All right, enough about that. Let's see what we got here. We got a question from Abby. Abby says, how do you motivate unmotivated students to get to deep work? Abby says, I find my work to be of Sisyphus. So maybe she means like Sisyphean. I teach high school chemistry.

We do lots of labs and discuss and construct concepts. Dot, dot, dot. However, since I started teaching five years ago, students have become less motivated and gross in their social media lives. Parentheses, I hate the phone. I want them to have a glimpse of the deep life and aspire to exercise and build their brains.

Where do I start? Every day is the same thing. They do not pay attention. So they either do not grasp anything or forget immediately how they are the future of humanity. Abby, I feel your pain. And you're not going to be able to directly solve this problem like you are in these kids' lives for a period each day.

But demonstrate the change you want to see in the world. We were talking about this in the last answer as well. Discuss concentration, mental difficulty. I'm willing to stick with something hard even when it gets difficult and stick with it. Discuss that as a tier one skill. This is how these breakthroughs in chemistry happen.

This is how athletes become fantastic athletes. This is how those movies you love are made. This is how The Rock molded his body and his character into being a international superstar. Focusing on things when it's hard, keeping your attention on one thing, persisting through difficulty. Just giving this message, emphasizing this message, giving examples of this message, that does sink in.

It doesn't mean it's going to change people right away. It doesn't mean you can get them off their phones. A lot more has to be involved in getting that done. But you lay down the vision of what the alternative could be. You cannot escape from the trap of the shallows until the attraction of the depths is something that's even on your radar.

And so that's one thing you could be doing. And there are schools, including some schools around here, who, for example, teach deep work. And there are schools that teach my book, Digital Minimalism. Like, there are schools that go at this straight on. Like, we want to give you a specific frame for thinking about these type of things.

Otherwise, what's the model they have? It's like, well, if I'm on this phone a lot, maybe I'll be an influencer. That's the only model they have. And TikTok is tricking them into thinking that they're just one video away from that because it's giving them these fake view bursts. So you got to give them the alternative.

The deep life, a life built on focusing on hard but meaningful things, staying diligent on that, being resistant to distractions. This is a very attractive, cool thing. 'Cause basically everyone out there who's really interesting that we admire almost always is doing that. And when that message gets through, you've planted the seed.

And you might not be able to grow that seed tomorrow in your class, but those seeds have to be planted if they're ever going to grow. (upbeat music)