I'm back to dork mode. Another call. All right. That was a great bit there. Our next call is about basically talking about those Conor arguments, but in this case, it's authors that run counter to your career capital theory. Yeah, people are really out to get me today. Hey, Cal, my name is Donald and I'm thinking about transitioning my career as we move cities, my fiance and I.

And so my question today is actually about how to have two conflicting ideas about something. How do we hold those? I know you talk a lot about the making sure we're reading different authors and different perspectives on a theory, or whatever that might be to make sure that you're getting both sides and letting those sit with with you and kind of battle it out, so to speak.

And I read so good, they can't ignore you pretty early on in my career. And I am a big believer in it. And I'm 10 or 12 years into my career now. And I've gained this capital, but I have this other passion that's kind of nagging at me. And from the career capital side, I know I shouldn't necessarily follow that passion right now.

But I'm curious if you know of any authors, books or other people on this topic that might run counter to your career capital theory. I firmly believe in it. But I'm also trying to practice what we preach around here about making sure to have different opinions to, to allow to help me kind of make this decision.

Would love any thoughts you have. And again, just really appreciate what you do. Thanks, Cal. All right, well, now I'm wishing he had told us what the passion was. Because that could be actually be pretty relevant for thinking about this. But I like your approach here, because what I preach, which is having differing, smart opinions about things in your head at the same time gives you a more nuanced understanding of the world.

And we were just joking in the last caller, but we were talking about Alan Jacobs essay, and he had a different take on productivity than mine, and we're kind of joking about it. But actually, that collision. So my sort of dorkish New York article, versus like, Alan Jacobs, Hedgehog Review article, crash those together.

And what you come away with is not a one exploded. And this one is right, you have a more nuanced understanding of the topic, which I think is excellent. So if we're thinking about career capital theory, what are good things to push up against that? Well, again, let's clarify exactly what career capital theory is saying.

What it's saying is that typically, the things that make a good job good are rare and valuable. So you have to have something rare and valuable to offer in return. And in the professional context, it'll be rare and valuable skills. So get better at things that are valuable, then use those things as leverage to shape your career in ways that resonate.

That's a pretty repeatable path towards feeling really good about your career. There's other takes on this, obviously, like the straw man take, which is popular in culture, but is rarely I think, articulated in good books. So simplicitly, the straw man alternative is just no, no, follow your passion, you're inborn to do one thing.

If you do that thing, you'll love it. If you don't, you won't. But that's a bit of a straw man, because I would say that the more important counterpoints to career capital theory would be a little bit more subtle. So one of the counterpoints you should try to encounter, and I think Wendell Berry, who we talked about at the beginning of the show is a good example of this, is, and the Jacobs essay we just read, is the whole strain of thought that says, shaping your career shouldn't be the most important thing anyways.

What matters is building a good life based on values that is important, and you might need some money in there. So you have a job, but stop thinking so much about your job anyways, except for to the degree to that, which it steps on other things that are important to you.

This is like Barry leaving his teaching job in New York to go, you know, live in Kentucky. But there's any numbers of examples of books where you see people building a life of meaning off of focusing on values that maybe have very little to do with their work. So I mean, I can give you some specific suggestions here.

Go back and read a classic, like Thomas Merton, with the Seven Story Mountain, I believe it's called, which is about him. It's a memoir. I'm actually reading it right now, it's one of my March books. But a memoir about how he also, like Barry, left life in New York as a writer, and eventually becoming a monk, and writing about the experience.

And it was very inspirational to a lot of people. But he just downgraded the professional aspect of his life. Richard Rohr's book, R-O-H-R, I want to get this right, falling...can you look this up, Jesse? Richard Rohr, Falling Up? Falling...it's falling something, Jesse's going to look this up. But it's a book...

Falling Upward. Falling Upward. That's a book I read, Richard Rohr, R-O-H-R. He's also a Catholic, in a Catholic order. I think he might be a Franciscan. It's about how in the second half of life, building your life around service to others is the source of the deepest meaning. David Brooks read Richard Rohr, and then wrote basically his own version of Falling Upward.

It's called The Second Mountain, which is again, I would read The Second Mountain, I would throw that right against So Good They Can't Ignore You. They'll hit together, and sparks will fly and something even better will emerge. So The Second Mountain is about how maybe the first half of your adult life is aimed towards what he calls resume values, building up your career, making it the way you like.

But then the second half of your adult life is where you really focus on eulogy values. And it's again, service to others, connection to other people. You see David Brooks struggling with building meaning beyond just his otherwise very successful career. So you read those type of books, and you get this counterpoint that says, "Yeah, whatever." Right?

Like your work is what it is, but it's not going to be at the core of a life well lived. So I think that's what you might want to read. Because my concern here, and again, I don't know what the passion is you're talking about, but if it's a professional passion, my concern here is that it's possible that you're heading towards this second mountain in life, this Richard Rohr falling upwards.

And you're feeling that dissatisfaction, that hunger, a soul ache, so it's something quite deep. And you're saying, you're looking just within the professional lane. So maybe I need to change my job. And if my job was something that was more passionate about, I would get that back. That's possible.

I think it changes everything else in your life. So I think those books are going to find useful. I think also just my deep life philosophy in general, it's not contrary to So Good They Can't Ignore You, but it generalizes it and contains it. Because my deep life philosophy, which again, there's a recorded a core idea video on this.

So go to youtube.com/calnewportmedia, go to the core ideas playlist, go to the deep life, the deep life core idea video, is it constrains that professional part to just one of four or five different areas that we call buckets that you focus on. And when you see the four or five different buckets of your life, you're then caring about how they interact and connect with each other, you're not just prioritizing one over the other.

So you might find those exercises useful too. And again, they don't repudiate So Good They Can't Ignore You, but they constrain it and put into a larger context. That's a good question. And that is what I'd recommend. I think you're going to get some good feedback there, get some good pushback.

And I'm glad you're seeking that. All right, do we have a caller now, Jesse, where they're like, I just wanted to tell you, you're brilliant. And your work is 100% right. And they like your part. And I like the part in your hair and you don't look dorky. And I think you're cool.

Like Che Guevara, we just get one caller that says that. Jesse is shaking his head no. *Chuckle* *Outro music*