What Authors Counter Your Career Capital Theory? | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | I'm back to dork mode. Another call.

00:00:06.560 | All right. That was a great bit there. Our next call is about

00:00:11.920 | basically talking about those Conor arguments, but in this

00:00:15.840 | case, it's authors that run counter to your career capital

00:00:19.400 | theory.

00:00:19.800 | Yeah, people are really out to get me today.

00:00:22.280 | Hey, Cal, my name is Donald and I'm thinking about transitioning

00:00:28.240 | my career as we move cities, my fiance and I. And so my question

00:00:32.760 | today is actually about how to have two conflicting ideas about

00:00:36.880 | something. How do we hold those? I know you talk a lot about the

00:00:41.240 | making sure we're reading different authors and different

00:00:44.120 | perspectives on a theory, or whatever that might be to make

00:00:47.600 | sure that you're getting both sides and letting those sit with

00:00:50.720 | with you and kind of battle it out, so to speak. And I read so

00:00:56.280 | good, they can't ignore you pretty early on in my career. And

00:00:58.200 | I am a big believer in it. And I'm 10 or 12 years into my

00:01:01.880 | career now. And I've gained this capital, but I have this other

00:01:05.720 | passion that's kind of nagging at me. And from the career

00:01:10.200 | capital side, I know I shouldn't necessarily follow that passion

00:01:13.800 | right now. But I'm curious if you know of any authors, books

00:01:17.360 | or other people on this topic that might run counter to your

00:01:22.000 | career capital theory. I firmly believe in it. But I'm also

00:01:25.520 | trying to practice what we preach around here about making

00:01:27.760 | sure to have different opinions to, to allow to help me kind of

00:01:33.080 | make this decision. Would love any thoughts you have. And

00:01:35.520 | again, just really appreciate what you do. Thanks, Cal.

00:01:37.840 | All right, well, now I'm wishing he had told us what the passion

00:01:42.280 | was. Because that could be actually be pretty relevant for

00:01:46.080 | thinking about this. But I like your approach here, because what

00:01:49.600 | I preach, which is having differing, smart opinions about

00:01:54.160 | things in your head at the same time gives you a more nuanced

00:01:57.720 | understanding of the world. And we were just joking in the last

00:01:59.960 | caller, but we were talking about Alan Jacobs essay, and he

00:02:03.320 | had a different take on productivity than mine, and

00:02:05.000 | we're kind of joking about it. But actually, that collision. So

00:02:08.360 | my sort of dorkish New York article, versus like, Alan

00:02:11.760 | Jacobs, Hedgehog Review article, crash those together. And what

00:02:16.120 | you come away with is not a one exploded. And this one is right,

00:02:19.400 | you have a more nuanced understanding of the topic,

00:02:21.600 | which I think is excellent. So if we're thinking about career

00:02:23.400 | capital theory, what are good things to push up against that?

00:02:27.920 | Well, again, let's clarify exactly what career capital

00:02:30.800 | theory is saying. What it's saying is that typically, the

00:02:33.800 | things that make a good job good are rare and valuable. So you

00:02:37.760 | have to have something rare and valuable to offer in return. And

00:02:41.440 | in the professional context, it'll be rare and valuable

00:02:43.560 | skills. So get better at things that are valuable, then use

00:02:45.880 | those things as leverage to shape your career in ways that

00:02:48.120 | resonate. That's a pretty repeatable path towards feeling

00:02:52.440 | really good about your career. There's other takes on this,

00:02:55.680 | obviously, like the straw man take, which is popular in

00:02:59.640 | culture, but is rarely I think, articulated in good books. So

00:03:04.360 | simplicitly, the straw man alternative is just no, no,

00:03:06.800 | follow your passion, you're inborn to do one thing. If you

00:03:09.080 | do that thing, you'll love it. If you don't, you won't. But

00:03:10.880 | that's a bit of a straw man, because I would say that the

00:03:13.760 | more important counterpoints to career capital theory would be a

00:03:16.960 | little bit more subtle. So one of the counterpoints you should

00:03:19.440 | try to encounter, and I think Wendell Berry, who we talked

00:03:21.800 | about at the beginning of the show is a good example of this,

00:03:24.120 | is, and the Jacobs essay we just read, is the whole strain of

00:03:28.840 | thought that says, shaping your career shouldn't be the most

00:03:31.920 | important thing anyways. What matters is building a good life

00:03:36.000 | based on values that is important, and you might need

00:03:39.320 | some money in there. So you have a job, but stop thinking so

00:03:41.320 | much about your job anyways, except for to the degree to

00:03:43.560 | that, which it steps on other things that are important to

00:03:46.800 | you. This is like Barry leaving his teaching job in New York to

00:03:50.360 | go, you know, live in Kentucky. But there's any numbers of

00:03:54.120 | examples of books where you see people building a life of

00:03:59.760 | meaning off of focusing on values that maybe have very

00:04:04.280 | little to do with their work. So I mean, I can give you some

00:04:07.080 | specific suggestions here. Go back and read a classic, like

00:04:11.400 | Thomas Merton, with the Seven Story Mountain, I believe it's

00:04:15.640 | called, which is about him. It's a memoir. I'm actually reading

00:04:18.560 | it right now, it's one of my March books. But a memoir about

00:04:21.800 | how he also, like Barry, left life in New York as a writer,

00:04:25.760 | and eventually becoming a monk, and writing about the

00:04:29.320 | experience. And it was very inspirational to a lot of

00:04:32.320 | people. But he just downgraded the professional aspect of his

00:04:36.440 | life. Richard Rohr's book, R-O-H-R, I want to get this

00:04:41.880 | right, falling...can you look this up, Jesse? Richard Rohr,

00:04:44.800 | Falling Up? Falling...it's falling something, Jesse's

00:04:50.720 | going to look this up. But it's a book...

00:04:53.360 | Falling Upward.

00:04:53.960 | Falling Upward. That's a book I read, Richard Rohr, R-O-H-R.

00:04:58.040 | He's also a Catholic, in a Catholic order. I think he

00:05:03.720 | might be a Franciscan. It's about how in the second half of

00:05:08.760 | life, building your life around service to others is the source

00:05:11.920 | of the deepest meaning. David Brooks read Richard Rohr, and

00:05:16.240 | then wrote basically his own version of Falling Upward. It's

00:05:18.800 | called The Second Mountain, which is again, I would read The

00:05:21.080 | Second Mountain, I would throw that right against So Good They

00:05:23.360 | Can't Ignore You. They'll hit together, and sparks will fly

00:05:26.760 | and something even better will emerge. So The Second Mountain

00:05:29.800 | is about how maybe the first half of your adult life is aimed

00:05:34.080 | towards what he calls resume values, building up your career,

00:05:37.600 | making it the way you like. But then the second half of your

00:05:39.800 | adult life is where you really focus on eulogy values. And it's

00:05:43.240 | again, service to others, connection to other people. You

00:05:45.560 | see David Brooks struggling with building meaning beyond just his

00:05:49.960 | otherwise very successful career. So you read those type

00:05:52.360 | of books, and you get this counterpoint that says, "Yeah,

00:05:54.320 | whatever." Right? Like your work is what it is, but it's not

00:05:58.560 | going to be at the core of a life well lived. So I think

00:06:01.360 | that's what you might want to read. Because my concern here,

00:06:05.440 | and again, I don't know what the passion is you're talking about,

00:06:07.560 | but if it's a professional passion, my concern here is that

00:06:11.800 | it's possible that you're heading towards this second

00:06:15.360 | mountain in life, this Richard Rohr falling upwards. And you're

00:06:19.160 | feeling that dissatisfaction, that hunger, a soul ache, so

00:06:23.960 | it's something quite deep. And you're saying, you're looking

00:06:26.640 | just within the professional lane. So maybe I need to change

00:06:30.200 | my job. And if my job was something that was more

00:06:33.120 | passionate about, I would get that back. That's possible. I

00:06:35.280 | think it changes everything else in your life.

00:06:37.760 | So I think those books are going to find useful. I think also

00:06:40.400 | just my deep life philosophy in general, it's not contrary to

00:06:45.120 | So Good They Can't Ignore You, but it generalizes it and

00:06:47.640 | contains it. Because my deep life philosophy, which again,

00:06:51.240 | there's a recorded a core idea video on this. So go to

00:06:54.360 | youtube.com/calnewportmedia, go to the core ideas playlist, go

00:06:59.040 | to the deep life, the deep life core idea video, is it

00:07:03.040 | constrains that professional part to just one of four or five

00:07:06.120 | different areas that we call buckets that you focus on. And

00:07:09.560 | when you see the four or five different buckets of your life,

00:07:11.880 | you're then caring about how they interact and connect with

00:07:14.840 | each other, you're not just prioritizing one over the other.

00:07:17.080 | So you might find those exercises useful too. And again,

00:07:20.440 | they don't repudiate So Good They Can't Ignore You, but they

00:07:23.920 | constrain it and put into a larger context. That's a good

00:07:27.240 | question. And that is what I'd recommend. I think you're going

00:07:31.760 | to get some good feedback there, get some good pushback.

00:07:36.040 | And I'm glad you're seeking that. All right, do we have a

00:07:39.600 | caller now, Jesse, where they're like, I just wanted to tell you,

00:07:42.400 | you're brilliant. And your work is 100% right. And they like

00:07:47.880 | your part. And I like the part in your hair and you don't look

00:07:50.400 | dorky. And I think you're cool. Like Che Guevara, we just get

00:07:52.840 | one caller that says that. Jesse is shaking his head no.

00:07:57.280 | *Chuckle*

00:07:58.740 | *Outro music*

What Authors Counter Your Career Capital Theory? | Deep Questions Podcast with Cal Newport

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