This Is What You Need To Cultivate A Deep Life | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

00:00:00.000 | Let's do a call.

00:00:02.920 | Okay, sounds good.

00:00:04.840 | Hi, Cal.

00:00:06.240 | My question today is very simple.

00:00:08.160 | Where can we find more real world examples of people living the deep life?

00:00:11.760 | I think the case studies are often really good at illustrating very abstract concepts

00:00:15.440 | like the deep life.

00:00:16.440 | After all, it's much easier to understand radical alignment with your values when you

00:00:20.440 | read the story of the triathlete who left New York and moved to Boulder to train and

00:00:24.520 | be close to his family.

00:00:25.520 | I know you try to share as much cases as you can on the podcast, and I'm assuming your

00:00:30.440 | upcoming book will have several cases that illustrate these different moves.

00:00:33.680 | But even then, that's only a handful of examples.

00:00:36.960 | Some of them are also hard to relate.

00:00:38.320 | I mean, not everyone wants to move to the mountains to be a world-class triathlete or

00:00:42.560 | move to a cabin to be a writer.

00:00:44.760 | I know from experience that sometimes all it takes to crack in your own deep life is

00:00:48.800 | seeing someone else's life that really resonates.

00:00:51.800 | So here's a final provocation.

00:00:53.480 | If there isn't such resource, should someone build one?

00:00:57.320 | Thanks for your tremendous generosity of spirit and sharing your work so broadly, Cal.

00:01:01.800 | Thank you.

00:01:02.800 | Well, John, you're hitting on a couple of good points here.

00:01:05.400 | Let's start with your last point first.

00:01:09.880 | Should there be a better resource for encountering examples of the deep life so that you have

00:01:14.080 | a better chance of hitting one that resonates with you in particular?

00:01:17.800 | And I agree with your premise here that somehow or sometimes getting the specifics, this specific

00:01:24.160 | person did something that resonates exactly with me, is critical for making a vision for

00:01:28.600 | your own life.

00:01:29.600 | Yes, I think there should be a resource like that.

00:01:31.160 | I actually have this idea.

00:01:32.800 | I'll have to figure out when and how I'll have the time to do this.

00:01:38.420 | But I've had this idea, and I've talked to Jesse about this before, of a podcast called

00:01:44.000 | The Deep Life.

00:01:45.820 | And all it is, is each week an interview with someone who lives a deep life.

00:01:51.200 | And so you just get this real variety of it.

00:01:54.760 | Now, in a perfect world where time and money was not an issue, it would be really cool

00:01:58.680 | if you could edit a podcast like this NPR style.

00:02:03.140 | So it's not just straight, let's talk to you for 45 minutes, but there's different segments

00:02:07.680 | of conversation with musical interlude and moments of expository narration from me.

00:02:15.160 | I think it'd be a really cool show.

00:02:17.280 | I mentioned something like that in my proposal for The Deep Life book, that maybe as I start

00:02:22.320 | working on that book, I might launch something like that.

00:02:25.000 | So I think that's a good idea.

00:02:26.100 | But let's talk about the broader point here about resonance and deep life case studies.

00:02:30.400 | Here is the reality/issue with the deep life as a concept.

00:02:37.620 | We know it when we see it, right?

00:02:40.760 | So we all have this instinct, you read a book, you see something on a documentary, you see

00:02:45.660 | an Instagram something, I don't know the terminology, whatever they call it, an Instagram video

00:02:51.160 | bundle, whatever the terminology is, of someone doing triathlon training in Boulder, and it

00:02:57.640 | just hits a chord and it's boom.

00:03:00.840 | That's what I, there's something about that life that's right and my life is not there.

00:03:04.440 | So we know it when we see it.

00:03:07.080 | And starting with the pandemic, I think a lot more people than ever before are noticing

00:03:12.360 | that reaction and are very interested in this idea about the deep life.

00:03:17.480 | The issue is that it's hard to pin down.

00:03:19.800 | And then you look to your own life and you say, I just have this deep instinctual feeling

00:03:24.060 | that what I'm doing here is not everything it could be.

00:03:30.160 | And there's these other people I see and hear about, and that resonates, they're doing something

00:03:34.000 | that I crave, but I can't pin down exactly what it is.

00:03:37.720 | Like I don't know why this guy who moved to Boulder to train for triathlons, this really

00:03:42.240 | resonates with me, but I don't do triathlons.

00:03:44.920 | I don't want to move to Boulder, but something about that still resonates.

00:03:47.240 | What is it that resonates with me?

00:03:48.240 | And what does that tell me for my own life and what type of changes I should make?

00:03:51.900 | This is the real issue, the gap between instinct and pragmatism when it comes to this concept

00:03:59.560 | of the deep life.

00:04:02.460 | So part of what I've been trying to do on the show, but I'm doing much more carefully,

00:04:06.960 | I'll do much more formally when I eventually write the deep life book is to make the concept

00:04:12.440 | concrete.

00:04:14.800 | What are the attributes that define a deep life?

00:04:18.800 | Generally speaking, I'm not talking about particular activities.

00:04:21.240 | You have to be in Boulder, you have to be running triathlon, but what is it specifically

00:04:25.020 | that separates what we would instinctually see as a deep life from a normal life?

00:04:28.720 | Once we have identified what those properties are, does that mean we can have a more systematic

00:04:34.580 | approach to acquiring those in our life if that's what we're interested in?

00:04:38.260 | That's what I'm gonna be trying to do with my deep life book when I get to it.

00:04:41.020 | There's a systematic quest for more.

00:04:45.340 | Let's pin down the definition.

00:04:46.980 | These are the properties that separate what resonates as a deep life from others.

00:04:51.720 | Here is how you would actually go and acquire those properties.

00:04:55.580 | So it's a deep question, John, and one I'm going to continue to work on.

00:04:58.900 | Let me give you a one only partially formed idea right now.

00:05:05.860 | Let's just give an appetizer for the larger banquet the one day come.

00:05:11.900 | I'm toying with this notion.

00:05:15.060 | This is my proposal for the deep life book.

00:05:17.380 | That perhaps at the core of what separates a deep life from another life is the radical

00:05:23.780 | alignment of your existence to things that you value.

00:05:29.940 | So there's two aspects, and this is a preliminary definition, but there's two aspects to this

00:05:34.300 | definition.

00:05:36.380 | One that you are making changes to align your life closer with certain things that you really

00:05:40.860 | value and two that those realignment is radical.

00:05:46.940 | So it's not just, I think I really value being outdoors and exercise.

00:05:52.260 | So I'm going to start training every morning before I go to my standard 45 minute away

00:05:58.700 | commute government job from the DC suburbs.

00:06:01.460 | That's an alignment of your life towards something that you value, but it's not a radical alignment.

00:06:06.100 | The radical alignment is like, okay, I'm going to, it's going to be rich role.

00:06:09.260 | Yes, I'm going to make training a big part of my life.

00:06:12.580 | I'm going to leave my law firm and be a full time ultra athlete.

00:06:17.500 | I'm going to move the boulder to be a triathlon.

00:06:19.580 | Why does that resonate?

00:06:20.580 | Because they're not just making a change to align their life with something they care

00:06:24.100 | about.

00:06:25.100 | It is a radical change.

00:06:26.100 | They significantly change their job setup, their location, where they live, how they

00:06:30.000 | actually spend their days.

00:06:31.140 | I'm increasingly convinced those are the two things you need.

00:06:33.620 | If you miss any one of those two things, you run into trouble.

00:06:38.660 | So if you make a radical change, but it's not aligned with something that's really important

00:06:41.980 | or that you really value, you end up, which we saw a lot of during the pandemic, making

00:06:46.540 | changes for the sake of change, trying to extract some sense of excitement or interesting

00:06:51.300 | this just because you did something radical, but then you get to the small farm that you

00:06:55.300 | just bought in the Hudson river Valley and realize, uh, I don't like farming.

00:07:00.840 | It's weird and quiet out here.

00:07:02.420 | I can't get good coffee.

00:07:04.040 | This is, this is terrible.

00:07:05.440 | This is actually not nothing here aligns with something I deeply value.

00:07:09.100 | That's a problem.

00:07:10.420 | Similarly, I think is if you're really clear on what you care about, but your change is

00:07:14.740 | too small, it's not radical.

00:07:16.260 | It's nice.

00:07:17.260 | It's better than not doing it, but it's not going to give you that deep residence of the

00:07:19.900 | deep life.

00:07:20.900 | It's the, the difference between, you know, Bill McKibben leaving the New Yorker to move

00:07:29.060 | to that small house up in the Adirondacks, the rightful time about nature and Bill McKibben

00:07:35.020 | saying, uh, on the side with my New Yorker job, I want to be working on a book about

00:07:39.260 | nature and go to a retreat once a year.

00:07:41.300 | So the radicalness matters too.

00:07:42.820 | So that's one of the ideas I'm working on, John.

00:07:44.740 | I think maybe you need both those things.

00:07:46.580 | The radicalness unlock some sense of, I really do care about this.

00:07:50.160 | It's a real engine of motivation, but figuring out what you care about and making the right

00:07:55.460 | choice.

00:07:56.460 | Like this is, this actually is important in believing it's important to you.

00:07:58.860 | That's important too.

00:08:00.020 | So probably those two pieces, those two pieces have to come together, but I think we're going

00:08:04.740 | to see a lot more of that in the near future.

00:08:07.380 | And for a while going forward, people's willing to make radical changes to do radical realignments.

00:08:14.260 | I think we're, we've woken up a little bit that we have more options than we think.

00:08:19.180 | And there's more things we could be doing with our lives to make it interesting.

00:08:23.460 | What about in cases where somebody like a case study where somebody already kind of

00:08:27.700 | has a deep life, do you think it needs to be as radical or do you think it just needs,

00:08:31.380 | there's like different tiers?

00:08:32.380 | I just think there's usually, there's usually an aspect of radicalness to it.

00:08:36.980 | By which I mean, there's just a, a part of their life that is unusually constructed or

00:08:43.180 | oriented to promote something that they care about.

00:08:46.260 | I think the good life is different than the deep life.

00:08:48.300 | I think you could have a good life.

00:08:49.900 | Like I'm, I'm plugged into my community.

00:08:52.420 | I appreciate my work.

00:08:53.980 | I'm in good shape.

00:08:55.060 | I enjoy, you know, uh, fine wine and like, and have a good life, capital G, good life,

00:09:02.860 | virtuous, ethical, uh, meaningful.

00:09:06.020 | The deep life is a subset of that.

00:09:07.540 | And it's not like everyone needs to do that, but some people really have this craving of,

00:09:11.860 | of, I want something about my life to be notable or remarkable in the literal sense where people

00:09:18.180 | are like, wow, do you know what Jesse's up to?

00:09:19.700 | Yeah.

00:09:20.700 | That's really interesting.

00:09:21.700 | Like living on a boat or something.

00:09:22.700 | Yeah.

00:09:23.700 | You live in on a boat.

00:09:24.700 | Yeah.

00:09:25.700 | So do you, is that something you strive for or do you think you have that or do you think

00:09:26.700 | you're just living a good life?

00:09:29.380 | I'm like halfway there.

00:09:31.500 | So do you want to do something radical?

00:09:33.020 | Maybe I do.

00:09:34.020 | We're going to podcast from a boat.

00:09:37.540 | I'm going to train for triathlons in Boulder.

00:09:41.060 | Um, no, I, I do.

00:09:42.860 | Um, I have ideas about specifically your life.

00:09:46.580 | Yeah.

00:09:47.580 | Yeah.

00:09:48.580 | Well, I figure I'm going to be writing a book about the deep life.

00:09:51.980 | Uh, it would be cool if that book could be structured around me doing some things.

00:09:59.580 | I don't know.

00:10:00.580 | I even put that on my proposal.

00:10:01.580 | Like, I don't know what these would be, but I would like the book to have a pretty good

00:10:06.580 | degree of, of self discovery and reporting.

00:10:10.780 | For sure.

00:10:11.780 | The book is going to be very journalistic.

00:10:12.780 | So in maybe a Michael Pollan style, it's me on the road doing things with people.

00:10:18.140 | That's a different style than my norm.

00:10:19.340 | My books up to now, including slow productivity is less first-person journalistic.

00:10:24.420 | So good.

00:10:25.420 | They can't ignore you had some first-person journalism in it for sure.

00:10:27.100 | But since then I have, I've, uh, my, my, my structure is usually non first-person journalistic.

00:10:33.460 | It's more reporting on ideas and laying out frameworks.

00:10:37.420 | There's a little bit of first-person, I guess, in, in digital minimalism too, but the deep

00:10:43.900 | life is no, no, it's Michael Pollan goes to polyphase farms and is there with Salitan

00:10:51.740 | working on the mobile chicken coops.

00:10:54.220 | You know, he goes to the places and does the things.

00:10:57.220 | And so deep life is going to have that personal thread.

00:10:59.700 | And I would like to have a prologue and epilogue is built around, um, some sort of deep change.

00:11:06.860 | So we'll see, you know what I should, here's, here's what it is.

00:11:09.980 | I'll, I'll, I'll give the preview.

00:11:12.300 | This is actually, it's a joke, but, um, I was watching on my, uh, iPad the other day,

00:11:19.500 | the North men.

00:11:20.500 | Have you heard of this movie?

00:11:21.660 | Yeah.

00:11:22.660 | I just read about it.

00:11:23.660 | It's like, uh, the directors it's like, it's really detailed and it's a, it's a Viking

00:11:29.300 | movie, but like real Viking, New Yorker, I think.

00:11:33.060 | Oh, I missed that.

00:11:35.780 | Well anyways, um, so I finally watched it or I'm watching it.

00:11:38.300 | It's Viking.

00:11:39.300 | It's like a Viking myth.

00:11:40.300 | So it, it did the witch movie too.

00:11:41.900 | Yeah.

00:11:42.900 | Oh, it's the same guy.

00:11:43.900 | Yeah.

00:11:44.900 | Oh yeah.

00:11:45.900 | There was an article in the New Yorker, but I just read it.

00:11:46.900 | Oh, maybe I did read that.

00:11:47.900 | Did he do that?

00:11:48.900 | Uh, yes.

00:11:49.900 | I like that guy.

00:11:50.900 | Have you seen the witch?

00:11:51.900 | I, I was reading it.

00:11:53.380 | I was like, I don't know if I saw, I don't think I did.

00:11:55.220 | I need to watch it.

00:11:56.220 | Yeah.

00:11:57.220 | I love those movies.

00:11:58.220 | I love those type of movies.

00:11:59.340 | The wit because it's like low budget.

00:12:01.300 | It just says it's a, here's this little village.

00:12:04.900 | It's like three houses in 1600s, you know?

00:12:08.060 | So it's just one place.

00:12:09.720 | It's not a $50 million budget.

00:12:11.940 | That's a cool movie.

00:12:12.940 | I mean, it's just like, what if like, you know, the witch that period with the witch trials

00:12:16.980 | and everything, like what if there was actually witches in colonial New England?

00:12:20.060 | Yeah.

00:12:21.060 | Uh, my wife was watching it at some point they're grinding up babies to make this so

00:12:26.900 | their broom can fly or something.

00:12:28.100 | And she was done with that.

00:12:29.260 | Anyways, this is all, all to say, this is a very roundabout way that they get to.

00:12:33.620 | So this is a Viking movie that stars Alex or Alexander Skarsgard.

00:12:38.740 | People might know from true blood and some other things.

00:12:41.780 | He's six, four, right?

00:12:42.780 | He's a six, four kind of Viking guy.

00:12:45.260 | He got stacked for this movie, right?

00:12:48.740 | Like because he's plays a Viking berserker and he's 45.

00:12:53.740 | So he's five years older and got, uh, just, you know, they, they had to make them sort

00:12:58.860 | of kind of superhero.

00:12:59.860 | They didn't cut them as much because they're trying to be pretty accurate.

00:13:03.140 | So it wasn't marvel-y right.

00:13:04.760 | Because a Viking wouldn't be super cut, but just like what he did with his traps or whatever.

00:13:09.100 | So I was joking with my wife.

00:13:10.420 | I was like that, this is what I'm going to focus all my time on.

00:13:12.900 | If he could do that at 45, I'm just going to dedicate all of my time to becoming stacked

00:13:17.400 | like a Viking, just sort of apropos of nothing.

00:13:19.740 | It took him six, uh, six months.

00:13:22.100 | That would take a lot of time.

00:13:23.100 | That would take away from your writing.

00:13:24.700 | He did it.

00:13:25.700 | So I went down this rabbit hole hour a day, six days a week.

00:13:30.020 | It would take more than that.

00:13:31.020 | It got real, real jacked.

00:13:32.020 | It would take at least two hours a day.

00:13:33.500 | Yeah.

00:13:34.500 | Well, here's the, here's the curve ball in 2019.

00:13:37.340 | He was in Tarzan.

00:13:38.340 | Right.

00:13:39.340 | So I just probably, which he had to get cut for.

00:13:42.700 | So there's probably some, he wasn't, let's just say he wasn't starting.

00:13:46.100 | Well, you already work out for at least 25 to 30 minutes a day, right?

00:13:50.620 | Yeah.

00:13:51.620 | I thought it was interesting.

00:13:52.620 | It was an hour a day.

00:13:53.620 | I think it was an Icelandic, might've been an Icelandic trainer.

00:13:58.380 | And they had the philosophy, but Sarsgar is a beast, like laser focus method type guy.

00:14:04.500 | So it was an intense hour.

00:14:06.500 | They do just one muscle group per day until it's just basically destroyed.

00:14:12.540 | And then, uh, a different muscle group, the next day, different muscle group the next

00:14:15.940 | day.

00:14:16.940 | Um, but you know how much he had to eat?

00:14:19.300 | 4,000 calories, 7,000 calories a day.

00:14:23.780 | It's a lot of muscle, right?

00:14:25.100 | He put on 20 pounds of muscle.

00:14:27.420 | 7,000 calories a day.

00:14:29.260 | And from what I understand, it's not like, yay, let's go get some burgers.

00:14:31.980 | No, no, that's 7,000 calories.

00:14:34.020 | Chicken, broccoli, and rice.

00:14:36.580 | But anyways, uh, that's all to say, John, that this is my deep life goal is that I'm

00:14:41.140 | just going to spend years becoming like a, like a inappropriately stacked looking Viking.

00:14:48.820 | Yeah.

00:14:49.820 | That would be pretty cool.

00:14:52.060 | You'd be able to hit those rowing times very easily.

00:14:55.900 | Yeah.

00:14:56.900 | I wish I didn't just row.

00:14:57.900 | I just be stacked like a Viking and row, uh, and dress like a Viking all the time.

00:15:03.420 | [MUSIC]

This Is What You Need To Cultivate A Deep Life | Deep Questions with Cal Newport

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