturity and stabilization

00:14:54.820 | of work philosophy.

00:14:55.740 | So we end up where we are today with

00:14:57.540 | this weird mix of industrial notions

00:14:59.420 | of productivity that's based around.

00:15:00.900 | You're a worker on an assembly line.

00:15:03.060 | And, uh, if you're idle,

00:15:04.780 | that's wasted money.

00:15:05.700 | I want you to be here for set hours

00:15:07.540 | and doing those hours.

00:15:08.300 | I want to see activity that mixed

00:15:10.180 | in with the haphazard freneticism

00:15:11.980 | of uncontrolled digital communication.

00:15:14.220 | And we get this weird world we have today.

00:15:15.860 | So we have these notions of

00:15:17.660 | productivity around, I can't see you're

00:15:19.740 | working, you're not productive.

00:15:21.740 | Maybe you're, you know, something's going

00:15:23.220 | on, you're screwing me, you know, idleness.

00:15:26.060 | And so we want you to be

00:15:27.060 | working for these hours.

00:15:27.980 | We want to see that you're working.

00:15:29.220 | If you're not going to be in the office,

00:15:30.860 | then we want to see that you're

00:15:31.620 | responding to Slack and email because

00:15:33.300 | activity is value inactivity is wasted

00:15:36.460 | value, very old notion.

00:15:37.660 | So we need new notions of how do you

00:15:40.300 | productively create value in a skilled

00:15:42.660 | cognitive environment.

00:15:43.740 | And that's where something like slow

00:15:44.980 | productivity is trying to fill a void.

00:15:46.700 | Let us evolve our notion of productivity

00:15:49.180 | away from what you would want with

00:15:51.540 | factory workers and towards something

00:15:53.020 | that actually makes sense.

00:15:55.060 | For people trying to add value to

00:15:56.620 | information using their mind.

00:15:58.140 | So it's an extreme example, three hours

00:16:00.820 | a day, and you have a Fields Medal by 39.

00:16:04.340 | But the extremes are often great for

00:16:06.860 | highlighting the underlying realities.

00:16:08.740 | Busyness and overload is unrelated to

00:16:13.500 | producing things that actually matter.

00:16:15.940 | Three hour Fields Medal.

00:16:18.740 | I saw something, Jesse.

00:16:21.700 | Now I forgot who it was.

00:16:23.020 | I think a reader sent it to me.

00:16:24.980 | Uh, it was a writer who has simplified

00:16:28.620 | their writing down to one day a week.

00:16:30.140 | Really?

00:16:31.300 | Yeah.

00:16:31.540 | And they're a pretty productive writer.

00:16:32.940 | It's a nonfiction.

00:16:35.060 | I forgot exactly what space he's in,

00:16:37.180 | but just one day a week he writes.

00:16:39.020 | I think it's Thursdays.

00:16:39.900 | And over time he's built up this like

00:16:42.500 | really nice collection of books that

00:16:44.140 | he's written.

00:16:44.700 | I mean, again, overload, busyness, that

00:16:48.020 | sense of like, I don't have enough time.

00:16:49.620 | If anything gets in the way of producing

00:16:52.660 | stuff that matters, not the recipe for it.

00:16:54.620 | You like writing every day though, don't you?

00:16:56.860 | I do.

00:16:57.740 | I've been writing in the morning.

00:16:58.660 | We, we finally have all the different

00:17:01.620 | workmen out of our study and my desk

00:17:04.780 | isn't there yet, but there's a table in there.

00:17:06.460 | And so I go in there each morning and

00:17:08.940 | that's where I've been writing.

00:17:09.660 | So like two hours a day?

00:17:10.980 | I'm trying to, yeah.

00:17:12.020 | Two to three.

00:17:12.660 | Yeah.

00:17:13.460 | I mean, I'm making progress on, here's

00:17:16.020 | my quick writing update.

00:17:17.300 | If you're interested, I'm working now in

00:17:19.380 | my slow productivity book that I'm writing

00:17:22.380 | on the, the principle about doing fewer

00:17:25.100 | things, looking like this is going to come

00:17:27.260 | in at a 15, 15 to 20 K word sections.

00:17:33.140 | There's these three big sections, one's

00:17:34.620 | for each of the principles and they're

00:17:35.780 | going to be pretty big, maybe about

00:17:36.860 | 15,000 words each.

00:17:37.900 | And I'm, I'd been stuck for a little

00:17:40.940 | while on this particular section.

00:17:44.220 | And I feel like I have some traction going.

00:17:46.260 | And so that's what I've been working on.

00:17:48.100 | Uh, when I was on my trip, I was getting

00:17:50.300 | unstuck, which means figuring out what

00:17:54.060 | is my path through this particular section?

00:17:56.300 | What are the examples?

00:17:57.220 | How do I want to streamline this?

00:17:58.500 | I did not, I was trying to force what I

00:18:00.220 | had before to work and I had cognitive

00:18:02.180 | friction, I knew it wasn't working.

00:18:04.340 | The examples I wanted to use when I dive

00:18:06.700 | deeper into the source material, weren't

00:18:08.180 | what I wanted.

00:18:08.780 | Didn't seem like it's what I needed.

00:18:10.340 | Uh, and over this trip to Tennessee, I,

00:18:12.780 | I reworked it, I streamlined and now it's

00:18:15.980 | rolling, now it's rolling.

00:18:17.300 | So I'm not far into the section I'm

00:18:19.140 | writing, but I have forward momentum.

00:18:21.540 | So, so hopefully I'll finish that up this week.

00:18:23.540 | When you do your weekly plan, do you

00:18:25.540 | map out like what you're going to write

00:18:27.940 | about each day?

00:18:28.980 | Like for instance, cause you have your

00:18:29.940 | New Yorker stuff, you have your books, you

00:18:31.540 | have, yeah, I have to figure that out.

00:18:33.060 | Yeah.

00:18:33.380 | I have to, I mean, that's, that's what

00:18:34.380 | happened.

00:18:34.940 | I'm in a confusing writing landscape right

00:18:37.540 | now because I was, I had been working on

00:18:39.420 | this big principle of the book.

00:18:41.220 | Then I shifted over, uh, to a magazine

00:18:45.940 | piece, New Yorker piece that was going to

00:18:48.620 | serve double duty as a piece for the New

00:18:52.380 | Yorker, but also for a chapter earlier in

00:18:54.940 | the book.

00:18:55.340 | Then, uh, something else came along and it

00:18:59.580 | was sort of more of a topical article.

00:19:01.260 | I said, yeah, I want to short, let me

00:19:02.900 | write that.

00:19:03.580 | So like all of that got put on pause.

00:19:05.580 | So I could, I wanted to write a shorter

00:19:07.580 | sort of topical piece.

00:19:08.540 | Um, and that was the week before my trip.

00:19:11.620 | So everything got put on pause for that,

00:19:13.500 | finished that, that's an editing.

00:19:14.860 | And then when I came back, now I'm close

00:19:17.940 | enough to finishing this principle that

00:19:20.820 | I'm, I'm going to do that and then turn

00:19:23.060 | back to finishing the original piece.

00:19:26.100 | I'm working on the details here.

00:19:27.700 | Not that important.

00:19:29.220 | The bigger point being, uh, Jesse's right

00:19:32.540 | to ask about that.

00:19:33.180 | It's, it's a complicated picture of sort

00:19:35.220 | of concurrent writing things and moving

00:19:38.060 | around.

00:19:38.580 | What am I going to work on now?

00:19:39.580 | Put this on side, put this on hold now.

00:19:41.540 | So I write this.

00:19:42.260 | It's not always an obvious formula, how

00:19:44.380 | you make those decisions.

00:19:45.620 | And it's something that requires some

00:19:47.220 | thought, like right now, the way I'm

00:19:48.340 | thinking about it is because I'm in

00:19:49.580 | editing with this one.

00:19:50.900 | Uh, magazine piece.

00:19:52.940 | I don't want to work on another magazine

00:19:54.620 | piece while I'm editing a current one.

00:19:56.700 | It's too close to home.

00:19:58.380 | We're going to cross the circuit.

00:19:59.340 | So that's why I, while I'm editing this

00:20:01.140 | piece, I want to write, it's essentially

00:20:02.980 | more of an advice-y type section of my

00:20:04.540 | book, which is quite different.

00:20:05.580 | So these are the type of chess

00:20:06.500 | pieces you move around.

00:20:07.380 | Um, yeah, but at the weekly planning

00:20:09.100 | stage, I'm thinking, what am I writing

00:20:11.060 | this week?

00:20:11.500 | Where am I going to try to get?

00:20:12.420 | And then, and what I like to, I like to

00:20:15.420 | get to the point where I can see a

00:20:16.580 | milestone coming up because then you can

00:20:19.300 | go after it like, oh, I want to get there

00:20:20.980 | by this weekend.

00:20:21.500 | And then you'll add extra

00:20:22.220 | hours and really push.

00:20:23.540 | And when you're in the stages where

00:20:24.820 | you're planning and trying to make

00:20:26.220 | something work, you can feel like days

00:20:27.660 | are going by and not much progress is

00:20:29.940 | happening, but then when you start to see.

00:20:31.500 | You have 5,000 words away from

00:20:33.220 | wrapping this whole thing up.

00:20:34.340 | You see that finish line, then

00:20:36.380 | you can really lock in.

00:20:37.420 | And it can be pretty, you get these

00:20:39.100 | really productive locked in sessions.

00:20:41.580 | But anyways, that's all just to give

00:20:43.460 | the impression of the writing life can

00:20:45.340 | be more complicated.

00:20:46.060 | It seems simple, but it can be

00:20:47.100 | complicated figuring out what I should

00:20:49.780 | be writing now is not always obvious.

00:20:52.740 | All right.

00:20:55.620 | Well, what is obvious is we should take

00:20:58.580 | a moment to thank a couple of sponsors

00:21:00.100 | that make this show possible and allow

00:21:03.060 | me to sit around and do nonsense

00:21:05.100 | like writing all day.

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00:25:31.940 | All professional reads here.

00:25:35.740 | All right, enough of that nonsense.

00:25:36.900 | Let's do some questions.

00:25:37.900 | Question number one comes from Micah.

00:25:41.420 | Micah says, what do you think about

00:25:44.460 | planning two weeks instead of one?

00:25:47.340 | A single week seems like a

00:25:49.860 | very short time span for me.

00:25:51.620 | Maybe it's because my planning sessions

00:25:53.460 | take too long for them to happen weekly.

00:25:55.060 | Do you think it's plausible to

00:25:56.180 | plan two weeks instead of one?

00:25:58.860 | Well, Micah, it's plausible, but it's

00:26:01.260 | not necessarily my recommendation.

00:26:04.500 | The reason planning one week is

00:26:06.540 | taking so long is because it's difficult.

00:26:09.180 | Planning is difficult to try to get

00:26:11.060 | your arms around the rhythms and

00:26:12.660 | patterns of obligations that are

00:26:14.380 | happening in the week ahead to look

00:26:15.860 | at that calendar and see which days

00:26:17.620 | are more busy than others to work

00:26:19.300 | at your quarterly plan and get a

00:26:20.540 | sense of where you are in your

00:26:22.300 | bigger picture initiatives.

00:26:23.740 | Which of these initiatives you

00:26:26.020 | have the right room to make

00:26:27.300 | progress on, which ones you don't.

00:26:28.860 | This takes a while because it's complicated.

00:26:30.860 | You expand that scope to two weeks.

00:26:33.300 | It becomes even more complicated.

00:26:35.420 | That's a, that's a bigger challenge.

00:26:37.660 | If you're having a hard time scheduling

00:26:39.380 | one, you might have a really

00:26:41.180 | hard time scheduling two.

00:26:44.060 | So what you might focus on instead,

00:26:46.540 | Micah, is reducing the footprint of

00:26:48.660 | the planning you're doing to make

00:26:49.940 | it seem more reasonable as opposed

00:26:52.260 | to planning less often, but making

00:26:53.500 | that planning even harder.

00:26:54.500 | There's a few things you can do to

00:26:57.700 | reduce the footprint of weekly planning.

00:26:59.980 | One, less detail.

00:27:02.460 | Perhaps your weekly plans are too fiddly.

00:27:05.740 | So in particular, if you find yourself

00:27:08.140 | getting pretty specific about

00:27:10.620 | particular times on particular days

00:27:13.180 | that you're going to do particular work

00:27:14.700 | during the weekly plan process, that

00:27:17.100 | is, if you were implicitly time-block

00:27:18.820 | planning your entire week, your level

00:27:20.820 | of detail is too fine grained.

00:27:22.180 | You want to pull back from that.

00:27:24.540 | Have some faith that the future you

00:27:28.060 | doing daily time-block planning on

00:27:30.940 | future days this week will be able

00:27:32.620 | to figure out what to work on

00:27:34.500 | and what to make sense.

00:27:35.260 | You want less detail.

00:27:36.180 | You might say, "This is a week I

00:27:37.580 | want to make progress on this chapter.

00:27:39.380 | We're focusing on this report."

00:27:40.780 | Or you might point out a particular

00:27:42.420 | day, "Thursday is light.

00:27:43.500 | Let's keep it light.

00:27:44.420 | That'll be the day that I want to

00:27:45.740 | try to finish up the Johnson memo."

00:27:48.060 | Yeah, that's fine.

00:27:49.340 | But if you're saying, "Okay, 10 to

00:27:51.140 | 1130 on Wednesday, that's when I am

00:27:54.940 | going to work on 700 words from this

00:27:57.100 | project," you're getting too fiddly,

00:27:58.540 | and that's going to take up too much

00:27:59.660 | time, so less detail.

00:28:00.940 | The second thing you can do to

00:28:02.340 | reduce the footprint, separate inbox

00:28:06.060 | cleaning from the weekly planning.

00:28:08.660 | So a lot of people do this and it

00:28:10.780 | makes sense to get you ready for the

00:28:12.700 | week, you go through and you clean

00:28:14.980 | out all your inboxes so that you're

00:28:16.300 | starting from a blank slate.

00:28:17.860 | It's not a bad idea, but it takes a long

00:28:20.340 | time, but not only takes a long time,

00:28:22.020 | it's cognitively draining because you

00:28:24.660 | have to context shift back and forth,

00:28:26.860 | back and forth, like a screen door in

00:28:28.380 | the breeze when you're cleaning through

00:28:29.820 | an inbox, there are so many different

00:28:31.500 | messages and they represent so many

00:28:33.540 | different unrelated obligations.

00:28:35.100 | It's an incredibly draining experience.

00:28:36.660 | It was time consuming and

00:28:37.820 | cognitively draining.

00:28:38.900 | If you attach that to the weekly

00:28:41.660 | planning where you're literally writing

00:28:43.060 | your weekly plan for the week, the whole

00:28:44.620 | thing becomes a long drawn out, exhausting

00:28:47.060 | exercise, so separate the inbox cleaning.

00:28:50.340 | Do your weekly planning separately.

00:28:52.340 | The inbox cleaning, you can then spread

00:28:54.260 | out in various sessions early throughout

00:28:55.940 | your week, or you can do your weekly

00:28:58.060 | planning on Friday at the end of the day

00:29:01.460 | and maybe start Monday with the inbox

00:29:02.940 | cleaning, but separate those two things.

00:29:04.980 | And that last suggestion is my third

00:29:06.540 | suggestion, do the weekly plan at the

00:29:08.820 | end of your day, Friday, as opposed to

00:29:10.380 | the beginning of your day, Monday, and

00:29:13.580 | it will feel less like it is getting in

00:29:17.420 | the way of you getting started and more

00:29:20.460 | like you're wrapping up a long and

00:29:23.260 | productive week and in your final hours

00:29:25.140 | or Friday, you're, you're tying up loose

00:29:26.780 | ends and getting things ready for the

00:29:28.020 | week ahead, Friday planning for the week

00:29:30.980 | ahead also gives you the advantage of a

00:29:32.900 | lower anxiety weekend because you, you

00:29:36.180 | know, you're locked in for what's going

00:29:37.660 | to happen.

00:29:38.020 | You know, you have a plan.

00:29:39.260 | It gives you some clarity, allows

00:29:41.460 | you to actually step back and relax

00:29:43.500 | more during the weekend.

00:29:45.380 | So it's a psychological trick.

00:29:47.020 | I mean, the time is the time, but a 30

00:29:50.500 | minutes spent weekly planning Friday at

00:29:52.500 | three does not feel like it's getting in

00:29:55.260 | the way 30 minutes spent Monday at nine 30

00:29:58.540 | feels like, okay, I have all these things

00:30:00.500 | to do and not getting into any of them

00:30:01.660 | because of the planning same time,

00:30:03.140 | different impact depending on when you

00:30:05.700 | spend it.

00:30:06.100 | Do you put personal reading

00:30:08.780 | blocks in your weekly plan?

00:30:10.860 | That'd be like daily time blocking.

00:30:13.500 | If I'm going to do reading during the

00:30:16.860 | workday, which I think is a good thing to

00:30:18.300 | do, it's a great break.

00:30:19.180 | I'll time block it.

00:30:19.980 | Uh, if it's after work, I don't time

00:30:22.980 | block after work.

00:30:23.620 | It's just a kind of a default.

00:30:25.060 | You kind of just know you're going to

00:30:26.020 | read every day anyway.

00:30:26.780 | Just like reading.

00:30:27.460 | Yeah.

00:30:27.860 | Like the fine time to read.

00:30:28.620 | I was reading this morning.

00:30:29.500 | I'm reading a great Ben Franklin biography.

00:30:32.780 | I always read something about the family

00:30:34.020 | fathers starting the first week in

00:30:36.340 | July because of July 4th.

00:30:37.660 | I've been watching some of that

00:30:38.900 | PBS episode on Franklin.

00:30:40.460 | Yeah.

00:30:40.980 | Well, so one of the main books that's,

00:30:43.060 | that's based on is, is a HW Brands,

00:30:45.900 | Lincoln biogra or a Franklin biography,

00:30:48.780 | which was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

00:30:50.420 | Like that's the book, that book opens in

00:30:52.260 | the cockpit, just like the Ken Burns

00:30:55.180 | opens in the cockpit.

00:30:56.060 | I didn't realize he spent so much time in

00:30:58.700 | London.

00:30:59.420 | Yeah.

00:31:00.540 | Yeah.

00:31:01.380 | Once he's there for a long time, he's

00:31:02.620 | thinking about moving there.

00:31:03.460 | He's there forever.

00:31:04.660 | Yeah.

00:31:05.220 | That's the thing about Franklin.

00:31:06.620 | It's same with like John Adams.

00:31:07.940 | If you watch like the John Adams mini

00:31:10.180 | series, it gets up the declaration

00:31:12.260 | independence, like, all right, here we go.

00:31:13.980 | Revolutionary war.

00:31:15.100 | And he's in London with Franklin actually.

00:31:17.580 | Yeah.

00:31:18.620 | So I'm in the cool part of the book, like

00:31:20.260 | the interesting part of Franklin's life,

00:31:21.780 | where he, he stops work 43 years old.

00:31:26.100 | He's like, I've made enough money.

00:31:27.220 | My partner, David Hall is going to run

00:31:29.220 | the printing business.

00:31:30.260 | I get half the, half the revenue.

00:31:32.020 | Uh, I now have, and I have the quote,

00:31:34.420 | I have it in my bag.

00:31:36.300 | I bookmarked it.

00:31:37.540 | It was like, I now have control of my time.

00:31:39.820 | And he goes and it says, I'm

00:31:42.260 | going to work on science.

00:31:43.180 | And that's when he figures out the

00:31:45.780 | properties of electricity and the

00:31:47.580 | lightning rod and becomes world famous

00:31:49.220 | for doing science.

00:31:49.860 | So at 43 years old or 42 years old, he

00:31:52.700 | retires from the world of work so he can

00:31:54.380 | focus on, uh, higher value productions.

00:31:57.580 | And, you know, he breaks through the study

00:32:00.900 | of electricity and helps create the Republic.

00:32:04.740 | Yeah.

00:32:05.220 | So it's cool.

00:32:06.020 | But then he goes to London, spends a lot

00:32:07.460 | of time there.

00:32:07.820 | I know that it's a cool guy.

00:32:09.020 | He's interesting guy.

00:32:10.180 | It's an interesting documentary.

00:32:11.340 | He did a lot of metric tracking when he was

00:32:13.980 | younger.

00:32:14.340 | Yeah.

00:32:15.020 | Metric, one of the earliest American sort

00:32:18.340 | of advice thinkers.

00:32:19.260 | I mean, there's a lot that's interesting

00:32:20.300 | in it and it's a really well-written book.

00:32:21.820 | Uh, and I've been, I've been enjoying it.

00:32:23.820 | But anyways, my point being is like this

00:32:24.940 | morning, I was up a little early.

00:32:27.340 | It's like, I'm going to read some Franklin.

00:32:28.940 | You know, it's just, it becomes a

00:32:30.780 | default, default activity.

00:32:32.140 | All right.

00:32:34.340 | Question number two, Soronolio, see

00:32:38.740 | if I'm saying that right, asks, how can I

00:32:41.740 | brainwash my little brother to make him

00:32:44.820 | not follow his passion?

00:32:47.100 | My little brother is currently 17 and in

00:32:50.060 | some months he will be choosing a college

00:32:51.780 | degree.

00:32:52.060 | My concern is that he falls in the follow

00:32:54.100 | your passion trap and chooses a worthless

00:32:56.900 | degree that puts him in the way to be a

00:32:58.740 | basement dweller.

00:32:59.700 | 10 years ago when I was his age, I fell in

00:33:02.700 | that passion trap and I lost two years of my

00:33:04.700 | life in useless classes and activities.

00:33:06.740 | How can I make a compelling argument to

00:33:08.100 | him so that he doesn't fall for this fairy

00:33:11.860 | tale?

00:33:12.180 | And for those who are new to the show, uh,

00:33:16.260 | Soronolio has asked me this question

00:33:18.180 | because of my book, So Good They Can't

00:33:19.660 | Ignore You, which takes on the idea that

00:33:22.700 | follow your passion is good advice and

00:33:24.380 | offers alternatives instead.

00:33:26.140 | So this is something I've thought and

00:33:27.180 | written quite a lot about.

00:33:28.620 | All right.

00:33:29.340 | So I got some thoughts for you.

00:33:30.500 | Uh, first I would say, this is just

00:33:34.060 | foundationally, uh, you need your brother

00:33:39.100 | in the end to choose what he studies for

00:33:42.220 | his own reasons.

00:33:43.340 | There's a, there's a motivational

00:33:45.420 | psychology explanation for this, but,

00:33:47.220 | but essentially the affliction I saw again

00:33:50.340 | and again, back when I was advising students

00:33:53.660 | much more often back when I was writing

00:33:55.660 | books for students and therefore got

00:33:57.420 | hundreds of emails a week from students

00:33:59.380 | and did direct one-on-one counseling.

00:34:00.820 | And affliction I saw again and again is

00:34:02.660 | what I dubbed deep procrastination.

00:34:04.940 | This is when students essentially lost the

00:34:07.540 | motivational ability to do schoolwork, even

00:34:10.300 | if they were going to fail out of the

00:34:12.220 | classes, even if they had to take

00:34:14.940 | administrative or academic leave, they

00:34:17.300 | just couldn't do schoolwork anymore.

00:34:19.500 | I call this deep procrastination was

00:34:22.500 | differentiated from depression because

00:34:25.460 | they were not a hedonic, they still

00:34:27.580 | enjoyed other parts of their lives and

00:34:29.740 | could foresee a future in which they

00:34:31.700 | were doing things they enjoy.

00:34:32.580 | They just couldn't do schoolwork.

00:34:33.740 | One of the big predicting factors of

00:34:37.140 | deep procrastination was a sense of

00:34:39.180 | extrinsic pressure on what they were studying.

00:34:42.340 | So when you combine the extrinsic

00:34:44.100 | pressure, my, my parents, my brother,

00:34:47.540 | whatever, pushed me into something to

00:34:49.620 | study, when you combine that with that

00:34:51.140 | actually being difficult, the actual

00:34:53.140 | cognitive difficulty of doing high-level

00:34:55.620 | schoolwork, those two things could fry

00:34:58.740 | your motivational circuits and

00:34:59.780 | create deep procrastination.

00:35:00.980 | The way out of that is to have

00:35:02.820 | intrinsic motivation behind the

00:35:04.580 | choice of what you study.

00:35:05.860 | So I chose it for my reasons.

00:35:08.140 | You sidestep a lot of these

00:35:09.660 | motivational challenges.

00:35:11.260 | And even if you're not going to get

00:35:12.220 | full deep procrastination, it really

00:35:13.660 | can make, uh, the same factors can

00:35:16.740 | make academic life a chore.

00:35:17.780 | So you want to avoid those.

00:35:18.860 | So what you need to do is focus on

00:35:21.020 | process and philosophy and

00:35:22.420 | talking with your brother.

00:35:23.140 | Hey, brother, you're going to

00:35:24.700 | decide what you want to do, but let

00:35:26.060 | me talk to you about process and

00:35:27.820 | philosophy you might apply in

00:35:31.060 | making this decision.

00:35:32.140 | So there's three things I want

00:35:34.980 | you to cover with them.

00:35:35.700 | One is lifestyle centric career planning.

00:35:38.620 | So you want to get away from this weird

00:35:40.820 | notion of you're wired for a particular.

00:35:44.420 | Field of study and finding that is

00:35:48.220 | going to make you happy and missing.

00:35:49.740 | That's going to make you unhappy.

00:35:50.980 | You got to get away from that weird,

00:35:52.340 | completely artificial binary

00:35:53.740 | formulation and get towards something

00:35:56.380 | that's much more tractable and

00:35:57.820 | lifestyle centric career planning is

00:35:59.020 | a better way of thinking about it.

00:36:00.220 | What do you want your life to be like

00:36:02.100 | after college for the first five years?

00:36:03.820 | 10 years out, 15 years out.

00:36:06.420 | What are the elements of your lifestyle?

00:36:08.540 | And again, intellectual curiosity,

00:36:09.980 | that could be a part of it being

00:36:11.980 | exposed or literate or things that

00:36:14.300 | might be attracting him now to particular.

00:36:16.340 | Uh, say non-pragmatic degrees is fine.

00:36:19.340 | That could be part of it, but picture

00:36:20.580 | the lifestyle where you live, who you're

00:36:22.420 | around, what the environment's like,

00:36:23.780 | what's your days like, what's

00:36:24.780 | your intellectual life like, what's

00:36:25.940 | your philosophical life like all these

00:36:27.700 | things, you have it all pictured out.

00:36:29.940 | And then you look back and say, okay,

00:36:32.100 | college is just a springboard towards.

00:36:34.700 | A lifestyle.

00:36:35.780 | And it's an important distinction.

00:36:37.300 | If you come at someone and say, no,

00:36:39.460 | no, no college is a springboard.

00:36:40.740 | It's just about, uh, particular

00:36:43.060 | jobs and money, stable employment.

00:36:45.620 | This does not resonate with 17 year olds.

00:36:48.100 | You got to talk about the whole lifestyle

00:36:49.700 | that has the pragmatic and the romantic.

00:36:51.940 | That has the paycheck, but

00:36:55.140 | also the philosophical.

00:36:56.460 | So you want the picture of lifestyle

00:36:58.940 | that's very, that resonates.

00:37:00.860 | Thinking about benefits and how big

00:37:03.580 | your paycheck is doesn't resonate.

00:37:05.060 | So it's not gonna be as motivational.

00:37:06.060 | So you want the full lifestyle.

00:37:07.060 | So when you're thinking about what

00:37:08.460 | you're telling your brother is, you're

00:37:09.860 | thinking about your field of study.

00:37:10.900 | You want to think about what this might

00:37:12.100 | open up and how it could move you, the

00:37:14.060 | options it might give you, and you want

00:37:15.660 | multiple options of moving

00:37:16.780 | towards this ideal lifestyle.

00:37:18.140 | Right.

00:37:19.180 | Number two, hand in hand with lifestyle

00:37:20.780 | centered career planning is career.

00:37:23.220 | Capital theory.

00:37:24.740 | The main theoretical framework

00:37:27.100 | that's laid out in my book.

00:37:28.100 | So good.

00:37:28.420 | They can't ignore you.

00:37:29.460 | This is the theory that says the stuff

00:37:32.540 | that makes good work good is rare and

00:37:35.420 | valuable, so you need something rare

00:37:36.540 | and valuable to offer in return.

00:37:38.660 | And that's going to be your skills.

00:37:40.060 | The universe doesn't care what

00:37:42.660 | you're interested in.

00:37:43.340 | It doesn't care what your passion is.

00:37:44.620 | It doesn't care about your

00:37:46.620 | image of an ideal lifestyle.

00:37:48.020 | It doesn't owe that to you.

00:37:49.380 | You need things to leverage.

00:37:51.340 | You need things to trade in return for

00:37:53.580 | getting these things you highly desire.

00:37:55.180 | And that's going to be

00:37:55.740 | rare and valuable skills.

00:37:56.820 | And we call this, we used the metaphor

00:37:58.300 | in the book of career capital.

00:38:00.140 | It's an important mindset shift.

00:38:01.820 | So now when you're in college, you're

00:38:04.180 | thinking about laying the foundation

00:38:05.660 | for career capital acquisition, which

00:38:07.300 | you will then use to obtain these ideal

00:38:11.460 | lifestyles that you have pictured.

00:38:13.060 | Now, again, it sounds similar

00:38:15.540 | to the standard cynical.

00:38:16.980 | College is the route to making money

00:38:20.460 | and having stability, but it's different.

00:38:22.300 | Because if you tell a 17 year old, what

00:38:24.580 | you're trying to do with college is to

00:38:25.660 | get started on a good, reasonable career

00:38:27.580 | with high upsides, so you can make a lot

00:38:29.020 | of money that doesn't resonate.

00:38:30.620 | But if you say, what you're trying to do

00:38:31.580 | here is put your head down and build skills.

00:38:33.060 | You can trade those skills to get this

00:38:34.300 | ideal lifestyle, which might be exotic,

00:38:36.100 | which might be romantic, that does resonate.

00:38:38.220 | Then finally, I'm going to say point your

00:38:41.540 | brother towards some of my early writings.

00:38:44.020 | I can have three particular topics

00:38:46.740 | you should point them towards.

00:38:47.700 | So on my, my blog, calnewport.com/blog,

00:38:51.180 | go back to the archives.

00:38:52.460 | I'm talking '08, '09, and look up the

00:38:56.260 | articles on the Zen valedictorian.

00:38:58.260 | This will present a philosophy to him

00:39:01.420 | about excelling academically without falling

00:39:06.220 | into the trap of overload while in the

00:39:09.260 | archives also look for the articles on the

00:39:11.060 | romantic scholar, which is all about how to

00:39:14.500 | build up a collegiate life in which you feel.

00:39:17.900 | Intellectually engaged and curious and

00:39:20.220 | motivated and really into the work you're

00:39:22.020 | doing, it doesn't seem like a chore, but

00:39:23.500 | part of your development as a human.

00:39:25.060 | That's where you go to talks and, and read

00:39:28.420 | Heidegger over Hefeweizen at a bar and, and

00:39:31.220 | all these different ideas about how you

00:39:32.740 | actually integrate academic life into

00:39:34.500 | your self identity and not see it as a

00:39:36.380 | chore and then finally have them look at

00:39:38.740 | my book, how to become a straight A student.

00:39:40.420 | Most young people are terrible at studying.

00:39:44.460 | If you're not terrible by comparison,

00:39:46.220 | you'll seem like a genius.

00:39:47.380 | That book has the main ideas about how to

00:39:50.300 | treat studying like a skill and not just

00:39:52.540 | some generic activity you suffer through.

00:39:54.260 | That will make all the difference in

00:39:56.340 | terms of being able to stand out, start

00:39:58.700 | building that capital you need to get

00:40:00.260 | your ideal lifestyle and to do all of that

00:40:02.580 | without having to study for hours and hours.

00:40:05.660 | Every day.

00:40:06.660 | When you read Heidegger, can you get through it?

00:40:10.100 | No, it just, it's alliterative with Hefeweizen.

00:40:12.980 | So I wrote this, I don't know a lot of Heidegger.

00:40:15.860 | Have you tried?

00:40:16.620 | I mean, I've tried because I've talked

00:40:18.860 | about it for a long time and my buddy had

00:40:21.620 | a book, he gave it to me and I know it's

00:40:23.500 | really hard.

00:40:24.060 | Heidegger is really hard.

00:40:25.100 | I mean, I come back to him sometimes because

00:40:27.140 | he, he has some thoughts on technology,

00:40:29.980 | capital T technology.

00:40:31.220 | Uh, but when you really get into the weeds

00:40:33.540 | of being B E I N G and his core philosophies,

00:40:37.220 | it's, it's incredibly, it's incredibly

00:40:38.700 | difficult, but I wrote this essay in grad

00:40:40.660 | school where the idea of the essay was just,

00:40:43.500 | I had all these different things you should

00:40:45.020 | do as a college student to make a study of

00:40:49.820 | intellectual topics, seem romantic and

00:40:51.900 | interesting and something you enjoy, as

00:40:53.340 | opposed to seeing schoolwork as this chore

00:40:55.140 | that you had to suffer through.

00:40:56.060 | And there's all sorts of ideas like

00:40:57.180 | adventure studying, like go, go to like

00:40:59.700 | exotic places, go read the row by a

00:41:02.300 | waterfall, don't just do it in the library.

00:41:04.340 | There was start attending talks by

00:41:07.140 | professors in your subject area for no

00:41:09.340 | other reason than you just want to be

00:41:10.700 | exposed to the ideas, read books about

00:41:13.060 | your field for no reason other than just

00:41:14.780 | to read it, like all these things that

00:41:15.860 | trick your mind into thinking like, this

00:41:18.380 | is something I'm really interested in.

00:41:20.540 | Well, one of the ideas I had was go to,

00:41:23.060 | I was thinking of Oxford, I'm thinking of

00:41:25.340 | CS Lewis and JR Tolkien, and they all went

00:41:27.300 | to the same pub and they'd have these

00:41:29.620 | literary conversations, like go to a,

00:41:32.660 | you know, an old wood panel bar to read

00:41:35.620 | philosophy, you know, and, and, and with a

00:41:38.380 | pint, like very British.

00:41:39.780 | And then you feel like you're engaging

00:41:41.580 | the philosophy as part of trying to

00:41:43.580 | improve your wife, life.

00:41:44.940 | Anyways, I needed alliteration.

00:41:46.140 | So Heidegger, Hefeweizen.

00:41:48.100 | I like it.

00:41:49.140 | Yeah, that's great.

00:41:50.060 | I guess we could do like Plato and

00:41:53.900 | Pilsner kind of works, not to say

00:41:56.380 | Heidegger and Hefeweizen.

00:41:57.660 | Yeah, that's a good one.

00:41:58.740 | Yeah.

00:41:59.620 | Uh, and there was a bar, shout out the

00:42:01.900 | Murphy's in Hanover, New Hampshire, where

00:42:03.500 | Dartmouth is, and they used to serve a,

00:42:06.740 | what was the Hefeweizen?

00:42:07.780 | Harpoon had a summer, had a wheat beer.

00:42:11.180 | I think Harpoon did, they would serve it.

00:42:13.260 | And it was a memories of.

00:42:14.180 | There's Allagash.

00:42:15.220 | They didn't have that then.

00:42:16.740 | This was back when there wasn't as

00:42:18.260 | much New England beer, but I do remember

00:42:19.540 | drinking Hefeweizens at this wood panel bar.

00:42:21.420 | So that's probably where that came from.

00:42:22.380 | All right, let's do a call, Jesse.

00:42:24.460 | Do we have something here?

00:42:25.500 | Yep.

00:42:25.940 | All right.

00:42:26.380 | Fellow professor.

00:42:28.420 | Hi, my name is Emily.

00:42:33.180 | I'm a professor at a university similar to yours.

00:42:35.420 | I'm interested in your thoughts on

00:42:38.020 | improvement and deliberate practice for

00:42:39.820 | skills when the output is rare and

00:42:41.780 | the feedback loop is weak.

00:42:43.100 | For instance, one of my major tasks as a

00:42:45.540 | researcher is grant writing, and I'd

00:42:47.180 | like to improve on that.

00:42:48.220 | But I spend, you know, three months

00:42:50.500 | writing a grant and then I get reviews

00:42:52.180 | back maybe five months later.

00:42:53.580 | The reviews are going to be very

00:42:55.700 | different than what I'm used to.

00:42:56.820 | The reviews are going to be highly

00:42:58.860 | specific to that project, also fairly

00:43:01.500 | arbitrary based on what reviewers I get.

00:43:03.260 | Of course, I incorporate any feedback I

00:43:05.900 | get into revision and I try to take

00:43:08.620 | general patterns into account.

00:43:10.100 | But it's difficult for me to see how I

00:43:12.820 | can, you know, day to day improve

00:43:15.100 | incrementally.

00:43:16.180 | People always say, oh, deliberate

00:43:17.980 | practice.

00:43:18.500 | But what would that mean for an outcome

00:43:20.420 | like this where it's binary, essentially

00:43:22.540 | you're funded or you're not and you get

00:43:24.500 | feedback twice a year?

00:43:26.700 | Of course, I ask for feedback from my

00:43:28.140 | collaborators, but that's a mixed bag.

00:43:30.140 | It's usually not harsh enough, honestly.

00:43:32.380 | I have somewhat of the same issues for,

00:43:35.540 | you know, writing academic papers and

00:43:37.340 | teaching where you get reviews back a

00:43:39.660 | little more often, but still maybe once

00:43:41.540 | a semester or after three months.

00:43:44.380 | And so I'm just wondering if you have

00:43:46.620 | any ideas about how to improve as a

00:43:49.260 | professor.

00:43:49.740 | Well, you know, first of all, let me

00:43:52.700 | just say I'm in.

00:43:54.700 | I've been a professional academic for

00:43:55.900 | over a decade now and I've been dealing

00:43:57.700 | with this issue for all of those years.

00:44:00.620 | The feedback cycle in academia, as you

00:44:03.980 | point out, is slow, often six months to a

00:44:07.540 | year on any particular piece of work

00:44:09.460 | product.

00:44:09.780 | So it is slow.

00:44:10.780 | It is slow and that's kind of

00:44:13.060 | unavoidable, right?

00:44:13.860 | I mean, you're not gonna be able to

00:44:14.540 | speed that up.

00:44:15.140 | So what can you do in this situation to

00:44:19.260 | try to use feedback to improve going

00:44:22.100 | forward?

00:44:23.300 | I'll tell you the three ideas that I

00:44:25.700 | came up with when I was thinking about

00:44:27.020 | this.

00:44:27.300 | Things I do.

00:44:28.660 | One is I try to have submissions,

00:44:32.060 | whether we're talking about grants or

00:44:33.820 | whether we're talking about academic

00:44:35.580 | papers.

00:44:36.180 | To me, these are really the two big

00:44:38.900 | value bearing work products that you're

00:44:41.980 | going to do as a, as an academic at a

00:44:43.940 | research oriented institution, have

00:44:45.580 | something submitted every semester.

00:44:49.060 | So you want to be submitting at least

00:44:50.940 | one thing in the fall.

00:44:51.860 | You want to be submitting at least one

00:44:53.020 | thing in the spring.

00:44:53.700 | You want to be submitting at least one

00:44:54.900 | thing in the summer.

00:44:55.860 | What this will roughly work out to is

00:44:57.700 | that you never go through a semester in

00:44:59.180 | which you're not getting feedback on

00:45:00.660 | something.

00:45:01.180 | So if it's at least one thing per season

00:45:04.500 | or semester, you're going to have

00:45:05.780 | feedback to act on, to work with.

00:45:08.380 | You're never too far from it.

00:45:09.660 | So do not, as a counter example,

00:45:12.780 | consolidate all your submissions, for

00:45:15.100 | example, to the summer.

00:45:16.100 | Like I'll work on things all year, but

00:45:18.100 | I'm, as I get time, then I'll submit it

00:45:20.260 | all in the summer.

00:45:20.780 | Spread out your, spread out your

00:45:22.940 | submissions.

00:45:23.340 | And I actually work, especially with

00:45:24.900 | papers, I work through my submission

00:45:28.940 | calendars because I, in CS we publish

00:45:31.060 | in peer reviewed conferences that have

00:45:32.540 | set deadlines.

00:45:33.500 | So we have a good distribution of

00:45:36.500 | conferences I submit to based on where

00:45:39.140 | they fall in the year for exactly that

00:45:40.860 | point.

00:45:41.140 | Two, because the feedback cycle is so

00:45:43.820 | long, you don't want to take random

00:45:48.340 | swings.

00:45:48.740 | You don't want to take flyers on things.

00:45:50.180 | You want every swing you take

00:45:52.380 | metaphorically speaking to be an A

00:45:55.100 | swing.

00:45:55.500 | You want to be really trying to do

00:45:58.180 | something worth doing with everything

00:45:59.980 | you bother submitting.

00:46:01.140 | So that means if you're submitting

00:46:02.180 | grants, you're submitting grants for

00:46:03.620 | the top funding institutions.

00:46:05.140 | When you're submitting papers, you're

00:46:06.260 | submitting papers at good venues on

00:46:09.100 | topics that have a good shot of

00:46:11.300 | attracting citations.

00:46:12.940 | Just as an aside, based on the research

00:46:17.460 | I did in computer science, I did this

00:46:19.060 | research.

00:46:19.420 | I've talked about this on the show.

00:46:20.380 | I've talked about this on my blog, right?

00:46:21.900 | I took a bunch of new professors who

00:46:23.700 | had come from the same research groups

00:46:25.260 | and differentiated between those who

00:46:27.060 | got tenure easily and those who didn't

00:46:28.900 | and looked at a lot of factors to see

00:46:30.340 | what differentiated them.

00:46:31.420 | And the biggest differentiating factor

00:46:33.300 | predicting the early tenure and

00:46:35.540 | success with tenure was number of

00:46:36.700 | citations on their top five papers.

00:46:38.460 | So what you want is everything you're

00:46:39.980 | submitting is really a good A swing

00:46:42.060 | towards producing something

00:46:43.180 | influential that people will cite.

00:46:45.020 | It's making progress on a problem

00:46:46.460 | people care about, or if it's

00:46:48.020 | introducing a new problem, it's

00:46:49.260 | making a really good case for it.

00:46:51.420 | Doesn't mean that it will get accepted

00:46:52.980 | or that it will actually gain traction,

00:46:54.540 | but everything you submit should be.

00:46:56.380 | At least have a shot at that.

00:46:58.660 | So if your, if your slots are limited

00:47:00.500 | and the feedback is going to be long,

00:47:01.780 | you want to take your best possible

00:47:03.940 | shot on each thing you do.

00:47:05.940 | So now I'm mixing metaphors here,

00:47:07.180 | swings and shots, but I think

00:47:09.100 | you know what I'm talking about.

00:47:09.900 | Finally, you have to keep

00:47:12.300 | everything else under control.

00:47:13.860 | It is easy.

00:47:15.180 | Okay.

00:47:15.380 | I've submitted this thing.

00:47:16.380 | It might be four months

00:47:17.740 | till I submit something else.

00:47:18.700 | I'm not going to hear anything else.

00:47:20.500 | It's easy to get antsy and start

00:47:22.260 | taking on more and more obligations,

00:47:24.660 | taking on more and more, accepting

00:47:26.860 | more and more requests and commitment

00:47:28.580 | so that you feel sufficiently busy.

00:47:31.260 | Is it a real issue that new faculty

00:47:34.460 | have often new faculty have a bit

00:47:36.820 | of a guilt complex that their friends

00:47:40.100 | and family who have real jobs are doing

00:47:43.060 | stuff all day and are at the office all

00:47:44.620 | day and you're a new academic and

00:47:47.300 | you're on a reduced course load for

00:47:48.900 | your first years and you just feel like

00:47:50.700 | I don't have enough stuff to do.

00:47:52.140 | I need to take on a lot of stuff

00:47:54.500 | because in busyness, I will assuage

00:47:56.140 | my guilt that I don't have a real job

00:47:57.340 | or I'm not doing the right things.

00:47:58.500 | You have to prevent that urge

00:48:01.020 | because if you get overloaded.

00:48:02.220 | With the activities that aren't going

00:48:04.020 | to directly lead to your promotion,

00:48:05.860 | lead to your success, it's going to

00:48:07.780 | strangle the cognitive lifeblood that

00:48:10.780 | you need to actually advance.

00:48:12.860 | So I would recommend using quota

00:48:15.060 | systems to control everything else.

00:48:16.860 | I need to review papers.

00:48:18.540 | Yes, but here's how many I do per semester.

00:48:20.340 | Hit that quota.

00:48:21.500 | Can't do any more.

00:48:22.460 | I need to do committees.

00:48:23.980 | Yes, but here's how many I do.

00:48:25.420 | I hit that quota.

00:48:26.740 | I don't do more.

00:48:28.580 | So you have these quotas.

00:48:29.980 | You're a little bit selective.

00:48:30.980 | When you fill the quota, you just tell

00:48:32.900 | the person asking, you know, this makes

00:48:35.300 | sense, I'd like to do this type of thing.

00:48:36.420 | So I try to do a lot of these things.

00:48:37.540 | I hit my quota though, the number of

00:48:39.380 | reviews already that I can do in this

00:48:41.420 | semester, it's a very effective method.

00:48:43.860 | Because it doesn't leave much of a

00:48:47.700 | possible rejoinder for the person to

00:48:49.740 | protest, they would have to say your

00:48:51.380 | quotas wrong, you should be doing more.

00:48:54.660 | Your quota is wrong.

00:48:55.540 | You're and people don't like, okay.

00:48:56.980 | Yeah, you've done a lot.

00:48:58.340 | You have a reasonable limit.

00:48:59.700 | You've hit there.

00:49:00.300 | Uh, so they're unlikely,

00:49:01.740 | they're unlikely to push back.

00:49:02.860 | So it's, it's pretty successful for that

00:49:04.220 | as well, and it allows you to still do

00:49:06.500 | the things that are important,

00:49:07.500 | just that reasonable levels.

00:49:08.500 | All right.

00:49:08.700 | So that's my three pieces of advice.

00:49:10.140 | Spread out submission.

00:49:11.700 | So you always are never far from feedback.

00:49:13.820 | Number two, because feedback's so slow.

00:49:17.300 | Do your best possible work each

00:49:19.140 | time you submit something.

00:49:20.100 | And number three, use quota systems to

00:49:23.020 | control, uh, the non high value activities

00:49:27.900 | that are going to threaten to come in

00:49:29.020 | like cognitive kudzu and fill

00:49:32.260 | up the rest of your space.

00:49:33.300 | All right, let's see here.

00:49:37.260 | Uh, got a written question.

00:49:39.140 | This one's from over thinker over thinker

00:49:44.020 | says, what do you think about over thinking?

00:49:47.220 | And how do you deal with

00:49:48.460 | or recommend dealing with it?

00:49:49.940 | This is a general problem I face and I

00:49:53.380 | have always had, but never had a way of

00:49:54.980 | dealing with, I have this as far as career

00:49:57.340 | job decisions are concerned, certain

00:49:58.620 | life decisions as well.

00:49:59.660 | And by overthinking and over analyzing

00:50:01.340 | the potential options, I end up in a

00:50:02.500 | scenario where I'm more confused than before.

00:50:05.460 | How do you recommend dealing with this?

00:50:08.460 | Thank you.

00:50:09.420 | All right.

00:50:10.940 | Well, over thinker, typically the issue,

00:50:14.020 | and this is a common, common problem,

00:50:15.700 | but typically the issue at stake with

00:50:17.140 | this problem is that you're stuck in the

00:50:19.740 | mental schema of a right, wrong decision

00:50:24.140 | binary so that the mental framework you're

00:50:28.620 | using when thinking about decisions is

00:50:30.340 | that there is a right decision and

00:50:32.780 | multiple wrong decisions.

00:50:34.020 | If you can find the right decision,

00:50:35.700 | there's great rewards to it.

00:50:36.900 | If you miss it and end up on a wrong

00:50:38.460 | decision, there is great punishment.

00:50:41.260 | Now, when you have the stakes of a

00:50:43.460 | binary, you are really going to worry

00:50:45.420 | about that decision because I don't

00:50:47.060 | want to miss the right decision here.

00:50:48.780 | It could lead to quite a bit of

00:50:50.860 | hardship if I get it wrong.

00:50:52.500 | That is fertile ground for growing over

00:50:55.700 | thinking.

00:50:56.140 | So the big shift in mental frame that's

00:51:00.700 | going to help you here is move away from

00:51:02.220 | this idea that there's right and wrong

00:51:03.940 | decisions, and your goal is to not mess

00:51:05.620 | up and accidentally do the wrong instead

00:51:07.820 | of the right.

00:51:08.740 | In many different areas where there's

00:51:11.060 | big decisions to make, there are

00:51:12.940 | many different ways forward that are

00:51:14.860 | completely compatible with reward or

00:51:17.540 | goodness or whatever it is that you're

00:51:19.660 | looking to maximize.

00:51:20.700 | What matters much more than the decision

00:51:22.380 | is what you do once you make it.

00:51:23.940 | Now, where this is made really clear is

00:51:27.580 | in career decisions, which you mentioned

00:51:29.340 | there, we talked about in an earlier

00:51:30.660 | question, which I wrote a whole book

00:51:31.860 | about So Good They Can't Ignore You.

00:51:33.060 | So let's focus on that briefly.

00:51:34.620 | Zoom in on that briefly here for a second.

00:51:37.100 | One of the big ideas in that book, So

00:51:39.620 | Good They Can't Ignore You is that

00:51:40.700 | people often fell into this wrong

00:51:42.380 | binary decision frame when it

00:51:43.740 | came to career choices.

00:51:44.900 | There's a right job for me that

00:51:46.460 | matches some sort of magical fairy

00:51:48.060 | tale inborn passion for that job.

00:51:51.020 | If I find that job, I'll be happy.

00:51:52.700 | If I miss it, I'll be miserable.

00:51:54.260 | So people obsess over what

00:51:55.620 | job am I going to do?

00:51:57.540 | And as I argued in So Good They Can't

00:51:59.220 | Ignore You, the decision of what job

00:52:01.460 | you do is actually, in some sense,

00:52:03.300 | of minor importance.

00:52:04.980 | You're not wired for one particular

00:52:08.380 | pursuit. You're not wired to be the

00:52:10.580 | social media influencer.

00:52:11.780 | You're not wired to be the social

00:52:12.980 | media brand manager for

00:52:15.220 | digital media consultancy.

00:52:16.900 | There's no particular job that

00:52:19.180 | happens to be around in the 21st

00:52:20.540 | century knowledge economy that you

00:52:21.660 | have to do because of your DNA.

00:52:23.180 | And if you miss it, you'll be unhappy.

00:52:24.860 | The reality is there's probably many,

00:52:27.020 | many different jobs that could be

00:52:28.980 | the foundation of a passionate,

00:52:30.660 | fulfilling career.

00:52:31.460 | So just choose one that seems

00:52:32.740 | reasonable. Great.

00:52:33.780 | What matters is what you do next.

00:52:36.060 | And that's where we get into career

00:52:37.540 | capital theory.

00:52:38.380 | That's where we get into becoming

00:52:39.540 | so good you can't be ignored.

00:52:41.300 | Unambiguous skill is leveraged to

00:52:43.100 | shape your job towards things

00:52:44.380 | towards resonate and away from

00:52:45.460 | things that don't eventually

00:52:46.540 | arriving at an ideal lifestyle.

00:52:47.940 | The choice of job.

00:52:48.780 | Yeah.

00:52:49.300 | What you do once you make a choice.

00:52:51.020 | Oh, yeah, that matters.

00:52:52.540 | So we can extend that to almost any

00:52:55.300 | major decision.

00:52:56.260 | Here's what I would ask.

00:52:58.380 | Do I have evidence that this

00:52:59.740 | particular decision opens up good

00:53:01.340 | options for me that will move me

00:53:02.700 | closer to the properties of my

00:53:04.740 | desired lifestyle?

00:53:05.780 | The answer is yes.

00:53:07.340 | Are there other options which are

00:53:08.740 | also tractable that would

00:53:10.940 | be demonstrably more.

00:53:12.860 | Successful at moving me towards

00:53:16.420 | properties compatible with my

00:53:18.540 | ideal lifestyle.

00:53:19.500 | If the answer to that is no.

00:53:20.660 | So, yes, no.

00:53:21.620 | Then great.

00:53:22.100 | Go ahead.

00:53:22.740 | So this seems good.

00:53:25.300 | I'll simplify the language here.

00:53:26.740 | This seems good.

00:53:27.820 | It opens up cool opportunities.

00:53:29.100 | It leads me in a direction I could

00:53:30.500 | imagine constructing a good deep

00:53:32.340 | life around that.

00:53:33.220 | And there's not some obvious

00:53:34.900 | alternative that's way better.

00:53:35.980 | I don't care if there's a lot of

00:53:36.740 | alternatives that are similar.

00:53:37.660 | There's not one that is obviously

00:53:39.260 | way better.

00:53:40.020 | Good.

00:53:40.540 | Go for it.

00:53:41.420 | Commit.

00:53:41.980 | And there might be six different

00:53:43.660 | options that satisfy this.

00:53:44.740 | Flip a roll a six sided die.

00:53:46.740 | I don't care.

00:53:47.380 | Choose something that seems good.

00:53:50.900 | Opens up opportunities.

00:53:51.900 | There's not some obviously much

00:53:53.340 | better answer.

00:53:54.140 | The interesting thing is then what

00:53:55.900 | you do next.

00:53:56.540 | Which is once you've made the

00:53:58.340 | choice.

00:53:58.820 | All right.

00:53:59.460 | Now what do I want to do?

00:54:00.540 | I've chosen this job.

00:54:02.700 | I've decided to get married.

00:54:03.820 | I've decided to have kids.

00:54:04.940 | I've decided to move to this

00:54:07.660 | completely different environment.

00:54:08.580 | Great.

00:54:08.820 | You've made the decision.

00:54:09.540 | You've made the decision.

00:54:10.340 | How now do you build a life around

00:54:12.740 | that decision that leverages and

00:54:14.780 | maximizes what's good about it.

00:54:16.500 | Sidesteps to potential traps.

00:54:18.220 | It allows you to extract from it

00:54:19.820 | all of the possibilities for a

00:54:21.380 | deeper life for that ideal

00:54:23.020 | lifestyle.

00:54:23.500 | So that's the frame shift.

00:54:24.940 | The decision is easy.

00:54:26.820 | Don't make an obviously bad choice.

00:54:29.100 | But if something seems reasonable

00:54:30.220 | that's good enough.

00:54:30.940 | Put more energy into what you do

00:54:33.940 | next.

00:54:34.900 | All right.

00:54:39.140 | Well it's our first podcast in

00:54:40.700 | July.

00:54:41.340 | So I think we should talk about

00:54:44.220 | the books I read last month.

00:54:46.060 | The books I read in June 2022.

00:54:50.180 | As longtime listeners know my

00:54:52.940 | goal is to read five books per

00:54:55.500 | month which I do by making

00:54:56.900 | reading a default activity by

00:54:59.300 | not using my phone for

00:55:00.780 | distraction and by scheduling

00:55:03.020 | reading blocks on occasion into

00:55:05.620 | my actual time blocked work

00:55:06.820 | schedule.

00:55:08.500 | Now Jesse actually for the first

00:55:09.580 | time did not read five books.

00:55:11.580 | I read six in June.

00:55:14.020 | That's what I'm talking about.

00:55:15.020 | Well because we had to deal with

00:55:17.260 | a week of COVID.

00:55:18.020 | So you can't do stuff right.

00:55:20.620 | You can't go and do other things

00:55:22.220 | outside of the house.

00:55:23.140 | So I read an extra book.

00:55:23.940 | While you were doing the RAR?

00:55:25.540 | I didn't RAR with COVID.

00:55:27.700 | I probably should have.

00:55:29.420 | You use it as an excuse right.

00:55:31.340 | You're like, oh man, technically

00:55:33.100 | I have COVID.

00:55:33.660 | So like really.

00:55:34.980 | You could have done the RAR.

00:55:35.860 | I need to eat.

00:55:36.500 | I need to eat whatever.

00:55:37.780 | David Goggins would have told

00:55:38.780 | you to do the RAR.

00:55:39.340 | Yeah.

00:55:39.900 | Yeah.

00:55:41.220 | David Goggins would have wrote.

00:55:42.220 | No, no.

00:55:42.660 | You use it as an excuse.

00:55:44.460 | I think we're leaving that phase

00:55:45.900 | by the way, where like people care

00:55:47.860 | and feel bad for you.

00:55:48.700 | So you leave that phase like I

00:55:50.660 | got to eat like crap.

00:55:51.740 | I can't exercise.

00:55:53.100 | Like now you can.

00:55:53.820 | You know, it's just stuff you get

00:55:55.500 | on the RAR.

00:55:55.900 | No, actually what I did, this

00:55:59.300 | wasn't during COVID, it was more

00:56:00.100 | recently.

00:56:00.460 | I did this five day like kind of

00:56:04.140 | intense daily free weight.

00:56:07.940 | Routine.

00:56:08.500 | It was.

00:56:09.300 | At your house.

00:56:10.220 | Yeah.

00:56:10.460 | But that was after COVID.

00:56:12.420 | All right.

00:56:12.820 | Anyways, six books I read in June,

00:56:14.740 | 2022.

00:56:16.500 | Uh, the order here is arbitrary.

00:56:18.820 | Number one, Ball Four by Jim.

00:56:23.260 | I think it's Boonton.

00:56:24.860 | I'm saying that right.

00:56:26.100 | You've heard of Ball Four?

00:56:26.900 | Yeah.

00:56:27.420 | I have.

00:56:27.540 | Baseball book.

00:56:28.060 | Yeah.

00:56:28.500 | Um, I mean, this was a book.

00:56:30.380 | It was written in the early seventies,

00:56:31.620 | uh, about a pitcher, Jim Boonton, who

00:56:35.980 | was a Yankee, I mean, he was really

00:56:38.220 | good for the Yankees and then sort of

00:56:39.540 | became a journeyman for a while.

00:56:40.620 | It was, it was a book about a year in

00:56:42.140 | the life and it's actually written

00:56:43.380 | diary format and it was the, it's

00:56:45.220 | famous because it was the first book

00:56:46.740 | about baseball that pulled back the

00:56:49.140 | curtain on what life was actually like

00:56:50.580 | for these professional athletes.

00:56:51.900 | I mean, it gets into the, the

00:56:53.740 | amphetamines they would take and the,

00:56:55.780 | the carousing with women and the

00:56:57.540 | drinking, and this was, I think this

00:56:59.500 | was the book that first revealed kind

00:57:01.780 | of broke the myth of Mickey Mantle.

00:57:03.500 | The fact that he hit a home run while

00:57:04.900 | drunk and so it pulled back the curtain

00:57:07.180 | and it was sort of a big controversy,

00:57:08.780 | but it's really influential book for

00:57:09.980 | a lot of people because it was the first,

00:57:12.300 | this is what sports is really like.

00:57:14.100 | Um, I read it for a book group.

00:57:16.260 | I'm in a book group, Jesse.

00:57:17.260 | Not something I would normally think to

00:57:19.780 | do, given how much of my life

00:57:21.060 | professionally I spend reading and

00:57:22.740 | writing, but it's a sports book only.

00:57:25.900 | Book group.

00:57:26.940 | And I read sports books as a way to

00:57:30.700 | relax because they're completely

00:57:32.060 | unrelated to what I write about normally.

00:57:35.420 | So I figured that'd be a good book group to join.

00:57:38.540 | So you guys meet once a month?

00:57:39.820 | I mean, last night was our first meeting.

00:57:41.940 | So I've only done it once.

00:57:43.540 | But the book was ball four.

00:57:45.340 | Ball four.

00:57:45.860 | Yeah.

00:57:47.060 | So I'm officially in a book group.

00:57:48.220 | The style is interesting in ball four.

00:57:50.540 | He worked, it's diary.

00:57:52.140 | I mean, day, every day, March 17th,

00:57:54.820 | you know, April 28th.

00:57:56.020 | And he would take notes during the day and

00:57:58.260 | then talk into a tape recorder at night.

00:57:59.860 | And then it got edited.

00:58:01.020 | He had a kind of a ghost writer and

00:58:03.260 | they would edit it, but it's, uh,

00:58:05.220 | it's almost impressionistic, right?

00:58:07.700 | I mean, if you read now a sort of

00:58:08.860 | sports autobiography, it's it's, it'll

00:58:11.940 | follow through time, but there's, there's

00:58:13.900 | plot lines it's following and it's written

00:58:16.020 | in way that's a little bit more coherent.

00:58:17.500 | This is more impressionistic.

00:58:19.180 | It'll this happen.

00:58:20.780 | Here's an observation.

00:58:21.900 | You will come back to plot lines, but

00:58:23.980 | not in a very structured way.

00:58:25.420 | I mean, it's almost like early modernism,

00:58:28.980 | cubism and art being moved over

00:58:30.900 | to narrative nonfiction.

00:58:32.860 | It's the Mademoiselle, the

00:58:34.340 | Davin young of sports book.

00:58:36.740 | It's just impressionistic and it's 500

00:58:38.580 | pages of just doom and this, and, and,

00:58:40.220 | and this happened and that happened.

00:58:41.940 | And over time, it's very effective.

00:58:44.100 | You get a very, uh, Layered understanding

00:58:47.420 | of life as a player without any carefully

00:58:49.420 | constructed narratives, without carefully

00:58:50.940 | constructed structured chapters.

00:58:52.660 | So there's some sort of interesting

00:58:53.980 | experimental thing going on.

00:58:55.140 | I haven't seen a lot of that in books since.

00:58:56.860 | Who was the manager then?

00:58:58.820 | So this follows the, I think the 69

00:59:02.460 | season where he spent a year at an

00:59:04.860 | expansion team, just a Seattle pilot,

00:59:07.220 | which then became the, the brewers.

00:59:09.660 | Got it.

00:59:10.180 | Um, so it was interesting.

00:59:12.540 | All right.

00:59:13.980 | Other interesting book I read, take the

00:59:16.100 | gun, leave the cannoli by Mark seal.

00:59:20.700 | It's a account of the filming

00:59:24.020 | of the first godfather.

00:59:25.180 | So that's a, it's a quote from the first

00:59:27.620 | godfather, Mark seal, I think is a Vandy fair

00:59:29.100 | reporter, and I was going to California.

00:59:33.100 | I was going to wine country, Francis Ford

00:59:35.220 | Coppola, you know, has vineyards up there.

00:59:37.300 | And so it felt appropriate to read a book

00:59:39.540 | about the making of the godfather.

00:59:40.900 | So it was interesting.

00:59:41.540 | It gets into Rob Evans and Mark Puzo and,

00:59:44.740 | and, and you know, how the movie came

00:59:46.900 | together and those are kind of

00:59:48.300 | interesting books to read.

00:59:49.140 | Yeah.

00:59:49.460 | They just had the 50th

00:59:50.460 | anniversary too, right?

00:59:51.500 | Yeah.

00:59:52.140 | Oh, interesting.

00:59:53.020 | And this is an older book, but

00:59:54.020 | my timing was good then.

00:59:55.340 | Yeah.

00:59:55.580 | The 58th anniversary is like a couple

00:59:57.420 | months ago.

00:59:57.900 | Yeah.

00:59:58.860 | So Puzo went through this whole thing

01:00:02.140 | about the record for paperback rights.

01:00:04.180 | So, so Puzo got, I think 500,000 or the

01:00:11.420 | paperback rights to the godfather would

01:00:13.340 | set the record and, uh, because Stephen

01:00:17.500 | King got 400,000 for Carrie kind

01:00:19.780 | of around the same time.

01:00:20.660 | So that was, that was the sort of

01:00:21.860 | records back then for rights was

01:00:23.580 | like four or $500,000.

01:00:25.300 | And that was back when paperback

01:00:27.100 | rights were something you sold

01:00:27.940 | separately and that's where you made

01:00:28.860 | all your money no longer today.

01:00:30.980 | All right.

01:00:32.660 | Then I read every tool is a

01:00:34.580 | hammer by Adam Savage, former MythBusters.

01:00:38.740 | It's his memoir, an interesting memoir.

01:00:40.620 | You'll see, he'll work in advice about

01:00:43.620 | workshops and making with the story of

01:00:47.020 | his own life and his personal philosophy.

01:00:48.860 | Uh, Adam Savage, his critical connection

01:00:52.940 | to this show we do here is that he has

01:00:56.620 | the cave, which is this really cool

01:00:58.900 | warehouse in the mission district

01:01:00.660 | of San Francisco, which is his personal

01:01:02.380 | workshop and it's this cool, amazing

01:01:04.100 | space he goes to.

01:01:05.100 | And part of the inspiration for the

01:01:07.180 | deep work HQ was that he, he has this.

01:01:09.740 | This was his dream to have a dedicated

01:01:12.020 | space that what he does is builds things.

01:01:13.980 | And it's this huge, cool workshop.

01:01:15.260 | Uh, just like we have a dedicated space

01:01:18.100 | to come and record and in theory think.

01:01:19.860 | And so I liked the cave.

01:01:21.980 | I like his videos on tested.com.

01:01:24.260 | Interesting guy.

01:01:25.260 | Did it talk about the cave in the book?

01:01:26.660 | Yeah.

01:01:27.200 | And he started his first cave was like in

01:01:29.860 | a basement of a rental house.

01:01:31.140 | And then, uh, after MythBusters was doing

01:01:33.340 | really well and he made, made money is when

01:01:35.140 | he, he leased out, leased out this space.

01:01:37.140 | It's interesting.

01:01:38.740 | There, I think they're having crime

01:01:39.740 | problems in the neighborhood.

01:01:41.820 | Like they don't, they don't nearly as

01:01:44.820 | much anymore have cameraman come film in

01:01:46.940 | there, he'll self film himself in there,

01:01:48.380 | which he was doing during COVID during

01:01:50.260 | the, like the lockdowns, but then he kept

01:01:51.700 | doing it even though now, uh, it's

01:01:53.580 | obviously not COVID concerns because he

01:01:54.820 | does lots of videos with other people in

01:01:56.620 | other places.

01:01:57.340 | And I heard him say somewhere that it's

01:01:59.060 | because, uh, the cars are getting broken

01:02:00.860 | into, so he can walk to the cave from his

01:02:03.900 | house so he can go there and film himself.

01:02:06.260 | But when a crew would come just like clockwork,

01:02:09.020 | their cars are getting broken into.

01:02:10.140 | So there's a lot of self filming happening.

01:02:12.460 | There you go.

01:02:13.340 | A little bit of, uh, Adam Savage trivia.

01:02:17.180 | Right there.

01:02:18.380 | But it was a good book.

01:02:19.020 | He talked, I mean, it's, you'll learn about

01:02:22.420 | glue, but also learn about, you know, his

01:02:26.420 | time at ILM and his struggles.

01:02:29.220 | I mean, so it's like, I think it's a

01:02:30.380 | really creative book.

01:02:31.100 | I enjoyed it.

01:02:31.540 | All right.

01:02:32.940 | Then I read Cod by Mark Kurlansky.

01:02:36.380 | I like Kurlansky.

01:02:38.180 | There was a period in the, this would

01:02:40.180 | have been the early two thousands where

01:02:41.300 | these books were really big, where you

01:02:42.500 | would take one topic, uh, Kurlansky wrote

01:02:45.300 | Cod and then he wrote Salt, but there was

01:02:47.580 | like a book about pencils that was really

01:02:49.140 | big at this time.

01:02:49.740 | And you take one topic and you go deep

01:02:51.820 | on that topic and in going deep on that

01:02:53.340 | topic, you learn a lot about history.

01:02:55.060 | And Cod was one of the first books to do

01:02:57.380 | this.

01:02:57.540 | I, I, I, when I lived in New England, I

01:02:59.740 | read this and Salt.

01:03:00.700 | I love those books.

01:03:01.500 | So it's the history of Cod and Cod fishing,

01:03:03.500 | but you learn the history of Europe and

01:03:06.140 | colonial America and all of these different

01:03:08.620 | things, um, beautifully written and he mixes

01:03:11.980 | it with recipes, but historical recipes.

01:03:15.820 | Like here's a recipe for preparing

01:03:17.540 | Cod from 1727.

01:03:19.060 | And it's all mixed together.

01:03:20.100 | It's a, it's a really nice, uh, innovative,

01:03:23.100 | beautifully constructed book.

01:03:24.140 | So it was a reread?

01:03:25.060 | That I think I probably read at some point.

01:03:27.660 | Yeah.

01:03:27.980 | Back in New England, 10, 15 years ago.

01:03:30.020 | Have you tried any of the recipes?

01:03:31.300 | Well, they're historic recipes.

01:03:33.340 | So we have cooked Cod though.

01:03:34.740 | Cod's good.

01:03:35.340 | Uh, then I read, cause this is my weird

01:03:39.060 | compulsion.

01:03:41.740 | I don't know why I read these books, but I

01:03:44.060 | keep reading these types of books.

01:03:45.180 | Uh, another Bill Carter book, Desperate

01:03:48.700 | Networks. So Bill Carter is, you know, New

01:03:51.980 | York times TV reporter, desperate networks.

01:03:54.140 | It's just a book about like a five year

01:03:56.180 | period after NBC's must see TV lineup was,

01:04:00.500 | you know, friends and Seinfeld had all kind

01:04:02.540 | of disappeared and how NBC fell and ABC and

01:04:05.900 | CBS made their move.

01:04:07.140 | So ABC got lost in desperate housewives and

01:04:09.700 | CB CBS got CSI.

01:04:13.060 | It's just, that's it.

01:04:14.460 | Like Bill Carter just writes these books

01:04:17.380 | every so often years, he'll like take a

01:04:19.820 | period of time and write about it.

01:04:21.060 | So the last one I wrote, read by him and

01:04:22.780 | talked about on the show is late shift about

01:04:24.580 | what happened after Johnny Carson retired.

01:04:26.780 | I don't know why I'm so interested in these

01:04:28.820 | books about the inside baseball of network

01:04:31.300 | television, but I find them relaxing and

01:04:34.140 | interesting.

01:04:34.580 | Basically it just comes down to ratings and

01:04:36.620 | that just gets more advertisers, right?

01:04:38.420 | Is that how it's determined?

01:04:39.740 | Yeah.

01:04:40.060 | And, and well, but how these shows come

01:04:42.540 | together, it's all kind of guesswork.

01:04:44.060 | I, so I'll tell you the, the anecdote I've

01:04:46.140 | extracted from this book, that's going to

01:04:47.500 | make it into slow productivity.

01:04:50.140 | So I'll preview this anecdote now, because

01:04:52.420 | I'm always reading, looking towards anecdotes.

01:04:54.500 | Uh, they talk about CBS was really

01:04:58.540 | struggling and I think it was less

01:05:02.940 | Moonves who took over.

01:05:04.260 | Might have that wrong.

01:05:05.300 | I'll go back and I listened to him.

01:05:07.180 | I have to buy the book to get the quotes

01:05:08.660 | out of it.

01:05:08.980 | And, uh, he was upset that the

01:05:13.020 | offices were emptying.

01:05:14.940 | There'll be three o'clock on a Friday and

01:05:16.660 | there, the office would be half full and

01:05:18.540 | that it needs that people aren't taking at

01:05:20.340 | the CBS headquarters there in, uh, in

01:05:24.660 | Manhattan where I've been, because I've

01:05:25.820 | done some CBS stuff.

01:05:26.660 | Um, people aren't here.

01:05:28.620 | We need energy.

01:05:29.580 | He's like NBC was number one.

01:05:31.380 | They probably had a lot of energy.

01:05:32.260 | So everyone has to be in the office.

01:05:33.540 | You can't leave till after five.

01:05:34.900 | And if you step back, you say, yeah, under

01:05:38.180 | him, CBS did rock it up to be much more

01:05:40.900 | successful.

01:05:41.420 | Why I think it's an interesting anecdote

01:05:43.020 | though, is as Bill Carter gets into exactly

01:05:45.580 | what happened, why did CBS become more

01:05:47.220 | successful because all of the executives

01:05:50.460 | and ad people and HR people are in the

01:05:52.020 | office till five?

01:05:52.780 | No, it was because of CSI.

01:05:54.860 | And when you hear the story of CSI and

01:05:58.060 | Bill Carter, it's actually the story of a,

01:06:00.180 | of someone spending a lot of time thinking

01:06:02.700 | through and polishing this concept.

01:06:04.780 | And it's a slow productivity parable.

01:06:07.340 | Les Moonves thought what was important

01:06:09.140 | for success is that everyone was busier

01:06:11.140 | and more visibly active.

01:06:12.380 | But in the end, what actually saved the

01:06:13.780 | company was something that was very slow

01:06:15.460 | and creative.

01:06:16.180 | And there's this story of this, this

01:06:17.980 | television writer who had, had, had a, had

01:06:22.500 | gone up in his career and had fallen and

01:06:24.660 | had gotten obsessed with this idea and

01:06:27.140 | slowly develop something of such value

01:06:29.940 | that it saved an entire network.

01:06:31.060 | So I'm going to pull that together in the

01:06:32.740 | book.

01:06:33.060 | You'll see when the book finally comes out

01:06:34.660 | into a cool reversal anecdote about, you

01:06:37.340 | know, Les Moonves didn't save the company

01:06:38.940 | by making everyone more busy, but instead

01:06:40.860 | it was this guy whose name I forgot, but

01:06:42.940 | we'll obviously learn, um, slowing down and,

01:06:48.220 | and, and inhabiting this idea that ended

01:06:50.980 | up actually making the difference.

01:06:52.300 | So there's a little proto idea that by

01:06:54.580 | the time it comes into my book will be

01:06:55.860 | quite polished.

01:06:56.500 | So that, that alone made it worth reading

01:06:57.980 | that book.

01:06:58.340 | I think.

01:06:58.700 | Uh, final thing I read, it was June summer.

01:07:03.620 | I love to read adventure books and

01:07:05.060 | thrillers.

01:07:05.540 | I read David Morrell's first blood.

01:07:10.700 | So first blood it's known now is the

01:07:13.580 | first Rambo movie.

01:07:15.340 | So John Rambo is the, this is the book

01:07:17.780 | that introduced John Rambo, but people

01:07:20.100 | don't remember properly the lineage of

01:07:24.820 | Rambo.

01:07:26.140 | So first blood is this, this book about

01:07:30.620 | political polarization post Vietnam.

01:07:33.540 | And it's, uh, it was used to be taught in

01:07:36.780 | colleges a lot.

01:07:37.740 | And it's, it's really the plot of the book

01:07:39.780 | is that John Rambo, former green Beret,

01:07:42.460 | who had been, had this traumatic experience

01:07:45.220 | as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and is

01:07:47.780 | now sort of a drifter, just sort of walking

01:07:50.180 | through across the countryside has a run

01:07:52.740 | in with the straight lay police sheriff

01:07:55.940 | in this small town.

01:07:56.980 | And I think it's in the, I forgot where

01:07:58.780 | it is in the movie at specific Northwest.

01:08:00.460 | I think this is like Virginia or something.

01:08:02.020 | And he snaps and, uh, he snaps the PTSD

01:08:07.020 | snaps, he kills one of the police officers

01:08:08.540 | flees into the woods.

01:08:09.500 | The police come after him.

01:08:10.620 | Long story short, he basically kills

01:08:13.900 | everyone, but the chief and then the

01:08:15.700 | national guard comes back and says back

01:08:17.340 | and forth, but the way David Morrell wrote

01:08:18.820 | the book is alternating viewpoints, Rambo

01:08:21.620 | police chief Rambo police chief.

01:08:23.180 | And he was very clear that there's no

01:08:25.620 | clear hero or anti-hero.

01:08:27.260 | It's not, this is the good guy.

01:08:28.100 | This is the bad guy.

01:08:28.900 | They'll the whole point of the

01:08:30.020 | book was the ambiguity.

01:08:31.340 | You, you, you kind of understand the police

01:08:34.660 | chief and the he's, he's been divorced and

01:08:36.980 | the issues he's having his life.

01:08:38.100 | And you understand Rambo and the PTSD.

01:08:39.860 | And you're not even sure who's the good

01:08:41.900 | guy, who's the bad guy.

01:08:42.580 | And that was the whole point of the book,

01:08:43.660 | because that's the weird ambivalence of

01:08:45.260 | the post Vietnam era polarization.

01:08:48.020 | It was this messy time where it was

01:08:49.500 | unclear who was right and who was wrong.

01:08:51.220 | And so it's actually like

01:08:51.780 | a really interesting book.

01:08:52.740 | And they made into the movie first blood,

01:08:54.820 | the first Rambo movie starring Sylvester

01:08:56.580 | Stallone and the movie.

01:08:58.220 | Is not like you think about with Rambo.

01:09:01.300 | I mean, it's a, it's shot like today.

01:09:03.460 | We would see it more like an indie film.

01:09:05.180 | It's in the early seventies.

01:09:07.300 | And it's a small movie.

01:09:09.500 | I did invent some very important tropes

01:09:12.580 | that this is one of the very first sort of

01:09:13.900 | had some of the very first tropes that

01:09:15.940 | action movies of the eighties would then

01:09:17.500 | pull from, but it's not a, it's not a

01:09:19.580 | recognizable shoot them up action movie.

01:09:23.220 | So it's, it's, it's like a small movie.

01:09:25.500 | I rewatched it.

01:09:26.380 | I've had some, some guys that we do a movie

01:09:28.780 | club, we rewatched it not too long ago.

01:09:31.300 | Then after that was very successful,

01:09:35.260 | they did Rambo too.

01:09:36.660 | And by Rambo too, now Sylvester Stallone

01:09:39.940 | has biceps, roughly the size of a cantaloupe

01:09:43.180 | and he's holding M sixties under both arms

01:09:45.620 | and has the red bandana and he goes back

01:09:47.660 | to Vietnam and he's, you know, the body

01:09:49.260 | counts pile up, it became the cliched sort

01:09:51.380 | of this weird over the top Reagan era

01:09:53.740 | rah, rah, rah movie.

01:09:54.660 | But first blood was not that.

01:09:56.100 | And the first blood movie was not that.

01:09:57.740 | So I went back and read the original novel.

01:09:59.380 | Um, that's pretty good.

01:10:02.820 | Uh, he it's, he just kills everybody, but

01:10:05.500 | he's, it's, it's psychologically interesting.

01:10:08.260 | Like they're saying he's broken and the

01:10:10.020 | police chief is at anyways, in the end,

01:10:12.540 | they both die, they kill each other in the

01:10:15.060 | spoiler alert, they kill each other in the

01:10:16.700 | end.

01:10:16.900 | I mean, it's kind of an interesting book,

01:10:18.060 | but David Morrell said after the second

01:10:20.700 | Rambo movie came out, they stopped teaching

01:10:23.540 | the book in colleges because the second

01:10:26.820 | Rambo movie was very much associated with

01:10:28.500 | like rah, rah Reaganism and, you know,

01:10:32.220 | mindless action and it tainted his original

01:10:35.220 | work and they stopped teaching it.

01:10:36.220 | So there you go.

01:10:37.860 | David Morrell, first blood.

01:10:39.940 | All right.

01:10:40.900 | Those are my six.

01:10:41.540 | What was the beast of a book that you're

01:10:44.340 | reading like back in the springtime?

01:10:47.900 | Um, did you finish it?

01:10:50.820 | I don't know.

01:10:51.580 | I've had a, I've had a few beast recently.

01:10:53.780 | I don't know which one in the spring might

01:10:55.980 | have been the beast.

01:10:57.300 | Yeah.

01:10:57.380 | So I'd have to go back and look at our,

01:10:58.660 | are you still working through like a piece

01:11:00.820 | of a book right now?

01:11:01.860 | Franklin's a beast of a book.

01:11:03.260 | Yeah.

01:11:04.300 | I'm 200.

01:11:05.100 | I mean, Ball Four was a beast of a book just

01:11:08.540 | in length.

01:11:08.940 | It's not hard.

01:11:09.420 | It's not a hard read, but it's 500 pages.

01:11:10.980 | Franklin's five or 600 pages.

01:11:13.020 | Uh, and it's small.

01:11:16.100 | It is making me feel old.

01:11:17.340 | It's reading glasses small.

01:11:19.020 | You know.

01:11:20.300 | Probably read a lot of books about Franklin, right?

01:11:22.100 | Yeah.

01:11:22.540 | Last year I read Gordon Woods book,

01:11:24.780 | Americanization of Ben Franklin and Gordon

01:11:28.140 | Wood is great.

01:11:28.620 | Gordon Wood is, uh, well, brands is an

01:11:31.380 | academic too, but what is, um, the most

01:11:34.860 | academic of the semi-public facing writers

01:11:38.500 | about colonial history.

01:11:40.100 | So he's great on the philosophical

01:11:42.140 | context of, of the revolution.

01:11:45.420 | Like the, the currents of thought going on

01:11:47.900 | in England and specifically like what

01:11:50.700 | Jefferson had read and what was going on.

01:11:53.420 | Uh, the, the impacts of these various

01:11:56.300 | rebellions that were happening in the

01:11:57.900 | English countryside in the 18th century

01:12:01.100 | and how they influenced what was

01:12:02.660 | happening in America.

01:12:04.700 | So like, if you really want, I think

01:12:06.020 | woods at Brown, he's more academic brands

01:12:09.700 | is he's a distinguished professor at UT.

01:12:12.460 | Austin, but he writes more.

01:12:16.500 | Uh, he's a beautiful writer, but he's

01:12:18.660 | also like McCullough or someone he's

01:12:20.900 | writing for a non-academic art audience,

01:12:23.420 | but that's a piece of a book that's 600

01:12:25.020 | pages.

01:12:25.500 | Um, so that, that might take me a minute.

01:12:28.140 | Yeah.

01:12:28.820 | I'm reading four books concurrently right

01:12:30.340 | now.

01:12:30.460 | I just, I'm jumping between things.

01:12:32.540 | I'm finding things I like.

01:12:33.700 | I'm just, I'm just all over the place right

01:12:35.180 | now.

01:12:35.420 | Any audio?

01:12:36.260 | Yeah.

01:12:37.540 | Um, what am I listening to an audio?

01:12:39.180 | Ooh, golden eye.

01:12:41.300 | It's a book.

01:12:42.820 | It was, it's free on audible right now.

01:12:44.980 | So if you have audible, it's free right now.

01:12:47.260 | And it's the story of the house that Ian

01:12:51.780 | Fleming built in Jamaica when he turned 40.

01:12:56.140 | And it's where he wrote all the James Bond

01:12:58.020 | novels.

01:12:58.660 | So it's, it's a Jamaican history, like what

01:13:00.940 | was going on in Jamaica.

01:13:02.340 | It's the colonial relationship between Britain

01:13:05.140 | and Jamaica, who was living there, all these

01:13:07.100 | different, my, uh, lesser aristocrats and others.

01:13:11.940 | And Ian Fleming coming there and building

01:13:15.060 | this house and, and where he, he wrote all

01:13:17.940 | of his books.

01:13:18.500 | And so I'm enjoying that.

01:13:21.380 | Here's here.

01:13:22.220 | I'll just give the quick bullet.

01:13:23.020 | I always say I'm always pattern pattern

01:13:24.980 | matching, interesting bullet points.

01:13:26.220 | The interesting bullet points is one.

01:13:28.340 | So after the war, so, you know, Fleming

01:13:30.340 | served, uh, with intelligence during the war.

01:13:32.900 | This was, if you want to look up, uh, British

01:13:36.940 | privilege after the war, he went to get a job

01:13:39.420 | at, at a paper and he was going to be the

01:13:43.220 | foreign reporter for some paper run by Lord

01:13:45.780 | someone, someone he's like, here's the thing.

01:13:47.340 | I need three months off a year to go to

01:13:50.300 | Jamaica and Lord so-and-so was like, good

01:13:53.420 | show old chap.

01:13:54.100 | That's fine.

01:13:55.060 | You can take three months off a year.

01:13:56.380 | So you can go to Jamaica.

01:13:57.220 | That seems reasonable.

01:13:58.340 | So then he goes and builds this house.

01:13:59.780 | So he'd visited Jamaica in the war.

01:14:01.340 | And so he goes and builds this house in

01:14:03.260 | Jamaica and just partying is partying at this

01:14:07.180 | house.

01:14:07.420 | It's not very nice.

01:14:08.380 | I mean, it's a beautiful overlook in the

01:14:10.020 | water, but the house it's, it's, uh, there's

01:14:11.620 | no windows.

01:14:12.260 | It's just louvers.

01:14:12.980 | So it's like full of bugs at night and the

01:14:14.420 | bathroom doesn't really work, but you know,

01:14:15.740 | he's just partying and womanizing.

01:14:17.900 | So he builds it when he's 40, he's just out

01:14:20.100 | there drinking and womanizing and then gets

01:14:23.900 | his mistress pregnant when he's 43.

01:14:27.460 | And now he's all freaking out.

01:14:28.540 | He's like, I can't be a dad.

01:14:30.620 | I can't raise a kid or whatever.

01:14:31.980 | I don't know.

01:14:32.540 | He's all freaking out.

01:14:33.260 | So she's like, look, you need to distract

01:14:35.460 | yourself.

01:14:36.020 | Um, yeah, you can't just be carousing womanize.

01:14:39.420 | Why don't you write like while you're out here.

01:14:41.860 | And so at 43, he's out there at Jamaica

01:14:45.340 | freaking out about having a kid and writes

01:14:47.020 | Casino Roy, Casino Royale.

01:14:48.500 | Wow.

01:14:49.220 | And he gets it down to a science where he

01:14:50.940 | can write these, he, the, he writes one novel

01:14:54.180 | per annual Jamaica visit.

01:14:56.460 | So in three months, one novel right in the

01:15:00.020 | morning and again in the afternoon, overlooking

01:15:02.380 | the water with the swim in between.

01:15:04.020 | Yeah.

01:15:05.380 | He's got to figure it out.

01:15:06.780 | The downside is he smoked 80 cigarettes a day,

01:15:09.460 | which if you do the math is constant, it has

01:15:14.300 | expensive.

01:15:14.780 | You have to light one with the other.

01:15:16.140 | So, uh, spoiler alert, Ian Fleming did not

01:15:19.940 | live to a ripe old age, dead at 57, but he

01:15:23.500 | did some damage.

01:15:24.140 | Anyway.

01:15:24.700 | So I'm listening to that.

01:15:25.700 | So, so more, more on that when we report

01:15:27.740 | on the July books.

01:15:28.780 | All right.

01:15:31.100 | Let's talk briefly here.

01:15:32.300 | Speaking of Ian Fleming and carousing and the

01:15:37.220 | British drinking habits, let's talk about a

01:15:39.860 | sponsor that Ian Fleming wish wished had been

01:15:43.780 | around back when he was out at golden eye in

01:15:46.140 | Jamaica, and that is Z Biotics.

01:15:50.060 | God bless the scientists of the world for

01:15:53.140 | working on the things that really matter.

01:15:55.460 | Z Biotics is a pre alcohol probiotic.

01:15:58.980 | It is the world's first genetically

01:16:01.700 | engineered probiotic.

01:16:02.860 | We have our best and brightest minds working

01:16:04.420 | on this because this is what Z Biotics does.

01:16:07.060 | It takes the toxic by-product that's produced

01:16:12.300 | when your body metabolizes alcohol.

01:16:14.820 | The thing that really causes the rough day

01:16:19.780 | after a night spent doing Ian Fleming style

01:16:23.580 | drinking, and it helps break it down, reducing

01:16:28.900 | the impact of your drinking more specifically

01:16:33.700 | Z Biotic produces an enzyme that enzyme breaks

01:16:36.580 | down this specific hole, this specific by-product.

01:16:39.340 | This enzyme does the work that your liver

01:16:42.420 | would otherwise do, but it does it in your

01:16:43.940 | gut before it gets to your liver, before it

01:16:45.660 | starts to do its damage.

01:16:47.340 | You drink the Z Biotic before drinking the

01:16:50.740 | alcohol, then you of course, drink responsibly

01:16:53.580 | and get a good night's sleep and you will

01:16:56.100 | feel your best the next day.

01:16:58.180 | If this was around in the 1950s, I believe

01:17:01.540 | Ian Fleming would have shipping containers

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01:17:07.060 | And maybe actually he would have got a couple

01:17:09.020 | extra James Bond novels written, you know,

01:17:10.580 | I'm sure that guy had some rough mornings.

01:17:12.500 | He had some rough mornings based on what,

01:17:15.260 | uh, based on what I read.

01:17:17.260 | So Z Biotics, I'm glad again, that our

01:17:20.100 | scientists are working on what is important.

01:17:21.900 | Never has there been a product that I was

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01:17:27.140 | So give Z Biotics a try for yourself.

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01:18:02.500 | Also want to talk about ExpressVPN.

01:18:07.220 | You should be using a VPN.

01:18:10.940 | If you are connecting to the internet away

01:18:14.620 | from your home, and even if you're connecting

01:18:16.340 | through your home, the way a VPN works is

01:18:18.380 | that instead of directly talking to the

01:18:21.060 | server service or website that you want to

01:18:23.580 | talk to, you instead make an encrypted

01:18:25.900 | connection to a VPN server.

01:18:27.660 | You tell that server over this encrypted

01:18:29.620 | connection, what service or website you're

01:18:31.220 | interested in.

01:18:31.740 | The server talks to that website or service

01:18:34.300 | on your behalf, and then passes back to

01:18:36.620 | response to the encrypted connection.

01:18:38.100 | That means people nearby who are sniffing

01:18:40.260 | your packets.

01:18:40.820 | That means your internet service provider,

01:18:42.500 | which hint looks at what you do and sells

01:18:45.420 | that data, have no idea what you're up to.

01:18:47.780 | All they see is that you're sending

01:18:49.020 | encrypted packets out to a VPN server, and

01:18:51.580 | they do not know exactly how many hours you

01:18:54.700 | actually are spending at calnewport.com, as

01:18:58.020 | I assume most of you are doing.

01:18:59.500 | So VPNs are critical for using the internet

01:19:02.180 | in our current age of surveillance and

01:19:05.100 | unscrupulous data mining.

01:19:06.620 | If you're going to use a VPN, ExpressVPN

01:19:09.620 | is the service you need.

01:19:11.900 | They have servers everywhere.

01:19:15.100 | You're never going to be too far physically

01:19:17.060 | from a server.

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01:19:21.700 | through a VPN server.

01:19:23.180 | Their tech is great.

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01:19:26.940 | devices.

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01:19:31.020 | not even realizing that you're going through

01:19:32.500 | a VPN, great seamless experience.

01:19:34.260 | So you need to use a VPN and I recommend

01:19:37.380 | ExpressVPN as the best choice.

01:19:39.500 | So if you're tired of all of these big tech

01:19:42.980 | and other unsavory actors tracking you and

01:19:45.340 | selling your personal data for profit, it's

01:19:46.940 | time to fight back.

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01:19:54.820 | That's ExpressVPN.com/deep.

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01:20:01.780 | All right.

01:20:04.380 | I'm thinking we should do, Ooh, this is

01:20:06.620 | running, got a good length episode here.

01:20:08.260 | Let's do two more quick questions.

01:20:09.500 | Maybe one of them should be a call.

01:20:10.900 | Do we have a good call queued up?

01:20:12.380 | Yep.

01:20:13.020 | We do.

01:20:13.700 | All right.

01:20:14.300 | It's about slow productivity.

01:20:15.700 | Hi, Cal.

01:20:16.780 | My name's Robert from Nova Scotia, Canada,

01:20:19.060 | and I'm a process improvement consultant.

01:20:21.300 | And I've been thinking a lot lately about

01:20:23.700 | your scales of productivity, including

01:20:26.060 | your most recent interview on the Tim

01:20:27.700 | Fares podcast and in my role, I'm stuck

01:20:31.140 | between balancing slow productivity

01:20:33.580 | and billable hours.

01:20:34.700 | So my measure for productivity is billable

01:20:37.420 | hours, but it does seem very short term

01:20:39.780 | focused.

01:20:40.420 | I know in the longterm I can be more

01:20:42.660 | productive by doing activities such as

01:20:45.740 | building a better sales engine, creating

01:20:47.740 | better training programs, basically all

01:20:50.220 | of these other elements of being so good

01:20:52.540 | that our team can't be ignored that aren't

01:20:54.700 | associated with billable hours.

01:20:56.300 | So currently this has led to extra work

01:20:59.020 | in the evenings and weekends, which seems

01:21:00.740 | counterproductive to slow productivity.

01:21:03.340 | So do you have any recommendations for

01:21:05.740 | slow productivity for workers that are

01:21:07.780 | measured by billable hours?

01:21:09.180 | Thank you.

01:21:09.860 | Well, look, if you control your own

01:21:12.500 | destinies, let's say this is your own

01:21:14.500 | company, what you have to do, and it

01:21:17.260 | feels uncomfortable at first is you have

01:21:19.020 | to cap your billable hour time, freeing

01:21:23.580 | up more time to work on the longterm

01:21:26.140 | initiatives that are ultimately going to

01:21:27.540 | make your company more profitable.

01:21:30.900 | Maybe it's going to increase the

01:21:33.020 | billable hour rate you get, or preferably

01:21:35.300 | is going to move your business away from

01:21:37.420 | work payment per hours and towards

01:21:39.940 | something more scalable.

01:21:41.700 | So it could be uncomfortable to do

01:21:43.220 | because you feel like you're giving

01:21:44.460 | up money in the short term, but ends up

01:21:48.140 | being absolutely necessary to make

01:21:50.140 | more in the longterm.

01:21:52.060 | So that's what I would suggest.

01:21:54.060 | Now let's say you're at a revenue

01:21:56.140 | level that you can't go below.

01:21:57.580 | You're barely making the various expenses.

01:22:00.780 | Uh, you're barely getting to the

01:22:02.540 | expenses that your business unavoidably

01:22:04.700 | generates with the revenue you're getting.

01:22:06.740 | Okay.

01:22:07.460 | So now what you might have to do for a

01:22:08.980 | little while is extra work outside of

01:22:11.460 | those hours to make yourself more

01:22:13.820 | valuable, to make your company more

01:22:15.180 | valuable.

01:22:15.620 | And what you're trying to do here is

01:22:16.980 | as soon as possible, ask for more per hour.

01:22:20.060 | There's an interesting book.

01:22:22.340 | Paul Jarvis wrote this book called

01:22:24.100 | company of one.

01:22:25.700 | It's one of the books I'm actually

01:22:26.660 | rereading right now.

01:22:27.620 | One of the mini books I'm reading

01:22:29.100 | concurrently right now.

01:22:30.020 | So I'm refreshing myself.

01:22:31.060 | I blurbed this book years ago, but I'm

01:22:32.940 | refreshing myself on this book.

01:22:34.300 | And he said, one of the traps that

01:22:35.740 | people get in, in billable hours, when

01:22:37.540 | they, when they start to get more

01:22:38.460 | successful is they add more hours.

01:22:43.020 | There's more demand for me.

01:22:44.220 | So I add more hours of work

01:22:45.740 | so I can make more money.

01:22:46.820 | And he says he actually, the right

01:22:47.980 | thing to do in that instance is

01:22:49.700 | probably the opposite.

01:22:50.660 | If there's more demand for my work,

01:22:52.500 | I should ask for more money.

01:22:54.420 | And now I can actually reduce the total

01:22:58.340 | number of hours I'm working while

01:22:59.660 | keeping the revenue the same.

01:23:02.060 | That's the alternative.

01:23:04.700 | And often it's the right alternative

01:23:06.180 | is I get better and better.

01:23:08.180 | Instead of trying to make more money,

01:23:09.700 | which means working more hours, I

01:23:11.580 | could actually try to work less

01:23:13.540 | time for the same money.

01:23:14.740 | So you have to ask for more

01:23:16.660 | money as you earn it.

01:23:17.900 | Then you don't have to work as many

01:23:19.820 | hours to generate the same revenue.

01:23:22.300 | Now you can spend that extra time

01:23:24.340 | improving your business.

01:23:25.300 | Now you make even more per hour that

01:23:28.500 | you work or eventually even move past

01:23:30.060 | the billable hours and get to a sweet

01:23:31.420 | spot where you're working the

01:23:32.900 | amount you want to work.

01:23:33.980 | You're more than comfortable with

01:23:35.540 | the money that you're making.

01:23:36.980 | It's a very good sustainable place to be

01:23:39.020 | good, slow product to be target, good

01:23:41.180 | foundation for a deep life.

01:23:43.180 | Now I've been to Nova Scotia.

01:23:44.380 | It's beautiful up there and

01:23:46.260 | you need your downtime.

01:23:47.340 | You need to go get out the Cape Breton.

01:23:51.300 | Do some references here.

01:23:53.260 | Go down to Louisburg, Louisburg,

01:23:55.980 | get out to Prince Edward Island.

01:23:57.660 | You can't do that if you're up all

01:23:59.180 | night doing billable hours.

01:24:00.540 | So there is my advice for that.

01:24:03.740 | All right, let's end with a deeper

01:24:05.620 | question here that comes from Kevin.

01:24:07.180 | Kevin said, I've recently been reading

01:24:10.380 | the classic seven habits of highly

01:24:12.180 | effective people and are wondering

01:24:15.020 | what the seven or choose the

01:24:17.380 | appropriate number of principles of

01:24:18.780 | deep life are of the deep life are.

01:24:20.900 | I, what are the fundamental truths

01:24:22.700 | that have universal application

01:24:24.060 | to cultivating the deep life?

01:24:26.500 | Well, Kevin, I don't have a full,

01:24:29.740 | fully developed answer to that yet.

01:24:31.340 | I will, by the time I'm done writing

01:24:33.900 | my deep life book, but I'm writing

01:24:35.220 | my slow productivity book first.

01:24:36.620 | So for now I'm just playing

01:24:38.020 | with ideas in the background.

01:24:39.380 | But let me give you three right now.

01:24:42.740 | Extracted from some of the notes I've

01:24:45.020 | been taking as I, as I look ahead to

01:24:46.620 | the process of writing my deep

01:24:47.740 | life book in the future.

01:24:48.700 | Right.

01:24:49.420 | Idea number one, this is my current

01:24:51.540 | tentative formulation for what

01:24:53.940 | the deep life requires.

01:24:55.060 | The deep life requires the radical

01:24:58.260 | alignment of your daily existence.

01:24:59.860 | Towards things you value and

01:25:01.980 | away from things you don't.

01:25:05.020 | All right.

01:25:05.180 | There's three pieces to that formulation.

01:25:06.980 | All right.

01:25:08.540 | One, you have to shift your life,

01:25:12.020 | where you live, what you do for work,

01:25:14.180 | how you work, how you fill your time,

01:25:16.060 | whatever you have to shift major

01:25:18.500 | elements of your life towards

01:25:20.060 | things you really care about.

01:25:21.140 | So there's this intentional shaping

01:25:22.980 | of your life towards things you care

01:25:24.300 | about to the shift should be radical.

01:25:27.100 | So there's something deep and meaning

01:25:31.220 | generating about making big shifts.

01:25:34.180 | So it's not just, I'm trying

01:25:35.900 | not to work on weekends.

01:25:37.060 | It's you radically changed your job so

01:25:39.820 | that you're working half days, four days

01:25:41.860 | a week, it's the radical shift.

01:25:43.300 | It's not just, I want to hike more.

01:25:45.140 | It's I moved the Vancouver island

01:25:49.060 | where I live among the woods, right?

01:25:51.020 | The, the, something about the

01:25:51.860 | radicality helps unlock depth.

01:25:53.780 | And the third piece of this formulation

01:25:55.580 | is to focus more on the things that

01:25:57.700 | value you have to pretty severely

01:26:00.020 | reduce all the things that don't.

01:26:03.980 | So there's a simplification that

01:26:05.260 | seems to come with the deep life.

01:26:06.340 | The, the, the focus on one thing,

01:26:07.780 | you have to excise more of the other

01:26:10.260 | things and not just getting rid of

01:26:11.300 | the things that are bad, but also

01:26:13.140 | being willing to step away from

01:26:14.180 | the things that are fine.

01:26:15.060 | Just not as good as the

01:26:15.860 | things you really care about.

01:26:16.940 | So you can't have all the different things.

01:26:18.700 | All right.

01:26:20.300 | Idea two, that transformation requires

01:26:24.060 | practice, so it's hard to make

01:26:27.540 | big changes in your life.

01:26:28.500 | It's hard in two ways.

01:26:30.780 | One, just building up the muscle and

01:26:33.140 | the discipline of controlling being

01:26:35.580 | very efficacious about directing your life.

01:26:37.500 | That's why on this podcast, I often

01:26:39.420 | talk about the deep life bucket exercise.

01:26:42.260 | You identify the buckets of the deep

01:26:43.780 | life and you do the keystone habit in

01:26:45.340 | each, and then you spend six to eight

01:26:47.620 | weeks dedicated to each bucket, doing

01:26:49.660 | a transformation of that piece of your life.

01:26:51.100 | A big part of that is practice.

01:26:53.500 | Getting used to intentionality and

01:26:56.180 | discipline in the shaping of your life.

01:26:57.420 | That actually does take some work.

01:27:00.340 | The other thing that benefits

01:27:01.420 | from practice is insight.

01:27:03.260 | Insight on what matters to you and

01:27:06.100 | what doesn't and the nuances of how

01:27:07.940 | something matters is often extracted

01:27:10.700 | as a side effect of action in doing

01:27:15.140 | something, trying something, making this

01:27:17.380 | change, taking this month off, putting

01:27:19.700 | on this routine, praying five times a day.

01:27:23.060 | Whatever it is to change you make it's

01:27:24.220 | in the actual friction generated by

01:27:25.620 | taking that action that you gain.

01:27:27.140 | Ooh, our timer went off, Jesse.

01:27:29.500 | That you actually gain insight.

01:27:32.660 | And by the way, for those who are

01:27:35.100 | watching at home, you hear me reference

01:27:36.820 | a timer, I'll hold it up to the camera

01:27:38.260 | here, a reader or a listener sent us.

01:27:42.140 | Dave Z.

01:27:42.740 | Dave Z sent us this, what's it called,

01:27:44.900 | Jesse?

01:27:45.180 | Focus timer.

01:27:46.580 | Focus timer, so free plug.

01:27:48.220 | For those who are listening,

01:27:50.740 | it is a plastic hourglass.

01:27:54.580 | Yeah, it's basically to avoid

01:27:55.900 | using your phone for a timer.

01:27:57.140 | Yeah.

01:27:57.420 | And it has, I haven't quite figured it out.

01:27:59.060 | We just opened the box before the episode,

01:28:01.020 | but it has led lights to indicate how

01:28:02.740 | full it is or not full it is.

01:28:04.020 | And when you twist it, it does something

01:28:05.300 | and you turn it over and it anyways, once

01:28:07.940 | you learn how to use it, you can basically

01:28:09.660 | set a timer and run it and just watch

01:28:11.940 | led sand move down through a, through a.

01:28:14.540 | Hourglass.

01:28:15.700 | So you can time yourself without having

01:28:18.380 | to look at digital numbers on a, on a phone.

01:28:20.060 | So was it Dave Z?

01:28:21.380 | Dave Z.

01:28:22.060 | Dave Z.

01:28:22.500 | Thank you very much.

01:28:23.140 | That's what went off for those who are

01:28:24.300 | listening, just went off during our recording

01:28:26.460 | here, but the point I was making before

01:28:29.100 | the, the focus timer went off is.

01:28:31.300 | Through action, you gain insight.

01:28:33.340 | In fact, action is often a better route

01:28:35.060 | to insight than mere reflection.

01:28:37.380 | It's why a lot of the great wisdom

01:28:39.900 | traditions of the world have

01:28:41.020 | so much ritual involved.

01:28:42.460 | You can't just sit.

01:28:43.420 | You can't just sit and think about Torah.

01:28:46.940 | You actually have to do the five-time

01:28:49.340 | daily or whatever it's three-time daily

01:28:50.740 | prayer, you have to go through the, the

01:28:53.260 | rituals of the, the days of awe that do

01:28:55.940 | ritual through activity, through commitment.

01:28:57.660 | You gain insight that applies

01:29:00.220 | to life transformation too.

01:29:01.100 | So you're not just going to sit here

01:29:02.300 | and watch documentaries and read books

01:29:03.780 | and get inspired and figure out, you

01:29:05.020 | actually have to take action at a smaller

01:29:06.900 | scale to get the insight needed to take

01:29:08.660 | successful action at the larger scale.

01:29:10.740 | Third idea, Kevin, a career capital

01:29:14.700 | theory is often the fuel of the deep life.

01:29:17.980 | So the universe doesn't care

01:29:20.540 | about your values and dreams.

01:29:21.860 | And so if your radical change is not

01:29:25.460 | practical or sustainable, the stress and

01:29:28.060 | uncertainty that it creates, let's say

01:29:29.500 | financially or otherwise is going to

01:29:31.660 | counteract the potential benefits.

01:29:33.660 | So deep life transitions are most

01:29:36.900 | successful when they're made with a.

01:29:38.500 | Foundation of confidence, financially

01:29:42.180 | speaking, I don't healthcare, education,

01:29:44.380 | connection, whatever the things are you

01:29:45.340 | worry about that you're able to make

01:29:46.500 | this with confidence, career capital is

01:29:48.740 | going to be your buddy in this mission

01:29:50.740 | becoming so good.

01:29:51.500 | You can't be ignored.

01:29:52.180 | It skills gives you leverage.

01:29:54.100 | You can use that leverage to shape your

01:29:55.660 | career towards things that resonate and

01:29:57.020 | away from things that don't shifting

01:29:59.500 | towards a deep life is the ultimate

01:30:01.500 | example of shifting your life

01:30:02.660 | towards things that resonate.

01:30:03.540 | You might need to build up a pretty big.

01:30:05.460 | Pool of career capital to make that happen.

01:30:08.860 | So this goes contrary.

01:30:10.460 | A lot of times when people think about

01:30:11.660 | something like the deep life, it's all

01:30:12.740 | about the inspiration and the boldness,

01:30:14.460 | but it's actually often the, the, the

01:30:17.220 | focus of getting really good at something

01:30:18.740 | valuable that's most important.

01:30:20.340 | That's what opens up the options for

01:30:22.340 | you to sustainably try something different.

01:30:24.980 | All right, Kevin, that's tentative, but

01:30:27.140 | that's some of my recent thoughts on.

01:30:30.300 | Successfully identifying and

01:30:33.180 | transitioning to a deep life.

01:30:35.140 | Now, if only my book will sell as many

01:30:37.340 | as Stephen cubby, seven habits.

01:30:39.780 | I think we will all be happy.

01:30:41.940 | That might be one of the bestselling

01:30:44.500 | advice books of all time.

01:30:45.740 | Yeah, probably.

01:30:47.020 | I think so.

01:30:47.460 | It's like 30 million copies or something.

01:30:49.180 | Yeah.

01:30:50.100 | It's crazy.

01:30:52.100 | I mean, look, I don't wanna be greedy.

01:30:53.220 | I'd be okay with a half that.

01:30:54.980 | It's a good title.

01:30:56.020 | Yeah, it's a good title, but I think

01:30:58.380 | people give too much credit to titles.

01:30:59.820 | It sells more books, right?

01:31:01.620 | Yeah.

01:31:01.860 | But if the book is not, I've been in the

01:31:04.460 | business long enough to know books sell a

01:31:07.060 | lot of copies because they, they hit a

01:31:08.540 | cord with people, they just hit the right

01:31:11.340 | cord and they, people pass them on to

01:31:13.940 | other people, pass them on to other people.

01:31:15.140 | The titles can help, but this idea that,

01:31:17.580 | you know, Mark Manson sold 18 million

01:31:21.500 | copies of the subtle art of not giving an

01:31:23.900 | F word because the F word was in it.

01:31:25.420 | It's crazy.

01:31:26.180 | It's because the book was the perfect tone

01:31:28.860 | on the perfect topic to reach a

01:31:30.740 | perfectly large audience.

01:31:32.420 | Seven habits is great, but everyone wrote

01:31:34.700 | books with seven in the title after that.

01:31:36.540 | It's not the title.

01:31:37.820 | It was a, uh, values driven approach to

01:31:40.980 | productivity, which is as relevant

01:31:42.380 | today as it was back then.

01:31:43.420 | And it's, it's, it's a really good book.

01:31:46.220 | Deep work sold a lot of copies.

01:31:48.540 | I mean, I think the phrase deep work is

01:31:49.860 | good, but it's also just hit the zeitgeist

01:31:52.380 | at a time where people were intuiting.

01:31:54.220 | Something negative about the distraction

01:31:57.300 | and the freneticism of their, of their

01:31:58.820 | working life, and they couldn't quite put

01:32:00.180 | their finger on it and the book, put their

01:32:01.660 | finger on it in a way they could then

01:32:03.020 | articulate to others.

01:32:04.380 | And, you know, million copies

01:32:06.460 | later, that thing spread.

01:32:08.020 | So I'm a believer titles kind of matter,

01:32:09.660 | but a title cannot make a book

01:32:13.020 | into a massive seller.

01:32:13.980 | That makes sense.

01:32:14.660 | Yeah.

01:32:14.860 | That's my theory.

01:32:15.780 | All right.

01:32:17.940 | Well, we've gone, Ooh, hour 30.

01:32:19.460 | We haven't done hour 30 in a while.

01:32:20.700 | I feel good about that,

01:32:21.620 | but we should wrap it up.

01:32:22.700 | So thank you everyone for listening.

01:32:26.220 | If you like what you heard, you will

01:32:27.660 | like what you see video of this full

01:32:30.220 | episode, as well as clips of selected

01:32:32.260 | segments can be found at youtube.com/calnewportmedia.

01:32:35.620 | If you like what you heard, you'll

01:32:37.180 | also like what you read.

01:32:38.220 | Subscribe to my weekly

01:32:39.620 | newsletter at calnewport.com.

01:32:41.580 | We'll be back next week.

01:32:42.980 | And until then, as always stay deep.

01:32:45.220 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:32:48.580 | (upbeat music)

Ep. 204: Working Less, Overthinking, and Deep Life Principles | Deep Questions Podcast

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