132: So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

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1. 00:00:00 You're gonna be very disappointed in me today, Mike. Why is that I have a chat app on my computer now
2. 00:00:05 Microsoft Teams for the way what?
3. 00:00:08 Church using
4. 00:00:11 We have we've been on office 365 for five years now four years something like that
5. 00:00:19 That was a move I helped us get into because so much of our
6. 00:00:22 staff is big on
7. 00:00:24 office products so
8. 00:00:27 Made sense for the organization
9. 00:00:29 however a couple of my
10. 00:00:32 teammates have figured out that Microsoft Teams lets them just get quick answers to things and I didn't
11. 00:00:40 adopt this right away so
12. 00:00:43 They've now pressured me into Joe you got to get this on your computer
13. 00:00:47 It's like that's fine, but I'm gonna be unavailable a lot of the time just a heads up. So there's that
14. 00:00:53 I'll install it correct. Yes
15. 00:00:57 So it is on there it's currently a do not disturb mode and
16. 00:01:00 I have the sign on the door all the things because we're recording at an odd time
17. 00:01:05 so
18. 00:01:07 Yes, and no the hyperactive hive mind has not captured Joe Blake
19. 00:01:11 At least I don't hope I hope not anyway
20. 00:01:16 We'll see we'll see
21. 00:01:19 So yes, I'm sorry to say I've I've gone down that road at the moment
22. 00:01:25 But I do know there are many many ways that I can control how much time I spend with stuff like that
23. 00:01:30 So getting breaks from it is something. I'm capable of doing I'm aware of that
24. 00:01:35 So yes, anybody can break free from the evil clutches of Microsoft Teams. It is Joe Bealegg
25. 00:01:41 I know how to hit command queue. I can make it happen
26. 00:01:45 So super fun. Anyway chat apps not why we're here
27. 00:01:49 It just came to mind because we're gonna be diving into a Cal Newport book today thus
28. 00:01:54 That came to mind, but we have some follow-up first
29. 00:01:58 So I've got a couple points to follow up from our last
30. 00:02:01 Last book looks like you've got a few here as well. One of those that I have is
31. 00:02:07 practicing the
32. 00:02:09 the concept of phone narration
33. 00:02:12 Specifically in my case, it's for when I'm at
34. 00:02:15 Home with my family not so much like whenever I'm in meetings and such, but I just want to make sure that like my kids
35. 00:02:23 Specifically know what I'm doing on my phone when I'm on it around them
36. 00:02:27 like that's that's the piece that I'm trying to make sure is very very clear and
37. 00:02:31 I've learned that there are some cases when I'm on my phone and I'm
38. 00:02:37 Realizing I need to tell them what I'm doing and I really don't want to tell them what I'm doing
39. 00:02:41 so
40. 00:02:43 Hey dad, what are you doing right now?
41. 00:02:47 Seeing what's on Instagram. Sorry. Let's let's stop doing that. Okay. All right now moving on now. Now. I'm checking the weather
42. 00:02:55 So
43. 00:02:58 Yes, that that is quite the accountability telling your kids what you're doing on your phone when you're around them. That's
44. 00:03:04 Highly recommended and a bit terrifying at the same time. So there's that
45. 00:03:10 So I've been doing this as much as I can don't get it done all the time, but it's something I do recommend for folks
46. 00:03:17 So real quickly on the uh the phone narration
47. 00:03:19 I feel like because I was one of mine too. I feel like we should just make a pact us and the bookworm listeners
48. 00:03:26 To publicly shame anyone that we see using a device that's not practicing this just walk up to them real awkwardly and be like, hey
49. 00:03:34 What you doing?
50. 00:03:37 I just wait for him to answer
51. 00:03:39 Deal
52. 00:03:40 I I will totally do this totally will
53. 00:03:43 Okay, all right
54. 00:03:45 I may put the caveat on it that I need to at least know the person somewhat because I could at least pass it off as
55. 00:03:52 Joe being the tech nerd who was trying to get you off your phone like I can at least pass it off that way if it's a complete stranger
56. 00:03:59 That's just weird
57. 00:04:01 Just totally weird
58. 00:04:03 So we were up in dork county this last weekend and
59. 00:04:09 We have a teenage son. We were there with
60. 00:04:12 Rachel's sister and brother-in-law who also have kids that are very close to
61. 00:04:15 our kids in age and at one point
62. 00:04:20 Toby was using his iPad sitting in a chair and next to him was quin who was sitting in a chair looking at his phone
63. 00:04:27 And I was like hey screen agers. What you doing?
64. 00:04:29 Screen agers
65. 00:04:32 They didn't appreciate that a whole lot. I don't think
66. 00:04:34 I have not heard that term screen agers is this something you just made up?
67. 00:04:38 I think so, but probably not
68. 00:04:41 All right, it's a new one to me. So I'll definitely steal it. That's for sure
69. 00:04:45 Yes, I'm game for the shaming. Uh, the other follow-up that I had
70. 00:04:51 is to
71. 00:04:54 Work on my end-of-day email habit or as in create one and
72. 00:04:59 I've done it a couple times over the last couple weeks
73. 00:05:03 I've not been good about making sure that that's the time frame that happens
74. 00:05:07 And I need to keep working on that one. So the goal here is that around
75. 00:05:11 330 about 30 minutes before the end of my day. I would take some time to
76. 00:05:15 Uh, just run through my email and make sure I'm getting replies out because I'm terrible at responding to emails if you've sent me an email
77. 00:05:23 Over the last
78. 00:05:25 Five years and you got a response right away. You are the anomaly
79. 00:05:30 So it doesn't happen very often
80. 00:05:34 Unless it's somebody that I'm actively working on a project with like if Mike were to send me
81. 00:05:37 An email about something important with bookworm. You would get a response from me pretty quick. However, that's not typical
82. 00:05:45 Just gonna say that. So anyway, that's what I got. You Mike. All right. Yeah, I got a couple
83. 00:05:51 uh
84. 00:05:53 Phone narration was one of mine as well and I feel like I have
85. 00:05:57 Done this. I've caught myself at least a couple of times
86. 00:06:01 Actually doing this
87. 00:06:03 Part of the reason why I want to point this out is I hope it gets reciprocated to me because I'm sure there's points where I just am
88. 00:06:10 Surfing twitter and I'm not really realizing it
89. 00:06:13 But uh, I I think this is a oh worthy cause
90. 00:06:17 So, uh, I'm gonna continue to try to do this as often as I I can
91. 00:06:21 If I'm in a group of people and I pull my phone out. I'm going to verbalize why I am
92. 00:06:26 I'm doing that. I'm not gonna. I'm sure hide anything, you know
93. 00:06:30 I'm also going to uh, I had create yellow lists to process my thoughts in obsidian
94. 00:06:36 I've done this but it's not
95. 00:06:39 Typical mic fashion, I guess. Uh, it's not done like there's more yellow lists to be processed
96. 00:06:47 There's more notes to be created to help me think through things
97. 00:06:51 But uh, I am in the middle of this right now and it has been very helpful in a decision that I've been
98. 00:06:58 brewing on so definitely
99. 00:07:00 See value in this and I I really just want to make this a practice not a
100. 00:07:04 Not a pass just so people understand what you're talking about. What is the yellow list? It's
101. 00:07:10 I don't even remember what the
102. 00:07:13 official definition of the yellow list was I'm
103. 00:07:15 Using it as a as like a capture point for my thoughts and I and ideas around a specific topic
104. 00:07:22 Specifically around a decision I have to make when we talk last time I mentioned this is kind of what
105. 00:07:27 One of those mocs or map of content is designed to do you have this
106. 00:07:30 Mental squeeze point where you're like, I just need to figure out
107. 00:07:34 What do I really think about this thing?
108. 00:07:36 But I am applying it specifically to decisions that need to be made
109. 00:07:40 I think originally it was talking about
110. 00:07:42 A list of things like next time I see this person I need to
111. 00:07:46 Ask these things and get some answers so I can move on with with the rest of my work
112. 00:07:51 But I'm kind of applying this more personally
113. 00:07:55 All right, and then the last one be cautious about committing to future dates. I
114. 00:07:58 Have done this
115. 00:08:01 David and I
116. 00:08:02 Recorded an episode of focused on revisiting hyper scheduling and this came up where we discount
117. 00:08:09 The the time we have in the future and well, I can't do that right now. I'm too busy
118. 00:08:14 I don't really want to stop the things that I'm doing but six weeks from now. Absolutely. I could squeeze that in
119. 00:08:18 And then you get six weeks out and you why did I say yes to this thing?
120. 00:08:23 So I feel like I've done a pretty good job of of this. However, I have noticed there's a shadow side to this as well
121. 00:08:30 in that
122. 00:08:32 I find that I want to say yes to things that are presented to me
123. 00:08:37 Further in the future than I do when they're presented. Hey, can you do this right now?
124. 00:08:42 If for no other reason than I want to train the people who are making these requests not to throw stuff at me last minute
125. 00:08:49 Okay, sure
126. 00:08:51 So I think there's a difference here where it's like I don't want to do this ever
127. 00:08:55 Then yeah, I shouldn't just say yes to kick the can down the road
128. 00:08:59 But if I'm going to be working with people anyways and I'm going to be doing things anyways
129. 00:09:05 And I have even a little bit of control in the situation to say no
130. 00:09:10 To things that are last minute, but yes to things that are further out. I will say yes to those
131. 00:09:15 Just so that we can play by my terms
132. 00:09:20 That makes any sense. Yeah, no it does make sense because I know I do a lot of
133. 00:09:23 People management when it comes to tech issues
134. 00:09:27 Like the one that made us put off bookworm recording last friday is not one I could have put an off
135. 00:09:33 But there's a lot of cases where someone says hey, my email is not doing xy and z
136. 00:09:38 Can you come look at it? My default answer is yes in a minute
137. 00:09:42 I'll be over when I get a second like it's something along those lines that I'm going to say
138. 00:09:48 Unless it's a couple people that I know have spent a lot of time working on things
139. 00:09:52 But the reason I do that is because
140. 00:09:54 One, I don't want people to assume I'm just going to jump up and go fix things immediately every time you have
141. 00:09:59 a problem and two
142. 00:10:01 In the world of it making people wait about 10 minutes
143. 00:10:05 Usually resolves the problem because they can't do what they want to do
144. 00:10:10 So they're going to spend some time trying to fix it themselves
145. 00:10:12 And for whatever reason 10 15 minutes tends to solve most it problems
146. 00:10:18 Without me doing anything. So
147. 00:10:20 If we wait that long
148. 00:10:23 It's pretty common for me to get a text or an email or they stop back by saying hey, no big deal
149. 00:10:27 It it took care of itself or I got it fixed or something like okay great and then I never got it from my desk
150. 00:10:32 So
151. 00:10:34 There's that as well, but yes that whole training people thing it totally with you
152. 00:10:38 There is a an article that I published on the suite set up a while back
153. 00:10:44 I'll put the link in the the show notes for people and it was something along the lines of email habits from Napoleon Bonaparte
154. 00:10:51 Because he had this habit of having his secretary collect his mail and then delivering it to him like every couple of weeks
155. 00:10:57 And as he opened up the mail he was giddy with joy at all of the things that had resolved themselves by the time he even looked at them
156. 00:11:04 Yes
157. 00:11:07 I think there's a lesson to be in the polling and had it figured out. Yeah
158. 00:11:12 Well, that all said let's let's jump into
159. 00:11:14 Today's book because I feel like we're both itching to get to this especially since we thought we were going to get a chance to do this last
160. 00:11:20 Friday and we're not
161. 00:11:22 But today's book is so good. They can't ignore you by cal Newport
162. 00:11:27 which is basically a debunking of the concept follow your passion and
163. 00:11:32 Find work you love and that whole concept. This is
164. 00:11:37 borderline a manifesto just a long one
165. 00:11:41 Saying hey, don't do that
166. 00:11:43 so
167. 00:11:45 I I have to admit that this
168. 00:11:47 Concept of find your passion find work you love and you'll never work a day in your life like that whole concept is one
169. 00:11:54 I went down this path very deep at one point and
170. 00:11:58 came up wanting on the other end of that journey and
171. 00:12:04 That's a lot of the reason that I wanted to cover this also
172. 00:12:08 It's a cal Newport book that we haven't covered yet. So we really needed to cover it. I think
173. 00:12:12 Um, but I have to ask Mike if you ever been down this whole find your passion and follow it concepts
174. 00:12:19 Have you ever gone deep on this before have you always been a naysayer on this this whole topic?
175. 00:12:25 Ooh, that's interesting as you were saying did you ever chase this?
176. 00:12:28 I was like well, yeah, of course I did because it sounds awesome
177. 00:12:31 But then when you say did you ever go deep on it? I'm not sure that I have
178. 00:12:37 Because my career path the thing that got me into this space was starting the process of writing my book
179. 00:12:45 I'm not going to tell that whole story again
180. 00:12:47 But one of the things that I discovered in that process was the
181. 00:12:52 root of the word passion is the latin word petit
182. 00:12:56 Which literally means to suffer and that clicked with me early on
183. 00:13:00 Okay, so passion isn't just doing what you love. It's um, it's finding something
184. 00:13:06 That's so worthwhile you're willing to endure some hardship in order to see it come to pass
185. 00:13:11 Which is a very different definition and I don't think I've I don't know that I don't really want to reclaim the word passion
186. 00:13:19 The passion mindset means what it means
187. 00:13:21 Uh, so I spoiler alert. I completely agree with uh with kel new port on on this one
188. 00:13:27 But I do think this is an easy trap to fall into because we spend so much of our
189. 00:13:34 Life working why would you not want to do something meaningful?
190. 00:13:38 Do something that makes a difference and impacts people's lives
191. 00:13:42 That part is
192. 00:13:45 I I think a very pure true desire that
193. 00:13:49 Everybody has it's not just I want to make a bunch of money
194. 00:13:52 I don't know. There's a lot to unpack there too because money's not necessarily bad. I'm not saying
195. 00:13:58 Especially in the christian circles. I think there's that
196. 00:14:02 That verse that gets thrown around the the love of money is the the road of all evil and and
197. 00:14:06 We kind of think we're holier if we just
198. 00:14:09 live
199. 00:14:11 In in poverty almost, uh, I personally don't believe that but I think it's it's easy for people to to believe that is like
200. 00:14:17 Oh, well, look, I've just become content with with not having a lot and I think that's that's a mistake too
201. 00:14:22 I think there is a desire placed inside of every human to do something bigger than themselves
202. 00:14:28 And so the the short version of this this rambling
203. 00:14:32 my lug here
204. 00:14:35 Is that it's complicated?
205. 00:14:37 But yes, I feel like I have
206. 00:14:39 Walked into this just like probably every other person who is listening to this podcast at one point in their life or another
207. 00:14:46 Yes, because I think whenever I did this I was in the midst of
208. 00:14:51 working at a job where my boss was less than helpful and
209. 00:14:57 Created problems that he then blamed on me
210. 00:14:59 So wasn't exactly a healthy situation
211. 00:15:04 And I was trying to nail down
212. 00:15:07 Like, okay. Well, this is in the agriculture space
213. 00:15:11 Maybe that's not where I need to be and
214. 00:15:14 Where are the places that I want to be?
215. 00:15:17 And what are the things that I love doing? So maybe I should find work in that and
216. 00:15:22 went through a whole process thought I had a a career in mind
217. 00:15:27 that I wanted to dive into
218. 00:15:29 tried to explore
219. 00:15:32 joining a place
220. 00:15:33 To pursue that and it just completely fell on its face
221. 00:15:36 So then I stayed in agriculture because I could get a job there
222. 00:15:40 and
223. 00:15:43 I I've never gone back to that concept of find your calling and
224. 00:15:46 Find a job in that space like I've not gone back to that because it's just never made sense to me since that point and
225. 00:15:55 Going through specifically the introduction in this book that cal Newport lays out
226. 00:16:00 like it's been one that I guess put some meat to that
227. 00:16:03 Anced that I've had in the past and just kind of helps me understand that oh, maybe I'm not completely crazy for thinking
228. 00:16:10 This is a ridiculous concept and you can see that in
229. 00:16:14 Let's just go ahead and jump in here. So the the introduction of this he follows the story of
230. 00:16:20 a guy by the name of Thomas who
231. 00:16:24 at some point
232. 00:16:26 decided that
233. 00:16:28 His calling in life the passion that he wanted to pursue was to be a zen monk
234. 00:16:32 And that was the ultimate life that you could live
235. 00:16:36 that was that was his pursuit and
236. 00:16:40 Over the period of a few years he manages to get accepted into a monastery that's difficult to get into
237. 00:16:48 He becomes a zen monk. He has a bunch of the revelations and then he breaks down crying
238. 00:16:54 at one point because he
239. 00:16:56 achieves the end goal that he was after and realizes
240. 00:17:00 It's not all it's cracked out to be
241. 00:17:03 And
242. 00:17:06 Doesn't know what to do
243. 00:17:07 after that point he he finally achieves the thing he thought was
244. 00:17:11 where he needed to be in life and
245. 00:17:14 It turned out to be a failure. Not I shouldn't say a failure. It turns out to be not
246. 00:17:20 as fulfilling as he
247. 00:17:22 Expected it to be so then the question is what what do you do with that?
248. 00:17:26 You know if someone's
249. 00:17:28 Able to name what their passion is name their
250. 00:17:31 pinnacle achieve it and it's not
251. 00:17:34 What you thought it would be
252. 00:17:37 Now what do you do right? What's the next step?
253. 00:17:39 That part reminded me a lot of the second mountain by david brooks
254. 00:17:44 and that's why I said
255. 00:17:47 in the previous section
256. 00:17:50 The part about how I believe everybody has this desire to do something that is bigger than just create a good life for themselves
257. 00:17:58 The whole idea behind the second mountain go listen to that whole episode
258. 00:18:02 I'm not going to rehash it here, but you climb the first mountain
259. 00:18:06 It's all about you you you you get to the top you're you go through this existential crisis and you're like is this it
260. 00:18:11 And that's immediately what I thought of when thomas was going to that monastery. He had achieved his personal goal of enlightenment
261. 00:18:19 He had climbed that mountain there was nowhere else to go and then he looks around and he's like oh my gosh
262. 00:18:23 It was all pointless and it sounded to me in that moment when he was going through his identity crisis that he couldn't find that second mountain that david brooks
263. 00:18:31 Was talking about?
264. 00:18:33 This is another plug for the uh, what's it called?
265. 00:18:37 Centopical reading that uh mornamer adler yep talks about I
266. 00:18:41 Every single time I have one of these
267. 00:18:45 Inspirations where I see how a book we are currently reading connects to the previous book. I am grateful that we have gone through that one
268. 00:18:51 It's the book that keeps on giving despite us not liking it
269. 00:18:55 Yeah, but that that's a that concept, you know as meta as it is
270. 00:19:03 Helps significantly like we suffered through that book. We did not like it
271. 00:19:07 We didn't care for how to read a book by mornamer adlers the one we're referring to and
272. 00:19:13 We didn't care for it and yet
273. 00:19:15 To this day ever since we've finished that one to this day
274. 00:19:20 The way that I read a book has changed the way that I see
275. 00:19:24 connections between books has been greatly altered and
276. 00:19:28 I can't help but notice
277. 00:19:31 If I get one solid point out of a book that book was a successful read
278. 00:19:36 that whole thing comes from
279. 00:19:39 Mortimer adler
280. 00:19:41 Yep, it was we rated it like what a three and three five or something like it wasn't one that got very high marks from us
281. 00:19:47 And yet i'll tell you you need to read it
282. 00:19:50 Absolutely, that's one of those vegetable books that uh
283. 00:19:56 You do it because it's going to pay off in the long run which
284. 00:20:01 kind of a tangent, but
285. 00:20:04 I think that's part of the reason why I
286. 00:20:07 enjoy reading
287. 00:20:09 purely nonfiction. I know you and josh specifically ribbed me about that
288. 00:20:13 How I should read fiction books
289. 00:20:15 I have never had that sort of feeling after a fiction book. So in my mind, it's
290. 00:20:20 It's not even possible. Maybe it is. I kind of don't think it is though. Just because it's it's a made-up story
291. 00:20:27 and uh
292. 00:20:29 Just the fact that that could happen when you pick up a nonfiction book
293. 00:20:33 Provides at least for me a ton of motivation to keep going with it
294. 00:20:38 Because I might get done with it and think that book was terrible
295. 00:20:42 But it's almost like that's just the beginning of the the story
296. 00:20:46 You have no idea how these dots that you've collected nonfiction dots anyways
297. 00:20:51 For me in my mind
298. 00:20:52 Fobsidian is the in the graph. That's the picture of all the dots that i've collected
299. 00:20:57 There's a nonfiction section, which is basically everything in my life
300. 00:21:01 And then there would be a fiction section, which would be all the other stuff and it's kind of like why even go there
301. 00:21:06 and uh
302. 00:21:08 I feel for the the nonfiction stuff
303. 00:21:10 You collect these dots and it you may not have a connection until five years after you've read that book
304. 00:21:16 And then it may be totally life-changing. I just want to argue quickly
305. 00:21:20 Because I have to right. I can't just let you make these concepts go for it make these points
306. 00:21:25 but
307. 00:21:26 The thing that I noticed whenever I read fiction
308. 00:21:29 Isn't an explicit oh that point is something I can take take home
309. 00:21:34 That it's like a whole bunch of micro points that are unconscious
310. 00:21:38 That don't come to reality in at least in my mind until later
311. 00:21:43 For example, there's a character in a tale of two cities
312. 00:21:47 I'm not going to go into the detail of the whole background
313. 00:21:49 But he makes some choices in a courtroom that
314. 00:21:52 Are fascinating to me and how he handled himself and yet
315. 00:21:57 When I was reading the story like I was totally engrossed on what was going on, but it didn't really connect with me
316. 00:22:02 That I could really make a correlation from that
317. 00:22:05 until
318. 00:22:07 Much much later after I'd finished reading that story
319. 00:22:10 And was talking to someone who was recently in a court case
320. 00:22:14 And was working through
321. 00:22:16 You know, what was the judge thinking at a certain time? Why did he decide to do x y and z?
322. 00:22:21 And for whatever reason that story in a tale of two cities came to mind
323. 00:22:26 And it's like oh well
324. 00:22:28 This is how people think about things when they're in a courtroom because you were able to see into the mind of a character in that fiction story
325. 00:22:34 for whatever reason that came up
326. 00:22:36 in my ridiculous race car brain and
327. 00:22:39 It helped me in that conversation. So
328. 00:22:42 I feel like it's not as explicit, but it does come up regularly at least for me
329. 00:22:48 Maybe i'm an oddball in that. No, I think i'm the oddball here. I understand
330. 00:22:53 You can learn about somebody's philosophy through fictional characters
331. 00:22:58 You're getting a glimpse into the mind of the how the author thinks
332. 00:23:04 Because they're creating this scenario and they're trying to make a point
333. 00:23:08 And there's some brilliant fiction authors that
334. 00:23:11 You could absolutely learn a ton from but for whatever reason my brain just doesn't connect to those
335. 00:23:15 It just discards those afterwards
336. 00:23:18 Even if I really enjoy the story
337. 00:23:22 It's like those don't even make it into the database
338. 00:23:24 So i'm the weird one, I guess but uh, yeah, that's just the way my brain was
339. 00:23:30 Well, let's keep going on a book here. So the way that cal Newport laid this one out
340. 00:23:34 Keep in mind. This was his first one, right? I don't think he had one prior to this
341. 00:23:38 This book so cal Newport has an interesting
342. 00:23:42 literary journey
343. 00:23:45 I think his first book was something along the lines of study hacks
344. 00:23:50 And like how to get straight as in college
345. 00:23:52 So he had written some things prior to this. I feel like this is the first
346. 00:23:57 Substantially mainstream, maybe that's the wrong term, but the other one seemed very niche to me and this one seemed more
347. 00:24:06 general
348. 00:24:08 I career advice sort of a like thing. Blake's got us
349. 00:24:11 So how to win at college how to win at high school and how to be a straight a student
350. 00:24:15 Those are the three he wrote prior to this. Okay
351. 00:24:18 Which is what he was writing as he was in college
352. 00:24:21 Applying to different universities and at the end of this book actually he talks about his own story
353. 00:24:28 How he applied these principles to get his position at George town is it? Yep
354. 00:24:32 I think that's where he's a professor now. Yeah, the youngest professor to ever get tenure or something like that
355. 00:24:38 So he's he's very successful and I kind of appreciate this
356. 00:24:42 about cal feels a lot like he is just
357. 00:24:46 Teaching what he knows like he's figuring this stuff out and sharing it publicly
358. 00:24:49 But not in a way where he's saying I am the guru listen to me
359. 00:24:54 Yeah, and that's that's totally fair
360. 00:24:57 in my head this was
361. 00:24:59 One of his first if not the first that he wrote
362. 00:25:02 but at the same time I know that this is
363. 00:25:05 Even looking at this list of books. He's written prior to this one. This is the first mainstream
364. 00:25:12 Not geared towards students book
365. 00:25:15 I would say because this is and I think this is one of them that put him on the map as far as
366. 00:25:20 A potential big-time nonfiction author
367. 00:25:23 It might also explain like there are some quirks with this book
368. 00:25:28 I'll talk about when we get to style and rating some things I didn't care for
369. 00:25:32 In the style side of it, but I'll get there. But anyway, let's let's jump through he's got four rules
370. 00:25:40 That he lays out here. I'm not really sure maybe I missed it
371. 00:25:44 I'm not sure why he chose to make it rules to live by I guess something along those lines like I don't know why he chose to do it that way
372. 00:25:51 Uh to me they're just parts in the book. They seem to go together. I'm sure why they had to be called rules
373. 00:25:57 Uh, but anyway, he's got four rules
374. 00:26:00 The first of those is don't follow your passion
375. 00:26:03 Which totally makes sense as a starting point. So in this particular part or rule
376. 00:26:09 Uh, he he kind of dives into where this concept of follow your passion
377. 00:26:14 comes from and
378. 00:26:17 There's and I'm going to draw a blank on what the book was or the paper was but there was a specific paper or a book of
379. 00:26:23 essay something that came out and
380. 00:26:26 Kind of created this concept at least that's his theory, but it really gained some validity in the
381. 00:26:33 legendary
382. 00:26:37 Address that Steve Jobs gave at a graduation
383. 00:26:41 and
384. 00:26:43 in that Steve Jobs made a lot of comments that basically put some
385. 00:26:47 legs underneath this concept of
386. 00:26:50 You know find the work that you love and you'll never work a day in your life like that concept is one that he helps solidify
387. 00:26:57 and
388. 00:26:58 Basically justified that that's a valid path
389. 00:27:02 forward and people have grasped onto that and latched onto that and
390. 00:27:07 I think if you finish the rest of this part
391. 00:27:11 and
392. 00:27:13 Realize
393. 00:27:15 What Cal Newport is saying here's like you have to be super careful with
394. 00:27:18 This whole I don't even know what to call it this maxim. What's what's the term for it? Mike like it's a
395. 00:27:23 I don't know. It's not a virtue, but it's a a thing that people want to live by
396. 00:27:29 I don't know the the term, but yeah, the follow your passion. That's the the key phrase here
397. 00:27:35 The it spiked in popularity by the way. This is in the mind node file for me
398. 00:27:39 in
399. 00:27:40 1970 following the publication of what color is your parachute by Richard bowls and
400. 00:27:45 The Steve Jobs thing this kind of bugged me too, but I never really realized why interestingly
401. 00:27:51 I forgot all about this part of the book. I have read this before
402. 00:27:55 This is one of my
403. 00:27:58 Favorite books. It was interesting to reread it and see how
404. 00:28:02 Things are a little bit different for me just different stage of life
405. 00:28:05 But when we did episode 50 and we did the draft this was I think number four on my top five books of all time. Yeah
406. 00:28:12 So I've thought very highly of of this book for a long time and I completely forgot about this Steve Jobs graduation speech at Stanford
407. 00:28:21 If you ever watch this it's on youtube. It's solid. Yeah, it's it's solid and it's interesting
408. 00:28:28 Because I think he's giving this speech after he was diagnosed with cancer
409. 00:28:33 So he's kind of got a glimpse of
410. 00:28:35 The end he's coming to grips with his own mortality
411. 00:28:40 but uh, I think if you watch that as I watch that now I look back and I see
412. 00:28:48 a confirmation bias evidence in the words that he's
413. 00:28:52 He's he's speaking
414. 00:28:54 the same bias
415. 00:28:56 Where if you interview somebody on a championship sports team right after they win the title
416. 00:29:04 They talk about oh, it was no surprise that we got here
417. 00:29:08 We set a goal at the beginning of the year and we worked really hard and we knew we were going to be here
418. 00:29:13 You didn't
419. 00:29:15 You didn't know you were going to be here. That's a story that you tell yourself because it sounds nice and you feel good about the accomplishment
420. 00:29:22 But the truth is that all of the other teams had the same goal
421. 00:29:26 And so the goal wasn't the thing that got you there
422. 00:29:30 But that's kind of what people latch on to is oh, well
423. 00:29:33 You just set a goal and then you work hard to achieve it and of course you're going to achieve it
424. 00:29:37 The problem is in that specific sense where there is a goal where there's a limited amount of success to be had
425. 00:29:43 Only one team can be the NBA champions, you know, it happens to be my Milwaukee Bucks. So there you go
426. 00:29:50 but uh
427. 00:29:53 So there's different ways that this can apply, but this is a
428. 00:29:56 A zero-sum game. It doesn't necessarily apply in a non-zero-sum game. I think there's there's there's benefit to goal setting
429. 00:30:03 I just want to get that out there right away
430. 00:30:05 But that's the evidence that he builds this whole passion mindset around is
431. 00:30:12 Just do what I did essentially and he deconstructs what Steve Jobs did and kind of shows how
432. 00:30:18 He kind of didn't follow his own advice, which was fascinating to me
433. 00:30:22 I'll just share some of the details here
434. 00:30:25 He had this
435. 00:30:27 scheme him and was where they were trying to sell 50 of these I think there were apple two boards to somebody
436. 00:30:35 And they wanted to sell them for $50 each
437. 00:30:38 Because they thought that was a lot of money and they the person that they went to Paul Terrell
438. 00:30:43 Said I don't want your board for $50 each, but I'll buy 50 computers for $500 each
439. 00:30:49 and
440. 00:30:51 That to me as I read that story Paul Terrell is the key
441. 00:30:54 Player here in Steve Jobs success
442. 00:30:58 Now you can argue that Steve Jobs would have encountered a different opportunity and he would have taken advantage of it later
443. 00:31:02 But this is the tipping point for him
444. 00:31:06 Because Paul is basically saying hey, you're thinking 10 times too small
445. 00:31:10 And throws a deal in his lap that ends up launching apple computer
446. 00:31:15 So there's a lot of luck that goes into this
447. 00:31:18 A lot of being in the right place at the right time
448. 00:31:20 And I we just got done reading courage is calling I fully understand, you know the harder you work the more courageous you are
449. 00:31:26 The luckier you get
450. 00:31:29 So just putting yourself out there you drastically increase your your chances
451. 00:31:34 But I feel like that story is a very good one to use to make the point that you can't just follow what Steve
452. 00:31:41 Jobs said in that youtube video
453. 00:31:43 Yeah, and I some of this might have to do with like how you define some of the terms that Steve Jobs
454. 00:31:48 Is using we've we've read enough books that have talked about Steve Jobs and apple and it seems like it's one of these
455. 00:31:55 Stories that you have to include in a nonfiction book in order for it to be published
456. 00:32:00 I don't know if that's a requirement, but it feels like it sometimes
457. 00:32:04 But if you read so here's here's a verbatim quote from
458. 00:32:07 That address
459. 00:32:09 You've got to find what you love
460. 00:32:11 The only way to do great work is to love what you do
461. 00:32:14 If you haven't found it yet keep looking and don't settle like this is one of the phrases in that address that
462. 00:32:20 this whole passion mindset comes from but
463. 00:32:24 if you
464. 00:32:27 Pay attention to Steve Jobs. He was very
465. 00:32:29 intentional with each word that he
466. 00:32:32 Used when he was on stage watch any of his apple keynotes and
467. 00:32:36 He was very particular
468. 00:32:40 With how he worded things so I can't help but think that he was the same in this address
469. 00:32:45 He didn't just think about it that morning and then get up there and wing it
470. 00:32:49 I highly doubt that Steve Jobs did that yeah, I agree
471. 00:32:52 if you
472. 00:32:55 Look at what he's saying here's like you've got to find what you love the only way to do great work
473. 00:33:00 Is to love what you do
474. 00:33:02 But he's specifically calling out great work there
475. 00:33:04 Yeah, and see that part right there I agree with there's so much new one it is in this this whole chapter
476. 00:33:11 You know where this whole section don't follow your passion that reminded me of uh mike roe the dirty jobs guy
477. 00:33:18 Something he said don't follow your passion but always bring it with you if you bring your passion with you according to mike roe
478. 00:33:24 You will
479. 00:33:25 Do great work that you love but you can't
480. 00:33:30 Attached to the enjoying it first and I think you know
481. 00:33:33 There's a difference between what I think Steve Jobs was saying and what he intended and
482. 00:33:39 The interpretation that people had of the address
483. 00:33:43 Because I think that the interpretation of the address as cal Newport explains it is spot-on like we absolutely took it as
484. 00:33:50 Find what you love and go with it, you know quit your job and go like that
485. 00:33:55 That is the idea that people took from the address. I'm not 100 certain that that's what Steve Jobs intended
486. 00:34:02 I highly suspect, you know as he's saying, you know do
487. 00:34:06 Like to do great work
488. 00:34:09 I suspect that there's a big big caveat in that that you have to make sure that that's marketable
489. 00:34:15 Like there has to be someone that wants it like just knowing his background. I am very suspicious
490. 00:34:24 of the way that we interpreted that address so
491. 00:34:26 Maybe he was having an end of life
492. 00:34:29 Thing maybe he was intending it to be that way. I'm not sure I'm sold on that
493. 00:34:34 Regardless that point set aside
494. 00:34:37 Our interpretation and the media interpretation of what he said
495. 00:34:41 Absolutely follows what cal Newport is using as a basis of his argument here
496. 00:34:46 But he doesn't stop here like he doesn't put all of this on Steve Jobs
497. 00:34:51 of course you mentioned the the book that came out in the 70s
498. 00:34:54 that that kind of started this but
499. 00:34:57 The whole issue here and and he he starts to lay out some of the groundwork for why
500. 00:35:04 This is a bad idea and a lot of that is on
501. 00:35:08 It sits on top of the concept around
502. 00:35:13 Is it really going to make you any money like it seems like that's a big part of it
503. 00:35:19 It he doesn't specifically call it out in that way, but it seems like that's a big chunk here because
504. 00:35:24 Whenever you see some of what people say are their passions a lot of times they're hobbies that don't drive incomes like
505. 00:35:31 I love kayaking like
506. 00:35:33 Some of mine like I love woodworking. You know, I love working on my house
507. 00:35:37 Like I love that sort of like but making money off of that to drive an income so that I can pay for said house
508. 00:35:43 There are ways to do that today kind of but in order for that to work
509. 00:35:47 I've got to be a top-notch video editor and I don't really want to be a top-notch video editor
510. 00:35:54 And when we're gonna house like
511. 00:35:57 That's the way it goes. So you had to be careful with it. It's it's dangerous as cal Newport puts it
512. 00:36:02 It is
513. 00:36:03 You know, he mentions Derek Sivers later on in this book and I just got done reading a Derek Sivers book as one of my get books
514. 00:36:09 heck. Yes or no
515. 00:36:11 And there's a chapter in there which is very appropriate for this particular section
516. 00:36:17 Where Derek Sivers is saying that you should not try to become a professional at your art
517. 00:36:25 You should have your job which is going to provide for your needs and you should have your art
518. 00:36:31 Which is the thing that you do for fun
519. 00:36:33 And I feel like there is this
520. 00:36:36 inherent pressure with the passion mindset specifically but for any creator
521. 00:36:43 It's like you're not doing it well enough unless it's your full-time job
522. 00:36:47 And I think that's false
523. 00:36:50 I think there are certain things that you should not try to turn into a
524. 00:36:54 A full-time thing because the minute that you do it's it's not going to be the thing anymore that
525. 00:37:00 You enjoyed doing just by the very nature of trying to monetize it
526. 00:37:06 You're having to change
527. 00:37:08 The message behind it or what it looks like what it sounds like in a way that's more appealing to other people and in doing that
528. 00:37:15 It's no longer appealing to you
529. 00:37:17 So that is something that was bouncing around in my brain as I read this particular section
530. 00:37:22 And the other thing I want to address
531. 00:37:24 You mentioned that Steve Jobs maybe didn't mean it the way that it was interpreted, but that's the problem
532. 00:37:31 Is that people will say things and they will be interpreted out of context
533. 00:37:37 And there will be a whole big this is essentially a doctrine this passion mindset
534. 00:37:42 This is a doctrine that has gained a bunch of a bunch of motivation
535. 00:37:45 And there are people all over the place who are like, yeah, man, I'm just gonna follow my passion
536. 00:37:50 I'm gonna just do what I love
537. 00:37:52 And it's going to ruin their lives if they
538. 00:37:54 If they follow that that's what cal's trying to say
539. 00:37:57 And even if it's only a small handful of people who heard that wrong from
540. 00:38:03 The YouTube clip, I mean, that's just one specific clip
541. 00:38:06 There are people all over the place who are saying things all the time
542. 00:38:09 Myself included where if you were to sit down and and ask me this
543. 00:38:13 So what did you really mean when you said that?
544. 00:38:15 You know, it didn't come across as clearly as I thought it did
545. 00:38:18 So I'll explain it, but you don't always have the opportunity to do that
546. 00:38:21 You just hear these things and you're like, oh, that was really good
547. 00:38:24 I think I'll build my whole life around this one thing that somebody said
548. 00:38:27 Which is why you need to read lots of books
549. 00:38:29 It's in topical repeating collect a whole bunch of things
550. 00:38:32 Not just attached to one and you know, see where this goes
551. 00:38:35 But see the picture between all of these and how they connect
552. 00:38:39 So I feel like number the big benefit of this book existing
553. 00:38:46 Is that it kind of course corrects for some of that stuff
554. 00:38:50 But if you exist in a I mean specifically in the culture we have today
555. 00:38:55 Where people are focused on the headlines and social media
556. 00:38:58 And just the little sound bites
557. 00:39:00 No one's going to read the whole thing
558. 00:39:02 No one's going to listen to the whole thing
559. 00:39:03 They're going to attach to one thing that that somebody says
560. 00:39:05 There has never been a time where this message has been more dangerous. I would argue
561. 00:39:10 Yeah, especially if you think about like the the rise of YouTube stars
562. 00:39:16 I mean think about that
563. 00:39:17 It's a thing that technically speaking
564. 00:39:20 The ability for you to record a video
565. 00:39:23 And edit said video
566. 00:39:25 Technically speaking is crazy easy
567. 00:39:28 Most everybody's phone can do that very simply
568. 00:39:31 And can do a pretty good job of it honestly
569. 00:39:35 and
570. 00:39:37 Because that is so easy
571. 00:39:39 And because we see so many YouTube stars rising and quickly
572. 00:39:43 A lot of kids have that as an aspiration like they want to be a big youtuber
573. 00:39:48 Like that is their dream
574. 00:39:49 There are a lot of kids that have that dream
575. 00:39:52 And
576. 00:39:53 That's a very big ocean for that little tiny fish to start swimming in
577. 00:39:57 Like that is ginormous
578. 00:39:59 But if you think about some of those top youtubers like they've been doing this
579. 00:40:04 For so long and they've or they've learned skills to be good marketers or video editors
580. 00:40:10 Professionally before they became
581. 00:40:13 The big timers like
582. 00:40:15 It's so easy to get into it that we think we want that
583. 00:40:19 And you think that you want to be a big time youtube star
584. 00:40:23 because
585. 00:40:25 You get to make it and set your own schedule and you can do whatever you want
586. 00:40:28 Whenever you want and all you got to do is post a video
587. 00:40:31 You know once a day and you'll make millions of dollars like that's the concept, right?
588. 00:40:36 But that couldn't be further from the truth like it's just
589. 00:40:39 A mess to get into if you really really want to do
590. 00:40:43 Well at it one of the
591. 00:40:45 So one of the instances here or one of the quotes in this book
592. 00:40:50 Because I want to go on to the next one here because we're going to spend way too long on this book if we're not careful
593. 00:40:55 but
594. 00:40:56 The the thing here is that
595. 00:40:58 We do see people who
596. 00:41:00 Do this like they they have a passion they quit their job
597. 00:41:04 They
598. 00:41:05 Follow through on it and it's successful like we hear that story. We love that story. It's one that's in the movies
599. 00:41:10 Like it's the thing that we love to to grasp onto
600. 00:41:13 But the trick here is as cal Newport puts it
601. 00:41:15 Observing a few instances of a strategy working does not make it universally effective
602. 00:41:21 So even if you see a few people who do this it does not mean it works for everyone talk to any
603. 00:41:27 Pro athlete how many of them have been a prodigy been good at basketball their entire lives and never deviated
604. 00:41:35 How many of them have been you know a top tennis star from the day they were for
605. 00:41:39 And never left tennis and now they're at the top of their game fetter or never did that like he
606. 00:41:44 Was on all sorts of different sports teams and played a bunch of different sports before
607. 00:41:50 Before we dived into it as blake says talk to any pilot like it's just not it's not the norm
608. 00:41:55 It's far and away not the norm and it's not the whole story
609. 00:41:59 I think it's easy to latch on to that and say oh, this is what I did
610. 00:42:05 But cal Newport's whole point is that finding a meaningful
611. 00:42:11 Career that is actually pretty complicated
612. 00:42:16 And you can kind of stumble into it maybe because all the the right ingredients are there
613. 00:42:21 And if you're trying to dissect how did I get here? It's easy to credit the wrong source of your success
614. 00:42:30 Absolutely. So let's go on to rule number two since these aren't called parts
615. 00:42:34 Uh and rule number two is titled after the book be so good they can't ignore you
616. 00:42:41 and
617. 00:42:43 the
618. 00:42:44 I gotta find it now, but the the story here of why
619. 00:42:47 Or where that that name comes from the be so good. They can't ignore you is actually from a steve martin
620. 00:42:55 interview the
621. 00:42:57 the 2007 charlie rose show so
622. 00:42:59 this is
623. 00:43:02 Where's it at here?
624. 00:43:03 I got it in my outline if you want me to to share the the quotes. Yeah, so
625. 00:43:07 This is charlie rose
626. 00:43:10 interviewing steve martin and
627. 00:43:12 steve martin says nobody ever takes note of my advice because it's
628. 00:43:15 Not the answer they want to hear what they want to hear is here's how you get an agent
629. 00:43:20 Here's how you write a script, but I always say be so good
630. 00:43:23 They can't ignore you if somebody's thinking how can I be really good people are going to come to you?
631. 00:43:27 And I love that advice. I think that's yep golden and it's it's one that he
632. 00:43:32 took on because he wasn't
633. 00:43:35 Having many many people hunt him down. So he started honing his comedy craft
634. 00:43:42 and becoming top-notch doing things that people didn't normally do trying to you know
635. 00:43:46 Lay out stories punch lines in such in a way that
636. 00:43:50 You know really drew you in which wasn't always typical at the time people like to do the one-liners
637. 00:43:56 For comedy at the time. So he kind of helped pioneer
638. 00:44:00 a new age of comedy because of this mindset and
639. 00:44:04 it's that basis that cal Newport then sets up as the craftsman mindset and
640. 00:44:11 Instead of adopting finding the thing you love to do and then go do that it's
641. 00:44:15 Find something you're good at and get really really really good at it to the point where people can't just skip by you anymore
642. 00:44:24 They have to stop and pay attention
643. 00:44:26 But that's the part nobody wants to hear what they attach to is the fact that Jim kerry wrote a
644. 00:44:32 $10 million check and carried around in his wallet till he was worth enough that he could cash it
645. 00:44:38 But every single day he was
646. 00:44:41 Embracing this craftsman mindset and trying to develop skills that were valuable enough that he could land a $10 million gig
647. 00:44:48 He didn't just fall into that because it was the thing that he loved to do the universe owes you nothing
648. 00:44:54 You have to go make it happen. You have all the tools to make it happen. You have all the opportunity to make it happen
649. 00:45:01 but it doesn't just
650. 00:45:04 automatically happen and
651. 00:45:08 I
652. 00:45:09 Even in that example, you know, he uses that one later on in in the book
653. 00:45:12 It's kind of shocking. I found myself even attaching to that story. It's like, oh, that's cool story
654. 00:45:17 I should hang on to that. I could use it. No, no that
655. 00:45:20 Completely contrary to all the advice that he is giving we don't want to hear just put in the reps
656. 00:45:28 Because that's hard work and we like shortcuts
657. 00:45:32 We don't want to have to spend 10 years working on something and you don't want to have to
658. 00:45:37 Write a million words that are published before you become a good author
659. 00:45:43 You want to be able to just sit down and write a bestseller like that that doesn't happen overnight
660. 00:45:47 That's that's not something that you
661. 00:45:50 Can do
662. 00:45:51 Some people are better at it and can pick it up faster than others some people, you know to use the video editing things
663. 00:45:57 Some people can grasp concepts around editing videos much quicker than other people and can pick up the tools to do so a lot faster
664. 00:46:05 But if you pay attention to what we're saying
665. 00:46:08 That all comes back to this craftsman mindset where you're focusing on becoming better at your craft
666. 00:46:15 In some way this any this is this section is where he starts talking about the 10,000 hour rule as well
667. 00:46:22 That whole thing that was popularized by malcom gladwell
668. 00:46:26 So that concept comes up here
669. 00:46:28 He doesn't really say he doesn't like it. I know we've had some books where they say that's a myth like it shouldn't be a thing
670. 00:46:36 But the idea is still there, right?
671. 00:46:38 Like you're not going to be the best violinist in the world unless you spend thousands of hours practicing and getting better at it
672. 00:46:44 So he does
673. 00:46:46 Lend some credence to that that topic. So anyway, all i'm saying is
674. 00:46:52 This is what he's proposing as an alternative to the passion mindset, which is this craftsman mindset and
675. 00:46:58 As much as I agree with him, I also have to admit like this is hard
676. 00:47:03 And not one I really want to like adopt and say hey, yeah, that's that's the way I do things because
677. 00:47:10 You have to commit to being
678. 00:47:13 Someone who's going to practice at things and make a lot of mistakes in the process and that's not pleasant. It's not a fun experience
679. 00:47:21 He talks about the 10,000 hour thing he says that deliberate practice is the key there
680. 00:47:27 And the unfortunate thing about deliberate practice is that it's not obvious in a lot of disciplines
681. 00:47:35 Two things that are required for deliberate practice strain and then feedback
682. 00:47:41 so
683. 00:47:42 I think that's a nugget that can be helpful for people
684. 00:47:45 but I do want to
685. 00:47:49 go back to the
686. 00:47:51 The advice and no one wants to hear just work hard
687. 00:47:54 And I want to ask why don't we want to hear that because that should be terrific news
688. 00:48:01 That should mean that in most disciplines not basketball because i'm not tall
689. 00:48:06 Not not athletic enough
690. 00:48:09 So that one's out, but pretty much anything else that you can name
691. 00:48:14 I have the opportunity to become great at it
692. 00:48:18 I just need to put in the effort just like anybody else who has done it exceptionally well writing
693. 00:48:24 I think is a great example of this
694. 00:48:26 At
695. 00:48:27 Hesitate to say this but I kind of think it's true that anybody can become a great writer
696. 00:48:31 You just got to put in the the reps
697. 00:48:34 That should be great news for somebody who wants to be a writer
698. 00:48:38 They don't have to just land in the right situation. It kind of reminds me of mindset by kyrl duak
699. 00:48:44 You're not just born with this ability and you're trying to figure out what is the thing that
700. 00:48:49 I was put on this earth to do. I do think there
701. 00:48:53 Are some things and some desires that are clues to that not desires like oh, this is fun
702. 00:48:58 But getting back to that original meaning of passion things that are so meaningful that you're willing to
703. 00:49:03 Suffer to see them come about those should be
704. 00:49:07 indications of of things that
705. 00:49:09 Are maybe things that you should lean into
706. 00:49:13 Ryan holiday again, you know, if something is scary you should lean into it
707. 00:49:17 That sort of thing but the playing field is level for a lot of people
708. 00:49:22 And so it doesn't matter where you started what matters is how you finish what you are going to do
709. 00:49:28 I mean all of this stuff kind of connects together, but
710. 00:49:30 Blake was talking about James clear earlier in the chat writing the book that you you need to read
711. 00:49:37 His book atomic habits, you know habits are an essential piece to this if you want to write
712. 00:49:42 Become a writer you need to write you just show up every day and and write and every single time that you
713. 00:49:46 Sit down at the keyboard and you actually do it
714. 00:49:49 You're developing this career capital which is a key idea from this section that you can
715. 00:49:55 Leverage then to
716. 00:49:58 Get a career that you want not just something you enjoy to do
717. 00:50:01 But something that is meaningful something that you are skilled at something that the marketplace is willing to
718. 00:50:06 Reciprocate and say yes, this is valuable to us
719. 00:50:10 I mean everybody needs to hear this why is nobody talking about this?
720. 00:50:13 I feel like we want to
721. 00:50:16 We like to have an excuse for not doing something because then
722. 00:50:20 The onus isn't on me
723. 00:50:23 Like that whole personal responsibility thing that we talk about I feel like it comes up
724. 00:50:27 Regularly we don't like it like it's a thing that
725. 00:50:32 We see people who are successful in life and honestly social media makes it even easier to find
726. 00:50:39 Thousands upon thousands of people who are more successful than we are
727. 00:50:43 No matter where you're at on that scale
728. 00:50:46 Depending on how you define the scale, but because of that it means that we feel like we're not
729. 00:50:53 Living up to the potential that we have
730. 00:50:56 ourselves, but obviously at somebody else's fault not mine. I'm not a millionaire because
731. 00:51:03 Somebody else didn't give me the skills or somebody else
732. 00:51:08 Something I mean you know what I'm saying like we want that excuse
733. 00:51:12 And when you tell somebody that
734. 00:51:14 You could be top-notch
735. 00:51:17 At writing all you have to do is this one little habit and do it every day and it only takes
736. 00:51:23 20 minutes
737. 00:51:25 People don't want to hear that
738. 00:51:27 So, you know, it's it's not something that we want to
739. 00:51:30 Admit because then the onus is put on ourselves and it's not something I can put on somebody else
740. 00:51:37 Sure makes a lot of sense
741. 00:51:39 I'll just reiterate this idea of career capital though for anybody who wants to
742. 00:51:44 Change their work situation. This is a phenomenal idea. This can change your life
743. 00:51:51 The basic idea is that you continue to develop yourself
744. 00:51:56 And develop the skills that are valuable in whatever marketplace you want to enter
745. 00:52:03 And if you do that if you select and study and deliberately practice
746. 00:52:08 The skills that the marketplace is looking for
747. 00:52:12 Then you can demand a higher price when you enter that market
748. 00:52:18 one example I think would be
749. 00:52:20 Coding skills. I use that because it's a an example that is relatively recent but not brand new
750. 00:52:27 But everybody has probably seen those job offerings where
751. 00:52:32 We're hiring a
752. 00:52:34 Ruby developer and you need this many years of experience to be able to do these sorts of things as long as you meet those requirements
753. 00:52:39 You can make a pretty nice pretty nice salary, right?
754. 00:52:44 So it's the skills that you develop that qualify you for that type of position
755. 00:52:49 It's not how bad you want a coding job
756. 00:52:52 But that's a you know one cherry picked example writing was another one we talked about you can apply this to any sort of discipline. Don't
757. 00:53:00 Discredit the idea. I don't know how that could work in in my situation
758. 00:53:03 You focus on collecting the career capital and pretty soon you can write your own ticket. Absolutely
759. 00:53:09 I want to define two things because I feel like we mentioned the terms
760. 00:53:14 But we didn't actually explain what they were but the concept of career capital
761. 00:53:17 Which I think you were talking about is that just that concept of
762. 00:53:21 building up your skill set to the point where you're
763. 00:53:25 Highly valuable to someone else
764. 00:53:28 Whether that's as an entrepreneur or to a company
765. 00:53:31 So building up the capital you have in your skill set is what we're talking about there
766. 00:53:35 But then he also does talk about this deliberate practice
767. 00:53:38 Which I think we've talked about in past episodes where yes, you can put in your 10,000 hours
768. 00:53:43 but
769. 00:53:44 Unless you're being intentional with trying to improve yourself with those 10,000 hours. You're still not going to be
770. 00:53:50 Expert in the field. So just be aware of those which
771. 00:53:54 That said that brings us
772. 00:53:56 Hold on. There's one more very important fact we need to discuss here
773. 00:54:01 Chapter seven becoming a craftsman the whole section where he's talking about deliberate practice
774. 00:54:05 Cal mentions that he was in a rock band called rocking chair
775. 00:54:09 Yep, I did not know he was a musician at all. So I don't know if that's brilliant or
776. 00:54:19 Terrible. Yeah, I forgot about that. That seems like a very Cal Newport
777. 00:54:25 Banding chair
778. 00:54:27 Okay, so rule number three
779. 00:54:31 So we got rule one don't follow your passion rule number two be so good they can't ignore you rule number three turn down a promotion
780. 00:54:37 and the he does have a subtitle on this one or
781. 00:54:41 the importance of control and
782. 00:54:43 the idea here is that
783. 00:54:45 A lot of times we get promoted, you know, if you're if you're good at your job you get promoted
784. 00:54:50 What is that promotion typically?
785. 00:54:53 It changes what you're doing day to day. So let's take you know, you brought up development
786. 00:54:59 If you're a coder if you're really good at coding for whatever reason in our
787. 00:55:03 Crazy, you know made up business minds we realized that if someone's really good at coding
788. 00:55:09 Obviously they're good at managing coders because those skills are perfectly translated from one to the other
789. 00:55:15 I don't know why we think this but if you get really good at development work
790. 00:55:20 they can promote you to senior developer or project manager and
791. 00:55:25 When you get into those roles, you're now overseeing other developers not necessarily from a technical stance
792. 00:55:31 But as far as like work management stance
793. 00:55:33 So it doesn't actually translate your skills anymore
794. 00:55:38 Thus the promotion actually causes problems and you lose some of that ability to control what you're doing day to day because you're now
795. 00:55:46 Stepping backwards in the scheme of career capital
796. 00:55:49 So turn down a promotion. What he's referring to is don't take that promotion instead use your skills and go to a different area where
797. 00:55:56 Your skills are worth more as opposed to
798. 00:56:00 Going up the chain if you follow me there. Yeah, I think the easy example you mentioned already and that is you get into a technical job
799. 00:56:09 You excel at it you get promoted now you have to manage people which you have no training for and you don't like it
800. 00:56:16 I know several people who have found themselves in that particular situation
801. 00:56:19 and i'm always kind of shocked
802. 00:56:22 When they get in that situation and then they find out that they don't like it and they end up leaving
803. 00:56:29 I'm always like well. What did you think it was?
804. 00:56:32 Why did you do that? I mean you're managing people people suck so
805. 00:56:37 You either deal with it or
806. 00:56:42 You don't but you should know that I think before you even get into it
807. 00:56:45 I'm always kind of shocked like you you thought this was going to be easy
808. 00:56:48 You thought that the people on the schedule were not going to act like children
809. 00:56:53 This this was a given in my mind
810. 00:56:57 So I don't have a I guess maybe I don't have a ton of empathy there
811. 00:57:01 Because it just seems so so obvious to me but at his point is is well taken
812. 00:57:08 it
813. 00:57:09 Recognize that the the things that you like about your current situation
814. 00:57:15 Are going to change anytime?
815. 00:57:18 Not necessarily I guess but there's a possibility that they're going to change drastically
816. 00:57:22 As you ascend the ladder
817. 00:57:25 So ascending the ladder is not necessarily the thing that we are
818. 00:57:29 Looking for here the thing that we are looking for is the control that you mentioned
819. 00:57:34 Control to say this is the way I want to work
820. 00:57:38 On my terms, you know going back to a previous section
821. 00:57:43 I think maybe it was the first section he talked about the self-determination theory
822. 00:57:46 And three basic psychological needs to feel motivated at work
823. 00:57:50 autonomy competence and
824. 00:57:53 relatedness
825. 00:57:54 I think this is the the section where you should start thinking about if you're a massing career capital
826. 00:58:00 And you're starting to figure out what is the situation I want to put myself into
827. 00:58:03 How can I make sure that those buckets are full for me?
828. 00:58:08 And you should know yourself well enough to be able to determine
829. 00:58:14 What that looks like if you don't then that's the place to start
830. 00:58:19 But once you do
831. 00:58:21 I mean just the fact that something is scary is not a reason not to do something
832. 00:58:26 He mentioned Derek Sivers in this section the Derek Sivers rule something is scary
833. 00:58:30 You should you should do it and I mentioned earlier that also echoes with a book
834. 00:58:34 We just read by Ryan Holliday, which was was great
835. 00:58:38 Think about how to
836. 00:58:40 Create the situation that you want not just the ones that are available in the job boards that you're you're looking at
837. 00:58:48 I think you can see some of this in
838. 00:58:50 current job markets, especially in the US with the
839. 00:58:55 access and prevalence of
840. 00:58:58 Vaccines to go to the covid world
841. 00:59:01 A lot of employers are starting to request their workers to come back to the office
842. 00:59:08 Which means we're sacrificing
843. 00:59:10 control over our schedule
844. 00:59:13 To go to the office and people are leaving left and right like it's a mass exodus it feels like
845. 00:59:19 from going to the office and it's going to force the acceleration of
846. 00:59:25 some of the knowledge work
847. 00:59:27 Mechanisms, I guess as far as like how we work
848. 00:59:31 Those conversations, I think you're being accelerated right now, which I feel like it's probably about time that happened
849. 00:59:38 in the same manner though
850. 00:59:39 It's to me. It's interesting especially having read this
851. 00:59:42 Because you have to give up that control over your daily schedule now
852. 00:59:45 Because so many people have figured out how to
853. 00:59:48 Run and get groceries midday or they've got the kids at home doing schoolwork while they're
854. 00:59:55 at their day job
855. 00:59:57 That all goes out the window
856. 00:59:59 When you have to go to the office for the day and it makes it quite difficult now
857. 01:00:05 You have the career capital, you know, if you put this whole thing together
858. 01:00:08 You're working to build up your career capital
859. 01:00:10 Once you have enough of that you can exchange it for control
860. 01:00:14 And you know if you take like your role or my role like we've built up enough of this career capital in each of our roles that
861. 01:00:22 We can pretty much set our schedule throughout the day
862. 01:00:25 Like yes, I'm at the office
863. 01:00:26 But if I need to run to the big box store to pick up screws for a project at home like
864. 01:00:31 I could do that at 11 o'clock in the morning
865. 01:00:35 And come back and it's not a big deal. No one even really like is Joe in the office today like it's not
866. 01:00:40 a
867. 01:00:42 Where is Joe? He's supposed to be here. That's not a conversation that happens
868. 01:00:45 It's you know, Joe's car's gone is he out for a little bit or is he out for the day like that's the
869. 01:00:50 Conversation that happens, but it's not just me like that's our whole office
870. 01:00:54 Let's get on microsoft teams and ask him. Oh, right. We won't get it. It's not even there. So, okay. Well, where's Joe's boss? He can text him
871. 01:01:01 So
872. 01:01:03 That's what happens, right? But it's a thing that people are
873. 01:01:07 After is this control piece and that's the part that I think you know cal Newport is saying is
874. 01:01:13 vital in this
875. 01:01:15 If you're working towards becoming a craftsman in your skill
876. 01:01:18 And you gain control over your work and the way that you work
877. 01:01:23 That's the part that makes it
878. 01:01:25 Quote-unquote dream job
879. 01:01:28 Because you're able to utilize your skills as you feel
880. 01:01:32 Is best. Hopefully I summarize that well. I agree with that
881. 01:01:35 I do think there is a little bit of a false sense of control in the current
882. 01:01:41 Environment though. There are so many people
883. 01:01:45 Leaving their jobs because they don't want to go into the office
884. 01:01:49 And that's not the only reason but that's the one you use so let's just latch onto that one for this
885. 01:01:54 thought experiment
886. 01:01:56 So many people don't want to go into the office
887. 01:01:58 Your organization has 50 people that they want to bring back into the office 20 of them quit
888. 01:02:03 The company is going to feel that they are going to
889. 01:02:07 Give away more control to those employees to get them to stay because it would be very expensive
890. 01:02:15 To fill those positions with somebody else if they could even find them
891. 01:02:19 I mean right now where I am there are fast food restaurants that are paying
892. 01:02:27 $17 an hour
893. 01:02:29 Because they have to close the dining room and go drive through only because they can't find enough adult workers to show up
894. 01:02:37 Not kids
895. 01:02:38 specifically adults
896. 01:02:40 So
897. 01:02:42 If you're in that situation, you can kind of have this sense of oh, this is great. I can dictate the terms
898. 01:02:48 I have control
899. 01:02:49 For now you do but control that's acquired without career capital. He says in chapter nine is unsustainable
900. 01:02:56 And I feel like we're going to get to that point where things are going to settle down
901. 01:02:59 And there's going to be a bunch of people who got themselves into a position because they thought they had control they thought
902. 01:03:06 Maybe they don't I think maybe if you understand the idea of career capital you you don't fall into this this trap
903. 01:03:12 But all of a sudden the company is like no, we're not going to pay
904. 01:03:15 $17 an hour for
905. 01:03:17 Someone to run the drive-through anymore. So
906. 01:03:21 Then what do you do you get let go you get your feet knocked out from under you now you got to start all over
907. 01:03:27 Uh, he makes the point here again in chapter nine lifestyle design without this career capital is dangerous
908. 01:03:33 So let's go back to the office example and i'll get away from the fast food thing
909. 01:03:36 You've dictated the terms you said I am going to work from home. Well, that's great as long as it's
910. 01:03:43 harder for them to replace you
911. 01:03:47 With somebody who's willing to work from the office then it is to give you what you want
912. 01:03:51 But career capital is the thing that's going to give you the the power to put your thumb on the scale
913. 01:03:57 It's going to give you the the leverage that you need
914. 01:04:00 To control that situation if you don't have the career capital market conditions change you lose the leverage
915. 01:04:06 And I guess you could say that's a a risk with career capital
916. 01:04:11 But I feel like if you are in the business of collecting career capital and you're paying attention to the market
917. 01:04:17 You easily just shift a little bit and you collect some career capital in a
918. 01:04:21 In an area that's related to what you're currently doing but not exactly the same
919. 01:04:26 I I that's my whole career path is I was doing one thing and then I found a thing that was kind of ancillary to that
920. 01:04:31 And it did that thing and then something related to that did that thing
921. 01:04:34 And eventually you you land in a spot where you're really good at this thing and this is the thing that's that's valuable
922. 01:04:40 We're gonna compensate you for that
923. 01:04:42 So if you are constantly looking at the horizon and you're asking yourself what's next
924. 01:04:47 What's the next thing for me to develop? How can I get better?
925. 01:04:50 I feel you don't you don't
926. 01:04:53 Fall into this this trap, but I feel like this there's a lot of people who are going to
927. 01:04:57 Because enthusiasm alone is not rare and valuable just because you're excited about this thing doesn't mean that
928. 01:05:03 It's going to be sustainable and you're going to be there for a long time
929. 01:05:06 in the midst of all of our house remodel stuff. I got a chance to talk to
930. 01:05:11 a handful of subcontractors that work in
931. 01:05:14 sectors that very few people seem to want to go into and
932. 01:05:18 one of those was in
933. 01:05:21 The world of like hVAC, you know furnaces water heaters, you know that world duck work
934. 01:05:28 and
935. 01:05:29 Talking to the guy who came in to put our new furnace in and he was saying like hey
936. 01:05:33 Well, if you know of anybody that's interested in getting into you know hVAC
937. 01:05:38 Let me know it's like okay. Well, how much experience are you looking for? He's like none. I'll pay him $28 an hour. Okay, so
938. 01:05:45 It's like nobody wants to do it, but it pays well
939. 01:05:49 So like okay, so he was looking for absolutely zero experience and paying $28 an hour
940. 01:05:56 And he couldn't get anybody to take him up on it. So
941. 01:05:59 To me, I can't get my head around that whole thing, but anyway, that's there's that
942. 01:06:05 Uh, you got anything else? We go on rule number four
943. 01:06:08 Uh, just to kind of summarize this
944. 01:06:11 in chapter 11 talks about do what people are willing to pay for and uh,
945. 01:06:17 I think that maybe sounds on the surface a little bit contrary to everything that I I just said
946. 01:06:22 I just think that what people are willing to pay for
947. 01:06:24 We're seeing some false positives at the moment. I don't think the hVAC thing
948. 01:06:29 That is something people will be willing to pay for just like plumbers are
949. 01:06:34 Traditionally one of those things that people can make a lot of money in that field, but nobody
950. 01:06:38 thinks about that in the career fairs because
951. 01:06:41 It's not it's not sexy. It's not appealing
952. 01:06:45 It's not something you go around breaking about. Oh, look what I get to do
953. 01:06:49 But it's a great example of the type of job that
954. 01:06:53 If you're gonna get awesome at it
955. 01:06:55 People are gonna pay you a lot of money to solve problems that they they have it. They don't want to deal with themselves
956. 01:07:01 And you could apply passion to that particular area. You could take a lot of pride have a very fulfilling career being
957. 01:07:08 an expert plumber. We actually bought our current house from a
958. 01:07:12 What's the term master plumber? Yeah, I forget
959. 01:07:16 Yeah, so he was a master plumber from Chicago and all of the different things that are
960. 01:07:21 In here you can see like the care and the attention to detail that that he he had
961. 01:07:27 There's a in our backyard. We have a walkout basement
962. 01:07:30 And we have this large concrete slab and we put a basketball hoop up and the people who were pouring the extra concrete to extend that slab
963. 01:07:37 They had to level it and there's this drain down there and there
964. 01:07:40 Like oh man, this is really flat. You must have
965. 01:07:43 Water in your basement every single year. You must just like pile up back here
966. 01:07:47 We're like no, we've actually never had water down here and like what but it's so flat
967. 01:07:53 And it was just so precise
968. 01:07:55 He had all of these systems and all these pipes that funnel it, you know away from our house and all the other houses around us
969. 01:08:01 Have had water in their basement at some point
970. 01:08:03 But we don't because he knew what what he was doing and I love stuff like that
971. 01:08:10 I love seeing people who have embraced that craft and mindset and they're just something as simple as how the pipes are
972. 01:08:16 Are laid underground?
973. 01:08:19 It's like they really put a lot of thought
974. 01:08:21 Into how they crafted this
975. 01:08:24 I think that's that's beautiful and you could do that with hvac
976. 01:08:28 You could do that with with anything. It doesn't have to be something that we think of as
977. 01:08:33 Naturally artistic or beautiful. It doesn't have to be a youtube video
978. 01:08:39 It doesn't have to be a podcast episode. You can find your own avenue for expressing that
979. 01:08:45 Well said that's that's tough to beat
980. 01:08:50 So let's let's go into rule number four, which is think small act big
981. 01:08:54 and this
982. 01:08:57 Title I feel like doesn't necessarily fit super well. I get what he's saying, but
983. 01:09:01 This this whole section is about missions and
984. 01:09:07 setting a mission that
985. 01:09:09 You can then work towards with your craftsman mindset in developing your career capital to put all the buzzwords here together
986. 01:09:19 and
987. 01:09:20 he he does dive into like certain
988. 01:09:23 profiles of
989. 01:09:26 You know specific individuals talking about how they've got a mission and how they're using that as a drive
990. 01:09:30 for their development of skills and putting together a meaningful life and
991. 01:09:37 You know I
992. 01:09:39 This whole part is one that I feel like is important
993. 01:09:42 Like what is your mission in life?
994. 01:09:44 But to me the most important piece of this
995. 01:09:47 Is that he calls out specifically that
996. 01:09:51 Trying to put together your mission first is a bad idea
997. 01:09:55 And that in order to put together your mission
998. 01:09:58 You first need to develop that career capital your skill capital
999. 01:10:03 Yes
1000. 01:10:04 Before you put that mission together
1001. 01:10:06 And I had so many things come in my head when he started to
1002. 01:10:10 Lay this all out like the the concept of don'ts, you know in the world of content marketing and content creators like
1003. 01:10:18 Don't try to sell a product until after you've written
1004. 01:10:20 I don't even know how many blog posts I recommend now like don't try to put it together product until after you've written so many things
1005. 01:10:27 And garnered enough feedback from those products to decide or from those posts to decide what that product should be
1006. 01:10:33 Like it's that concept right don't try to put together the mission
1007. 01:10:37 That you're gonna work towards until after you've worked on honing your skills and becoming good at what you're doing
1008. 01:10:43 Yeah, he has a idea here. I think it's chapter 13
1009. 01:10:46 Of the adjacent possible mentions that big ideas are almost always discovered
1010. 01:10:52 There so you're doing something and it's not quite hitting the mark
1011. 01:10:59 And I don't want to say it's not quite hitting the mark, but it's you may think 100% this is the thing
1012. 01:11:05 And then you look up
1013. 01:11:07 You look to the left or to the right and you see another possibility
1014. 01:11:11 Which is just a slight deviation from what you're currently doing
1015. 01:11:13 And then you're like, oh
1016. 01:11:16 That looks cool
1017. 01:11:18 And then you try that and that's where the mission comes. That's where you discover
1018. 01:11:23 This is really the thing
1019. 01:11:26 And I think that even evolves over time
1020. 01:11:28 So you could be doing the the right thing at the right time
1021. 01:11:32 You're totally in alignment with the mission for you right now
1022. 01:11:37 And it may change a little bit as your career progresses, but this is the the key
1023. 01:11:41 Assuming you do everything that cal has fought has laid out up until this point
1024. 01:11:47 You've developed the career capital. You've gotten a pretty good
1025. 01:11:51 Job because of the capital that you have collected
1026. 01:11:55 This is really the thing that's gonna
1027. 01:11:58 Take it to that next level and this next level. I don't think it's close
1028. 01:12:03 I don't think it's like on a scale of one to ten ones of four ones of five
1029. 01:12:07 This is like going from three to ten in my opinion. This is significantly higher significantly better
1030. 01:12:15 It's hard to describe
1031. 01:12:17 How it feels when things click
1032. 01:12:20 But there's a reason to your point that this is at the end of the book
1033. 01:12:25 Because you don't have any idea what this is going to look like
1034. 01:12:29 And I feel like the passion mindset in a nutshell is trying to start with this mission and then
1035. 01:12:35 Create
1036. 01:12:37 a job
1037. 01:12:39 For how you're going to spend your time that is going to feel fulfilling if you take the opposite approach though
1038. 01:12:44 And you develop this career capital. This is a lot easier than it. It sounds
1039. 01:12:49 Absolutely. Yeah, this is this is kind of flipping the passion mindset backwards
1040. 01:12:54 Because we like to jump to the end and
1041. 01:12:57 I like the way you just put this because it makes me think
1042. 01:13:00 You know as I was reading it it occurred to me that we oftentimes want to jump to the end
1043. 01:13:05 This this is also coming back to the we don't want to put in the work
1044. 01:13:09 We just want to get the end results like we don't want the personal responsibility on us that
1045. 01:13:13 You know, we don't want to want to admit that we could become an excellent
1046. 01:13:17 You know top-notch author
1047. 01:13:19 If we just do these little things and get really good at what we're doing
1048. 01:13:23 We're really good at writing like we don't want to admit that
1049. 01:13:27 Because we like to jump to the end we like to you know shortcut things like we love those rags to riches stories where somebody
1050. 01:13:34 Accelerates all the way at the top in the span of just a month like we love those stories, right?
1051. 01:13:38 But that's not the norm and it's not universally possible
1052. 01:13:43 Right. So that's where we like that and yet we have to admit that that's
1053. 01:13:50 not the path for us because it's not likely to happen and
1054. 01:13:56 When it comes to a mission versus a passion
1055. 01:13:58 We oftentimes want to figure out what that mission is first
1056. 01:14:01 Which might be the same as trying to figure out what your passion is in a lot of cases
1057. 01:14:05 Like you're going through probably a lot of the same steps
1058. 01:14:08 But you're doing it backwards because we're jumping to the end when you shouldn't do that
1059. 01:14:12 so
1060. 01:14:14 So yes, and as Blake says those stories where you jump from the beginning to the end very quickly often aren't the full story
1061. 01:14:20 Take the steve jobs concept
1062. 01:14:22 Like we've talked about like that's not you know find your passion and live it like that's not his story
1063. 01:14:28 He he definitely worked at things over a period. So yes one point inside this part
1064. 01:14:35 This rule that he calls out is that missions require little bets
1065. 01:14:40 and
1066. 01:14:42 those little bets are
1067. 01:14:44 Like you're taking a small chance on something to find out if it's going to fit a bigger picture and
1068. 01:14:51 Doing that in theory is super simple
1069. 01:14:54 But this is a piece that like when we've talked about things recently
1070. 01:14:59 Mike we've often talked about like taking time back a minute to think
1071. 01:15:02 Taking a break giving yourself margin going on walks like I feel like that concept has come up a lot lately
1072. 01:15:06 Maybe this is because that's my life. I don't know that
1073. 01:15:09 development of ideas
1074. 01:15:12 Process requires these little
1075. 01:15:15 Chances that you're going to take these little bets as he's calling them to figure out what this mission is going to be
1076. 01:15:20 And working towards that mission, but that requires these breaks and that requires that concept
1077. 01:15:26 So I appreciate that it's in this because this is written back in 2012. This is not a recent right
1078. 01:15:32 So it's to me it's fascinating that even back then like he was noticing it at that point
1079. 01:15:38 So maybe he's far and away ahead of us and we need to pay attention to him more or
1080. 01:15:42 That's just a thing that we've been slowly working our way towards or fastly working our way towards and need to stop
1081. 01:15:50 and put the breaks on I would love to
1082. 01:15:52 Buy Cal Newport coffee and talk to him about hustle
1083. 01:15:57 Yeah, sure because my definition of hustle not just one I created
1084. 01:16:02 But the one that I like is to force to move hardly or unceremoniously in a specified direction
1085. 01:16:08 And I break that down into three parts
1086. 01:16:10 starting with the vision or purpose or mission Cal would call it which is
1087. 01:16:18 Kind of the destination which way we're going to go and then
1088. 01:16:21 You break that down you give the the unceremoniously part. That's kind of the route that you're going to take
1089. 01:16:28 That's the career capital that he's talking about
1090. 01:16:31 That's going to get you to the destination and then lastly is the the work part
1091. 01:16:37 But you kind of have to do it backwards
1092. 01:16:39 You have to start with the destination then you plan your route and then you get in the car and go
1093. 01:16:44 And the passion mindset I feel is just like well, let's get in the car
1094. 01:16:49 But you can't steer a parked car which is very
1095. 01:16:54 That analogy just really clicks with me in this section on mission. That's kind of how I feel
1096. 01:17:00 You if you are going to start with the mission and you're not going to start with the career capital
1097. 01:17:04 That's kind of what you're doing is you're just picking a point in the horizon. Is it over there?
1098. 01:17:09 Is it over there? Is it that way? Is it behind me? You have no idea and you're just grasping at straws
1099. 01:17:16 But that statement about the the little bets and constantly kind of course correcting you once you gain some
1100. 01:17:23 Momentum and you start moving and you start collecting that career capital
1101. 01:17:29 It is very easy to make an adjustment and go around a a detour
1102. 01:17:33 But when you're starting from zero
1103. 01:17:36 Any sort of obstacle between you and the destination
1104. 01:17:40 Feels insurmountable because you can't see a way around it
1105. 01:17:46 But the moment that you have some action associated with it, you realize oh, it's really not that big a deal
1106. 01:17:52 I just you know go over here a little bit and then eventually I can get back over there
1107. 01:17:56 Or maybe once I make that turn I realize that
1108. 01:17:58 Actually this thing over here looks even better. So I'm gonna modify my my destination
1109. 01:18:04 but uh until you
1110. 01:18:06 take that first step of
1111. 01:18:09 Starting to do the work. This is not even a conversation worth having totally fair totally fair
1112. 01:18:15 Uh anything else on rule four for I want to talk about the conclusion here quick
1113. 01:18:20 I really like the law of
1114. 01:18:22 Remarkability
1115. 01:18:23 Which says that for a mission driven project to succeed?
1116. 01:18:25 It should be remarkable in two different ways
1117. 01:18:27 It must compel people who encounter it to remark about it to others
1118. 01:18:30 It must be launched in a venue that supports such remarking. I feel uh this
1119. 01:18:35 encapsulates
1120. 01:18:38 very well
1121. 01:18:39 Why some things
1122. 01:18:41 Go viral some things don't and that's not just like a particular post
1123. 01:18:46 Like i'm thinking specifically of uh Federico Vitticci was quoted in the New York times for
1124. 01:18:51 A couple tweets about the apple polishing cloth
1125. 01:18:53 He was talking i connected yep
1126. 01:18:56 But how it kind of annoyed him like of all the stuff that i've written that's the one that you're gonna
1127. 01:19:00 Let's not do it really that's the thing
1128. 01:19:03 Yeah, so i'm not talking about that specifically but if you take a step back like max stories in general
1129. 01:19:08 That's something that uh a lot of people will remark about and it's because it is remarkable
1130. 01:19:14 And he's created this thing, you know where people will talk about it to other people
1131. 01:19:20 And launch it in a venue where it supports such such remarking
1132. 01:19:23 Uh, I feel on a smaller scale maybe bookworm falls into this category
1133. 01:19:26 But uh the the formula
1134. 01:19:29 For creators, I feel like
1135. 01:19:33 We want to find ourselves in this place where we are worth remarking about
1136. 01:19:38 but you can't really
1137. 01:19:41 manufacture that like catching lightning in a bottle like a lot of people I feel that's their approach to
1138. 01:19:47 Trying to go viral i'd never real that's never really appealed to me. I just tend to focus on
1139. 01:19:53 Making the best thing that I can and hopefully people like it and over time, you know, it's a slow burn
1140. 01:19:59 But more and more people end up reading what I write listening to the podcast that that sort of thing
1141. 01:20:04 And I feel like uh this explains
1142. 01:20:07 perfectly
1143. 01:20:09 How you could get to that point so I mean just we've never had a bookworm episode that's like a hundred x the
1144. 01:20:17 downloads
1145. 01:20:19 That we normally get no one has
1146. 01:20:21 Groobered
1147. 01:20:23 Anything that i've ever written where you know he shares a link and the site shuts down because so many people
1148. 01:20:29 Are are there but if that is a goal of yours
1149. 01:20:33 I feel this is the way to approach it because these two questions will influence the way that you create the thing
1150. 01:20:41 Not in a way where you're trying to
1151. 01:20:44 Catch lightning in a bottle like I said, but you're creating something that is more valuable
1152. 01:20:50 And then kind of the fallback is even if it doesn't go viral even if it doesn't blow up
1153. 01:20:55 It's still adding value and it's still going to help grow your thing in the the long run
1154. 01:21:02 I think a good way to summarize a lot of what we've talked about here this whole process from
1155. 01:21:08 Don't follow your passion all the way through. What is your mission?
1156. 01:21:11 Is very well summarized in the conclusion of this book
1157. 01:21:16 I think because he tells his own story and how
1158. 01:21:20 He's in the process of becoming a professor at george town and how he got
1159. 01:21:25 to that point
1160. 01:21:27 And there's not really anything I want to call out specifically from that just as a high level overview of that
1161. 01:21:35 section of the conclusion here
1162. 01:21:37 It's encouraging to me whenever an author takes
1163. 01:21:41 Their recommendations and then shows how they followed their own advice
1164. 01:21:46 It adds a little bit of credence to the whole process that he's laid out here
1165. 01:21:52 And it's very obvious to me that this is it's not a system per se
1166. 01:21:56 But it's definitely a process he wants you to walk through
1167. 01:21:58 And he doesn't say like you need to do these in his order and this is how you need to do it
1168. 01:22:03 He just takes like here's my story. Here's how I've applied these four rules
1169. 01:22:07 He does do them in order
1170. 01:22:09 But he doesn't ever say like you need to do this that doesn't come out. It's definitely an implied
1171. 01:22:14 Uh call to action there, but I just wanted to say like I appreciate him laying out his story and how it applies
1172. 01:22:22 Here and it's interesting because he wrote this book and he's telling his story about how he's applied this stuff
1173. 01:22:29 To get the position at Georgetown
1174. 01:22:31 Which at the time that he was applying for it everybody was saying all you're gonna have to apply it to 300 places
1175. 01:22:36 And it's gonna be really really hard
1176. 01:22:38 And uh, it wasn't for him
1177. 01:22:40 He got a pretty great
1178. 01:22:43 Job right at the beginning of it and he wrote that conclusion
1179. 01:22:47 Kind of right before he took that that job when I read that again
1180. 01:22:52 I remembered the first time that I read this book which
1181. 01:22:55 Probably was pretty close to when it was published
1182. 01:23:00 And it reminded me of the exact spot that I was because we were actually celebrating
1183. 01:23:06 Christmas with my wife's family at this big
1184. 01:23:09 Airbnb in wah toma just like this giant house
1185. 01:23:14 That uh, we all just went to for a couple of days
1186. 01:23:16 And I brought this book to read and I was it was one of those like old victorian
1187. 01:23:22 Homes and so it had this great big like reading room right by the
1188. 01:23:27 front door
1189. 01:23:29 With a great big christmas tree in it and a chair and I was sitting in that chair and I was reading this and I thought to myself
1190. 01:23:34 Oh, I guess that's all we'll hear of cal Newport
1191. 01:23:37 Because he's going on to bigger and better things now
1192. 01:23:42 But turns out he still writes books. So I'm glad that that happens. Yep. It's still a writer
1193. 01:23:47 Still does it well, what else mike? I've I've got myself to a spot where I'm ready to jump into action items
1194. 01:23:53 That's all I got okay. Well as far as action items go
1195. 01:23:57 I have the one that you gave me at the very beginning of shaming people who were on their phones and saying hey
1196. 01:24:03 What are you doing?
1197. 01:24:04 So we got that one so bookworm club members like you need to do this
1198. 01:24:07 shame people
1199. 01:24:11 Force them to narrate what they're doing on their phone. Anyway, uh unrelated. However, uh for me. I've got one main
1200. 01:24:17 action item here and
1201. 01:24:19 That is to simply process what the
1202. 01:24:23 Skills are that I want to spend time honing because I have a ton of
1203. 01:24:29 things that I do
1204. 01:24:31 And I've never formally nailed it down as to like what are the ones that I
1205. 01:24:37 Want to spend time developing career capital within because it's quite varied
1206. 01:24:42 So that's that's the one thing I want to spend some time on and it's probably going to happen on nature walks
1207. 01:24:48 But that's forever the story with me. So anyway, that's the one thing I want to try to
1208. 01:24:54 To nail down like what is that skill set that I'm trying to hone nice
1209. 01:24:59 I don't have any official action items other than the one that I got when I read this book
1210. 01:25:04 Almost 10 years ago, which was continue to collect and develop career capital
1211. 01:25:11 I feel like this is a lifelong pursuit. It is never going to be finished
1212. 01:25:15 But just that whole idea
1213. 01:25:18 I feel that has been very transformational for me up until this point
1214. 01:25:21 And I believe that it will continue to provide value for me in the future
1215. 01:25:25 So it's not something that I'm going to check off as done
1216. 01:25:29 But it is something that I am going to continue to do sure as for style and rating
1217. 01:25:34 I talked earlier about like there's some stuff. I didn't like with the way he set this up
1218. 01:25:38 one of those is that
1219. 01:25:41 at the beginning of
1220. 01:25:43 The chapters he like spoils it for you and says, you know
1221. 01:25:47 He has the title of the chapter and then underneath of it's like in which I argue that
1222. 01:25:53 x y and z and
1223. 01:25:55 It kind of bugged me like the first couple times like oh, that's kind of interesting and then like third fourth fifth
1224. 01:26:01 10th times like okay, dude, you got to stop like
1225. 01:26:03 Please quit doing this
1226. 01:26:07 and it was
1227. 01:26:09 Obnoxious to me time I got done. I'm sure it's probably a positive thing overall, but
1228. 01:26:15 I did not care for it at all
1229. 01:26:18 Uh, so I wish he hadn't done that
1230. 01:26:20 Uh, he was good at storytelling at this point
1231. 01:26:23 You know, I I know that some of his later books. He's very good about using stories to tell
1232. 01:26:28 Uh to make the point that he's trying to make I don't know what his earlier three books are like
1233. 01:26:33 but this one seems like he's got that somewhat figured out
1234. 01:26:36 And he's definitely improved as a writer. I would say you know, this is this is an odd case where
1235. 01:26:42 We've read some of an authors later books and then we're going back to see where they started
1236. 01:26:47 Not started, but where they were previous. So it's a little odd
1237. 01:26:51 from a style stance
1238. 01:26:53 To see that because I feel like he's definitely gotten better. So I find myself comparing
1239. 01:26:58 present day cow to earlier day cow and
1240. 01:27:01 It's different
1241. 01:27:04 Definitely different
1242. 01:27:05 So there's some stuff. I don't like uh, just in the way he had that all laid out
1243. 01:27:10 As far as like rating and and what I think about it overall
1244. 01:27:13 I think this is definitely a lot something a lot of people need to read
1245. 01:27:16 It's one that I know many many folks subscribe to this, you know, find work you love
1246. 01:27:23 concept it seems like that's the prevalent mindset
1247. 01:27:26 And I wish it wasn't
1248. 01:27:29 And this feels like a good slap in the face that a lot of people need
1249. 01:27:32 So if you subscribe to that like I don't like my job like you need to read this
1250. 01:27:38 First before you make any career decisions. So please do that. That said like as far as a bookworm book goes
1251. 01:27:45 Uh, and how to rate it. I think I've got to put it at a 4.0
1252. 01:27:51 Like I don't think it's anywhere near the five territory to me
1253. 01:27:54 It has a number of like wait, you're using Steve jobs there
1254. 01:27:58 But I'm not sure that's what he meant, but you never called that out
1255. 01:28:01 Like there's some stories like that that I feel like there's more to the story
1256. 01:28:04 And you're leaving it out to make your point
1257. 01:28:06 Like there's some of that. It just kind of makes me like wait. Hold on
1258. 01:28:09 How truthful is this not sure?
1259. 01:28:12 Uh, maybe that's just me being skeptical. I don't know what that is
1260. 01:28:16 But it doesn't feel like it should go
1261. 01:28:19 Above a 4.0. So I'm going off a feeling on this one mic. So 4.0. All right. Well, I'm going to go off of
1262. 01:28:25 evidence
1263. 01:28:27 And say this is a life-changing book and easily five stars
1264. 01:28:31 I feel this book is
1265. 01:28:35 Maybe there's a couple more that have
1266. 01:28:38 impacted
1267. 01:28:41 Me professionally more than this one, but I can't think of them
1268. 01:28:44 I
1269. 01:28:45 Really think this whole idea of career capital. I had not heard this before
1270. 01:28:50 But if that's the only thing you get from this book
1271. 01:28:54 This has the potential to completely change your life
1272. 01:28:58 and I think that's
1273. 01:29:01 Justifiable of a 5.0 rating. I don't think that
1274. 01:29:04 It's longer than it needs to be
1275. 01:29:08 Which maybe is the way i'm describing it
1276. 01:29:11 A concern
1277. 01:29:13 I feel he does a great job very concise getting to the point
1278. 01:29:17 I agree the beginning chapters were
1279. 01:29:19 Kind of weird where he writes it more like an academic than he does like a writer
1280. 01:29:24 So I do think that he's grown in that area over time
1281. 01:29:28 But I was able to look past that pretty easily at that that really throw me off even rereading it this time
1282. 01:29:33 I feel like the
1283. 01:29:36 Stories that he shares here
1284. 01:29:38 These are the most effective ones out of any of the other books that he's written
1285. 01:29:42 I feel this is easily his best book to be honest
1286. 01:29:44 I do think you can nitpick specific things and he's become a better storyteller over time
1287. 01:29:50 And so like when he's talking about digital minimalism and the
1288. 01:29:52 Server is going down and things like that that actual story from a writing perspective is better than some of the things that he shares here
1289. 01:30:00 But I feel like the collection of stories to support the point that he's making
1290. 01:30:03 This is his best work
1291. 01:30:06 It's almost like you have your your life's message
1292. 01:30:10 And then you want to keep writing so you're finding other things to do
1293. 01:30:15 But I kind of feel like this is the one you know, he nailed it
1294. 01:30:18 On this one and maybe that's wrong. Maybe 10 years from now
1295. 01:30:22 There'll be something else that we're just like oh my gosh
1296. 01:30:25 That was actually the thing for cal Newport is he continues to develop his own career capital
1297. 01:30:29 But uh, yeah, this this book is great. I would recommend this to anybody. I've gifted this one to many people
1298. 01:30:36 I can't really think of anything
1299. 01:30:38 Negative that I would say about it. I think this is for everybody
1300. 01:30:42 I don't think it's just for people who are looking to change their situation
1301. 01:30:44 I feel like this is something you need to be aware of you may not realize
1302. 01:30:49 You may think your situation is pretty good
1303. 01:30:51 And then you read this and you're like oh, but actually I've kind of always wanted to do this thing
1304. 01:30:55 And this kind of gives you a path to get there
1305. 01:30:57 So you don't have to just settle for wherever you find yourself
1306. 01:31:00 This is a very empowering book
1307. 01:31:02 For just about anybody and I feel like even if you're not trying to switch jobs even if you're trying to just
1308. 01:31:07 Master a skill
1309. 01:31:09 Improve things with your your home life your family. I mean there's lots of different
1310. 01:31:13 Ways to apply the advice that's that's in this book. It's not just how to get a better job
1311. 01:31:18 So absolutely everybody should read this one just like absolutely everybody should practice
1312. 01:31:24 Shaming people who are staring at their phones and not narrating what they're doing
1313. 01:31:31 Well, here's here's hoping that as time goes on, maybe I'll join you and and want to re-rate this one
1314. 01:31:37 We'll see but yes, I can see how this could be one that sticks around for quite a while. I do
1315. 01:31:42 All right, mike. Let's shelf this one. What's next?
1316. 01:31:45 Next is soundtracks by john a cuff. I mentioned this last time
1317. 01:31:52 We have not read a john a cuff book, which is kind of surprising to me
1318. 01:31:56 So we're going to read this one. The subtitle is the surprisingly simple solution to overthinking or something along those lines
1319. 01:32:02 Uh spoiler alert. I have already read this one
1320. 01:32:05 So I am looking forward to discussing it with you and it has also influenced a gap book that I am currently reading
1321. 01:32:14 Fascinating well following soundtracks, you know, we we read a book here by cal Newport from 2012
1322. 01:32:21 But this one might be the oldest
1323. 01:32:24 We've had on bookworm you'll have to correct me if i'm wrong on this, but it's called self-control
1324. 01:32:28 It's king shipped in matt king ship and majesty by william george jordan
1325. 01:32:34 This was originally published in 1907 and it's technically a religious book from what I can tell
1326. 01:32:42 But it's considered as it's considered one of the main precursors to today's self-help book category
1327. 01:32:50 And I'm very curious to see like how that translates to
1328. 01:32:55 The type of books that we do on bookworm
1329. 01:32:59 So this one might require a little bit of translation on your part and mine mic to get some of the religious pieces
1330. 01:33:06 covered well here, but
1331. 01:33:08 I feel like this could be very interesting to go back because i was trying to find like what are some of the books that were like the
1332. 01:33:12 beginnings of the self-help world and
1333. 01:33:16 This came up quite a bit. So that's why I wanted to cover it. So we'll see how that
1334. 01:33:21 See how that episode goes, but i'm fascinated by it. That's for sure. Cool. So yes, there's that what so what's the gap book?
1335. 01:33:29 What's what's the thing you're gonna do?
1336. 01:33:31 Uh, the gap book actually fits that category description as well. This is an older book that I did not realize was a
1337. 01:33:39 religious book, but kind of seems like it is and that is the power of positive thinking by norm and Vincent peal
1338. 01:33:47 This is one of those books that gets thrown out there along with seven habits like
1339. 01:33:52 Everyone should read this. It's sold something like 15 million copies
1340. 01:33:56 and uh, i'm going through this one because this is a topic that was
1341. 01:34:02 Kind of touched on a little bit inside of soundtracks
1342. 01:34:05 So we're going to unpack that one next time, but it's an interesting idea to me
1343. 01:34:12 And so I uh grabbed a book that kind of continued to pull on that thread in my brain
1344. 01:34:19 Cool. I'm in the middle of picking a gap book. I finished this one a little bit early
1345. 01:34:24 So i'm getting to that point where I need to put a gap book in so
1346. 01:34:27 Somebody tweeted me good gap books
1347. 01:34:30 I've got a list of course, but i'm always fascinated with what other people are recommending at this point
1348. 01:34:35 So send me a message or tweet me on twitter. Let me know what you're reading. I need to pick one
1349. 01:34:41 So there's that uh that said super grateful for
1350. 01:34:44 The folks who have been in the chat today like you guys it's been super cool to see some folks
1351. 01:34:50 Messaging us as we're recording this it's always
1352. 01:34:53 It does inform what we're talking about and sometimes it helps me understand my own thoughts a little bit better
1353. 01:34:58 So thank you for those of you who have been willing to type in that chat box
1354. 01:35:02 As we're recording here today, but if you're interested in watching us live and joining us when we record these
1355. 01:35:09 You know follow bookworm on twitter because I always post those
1356. 01:35:12 Uh links for when we're recording
1357. 01:35:15 Day of at least if not the day before so pay attention to that
1358. 01:35:19 Also, if you haven't already you need to go to bookworm.fm/membership
1359. 01:35:25 And sign up because you can join the club
1360. 01:35:28 And get some special perks if you're a part of the bookworm club
1361. 01:35:32 You get some special wallpaper that mike put together you get his mind node files, especially in pdfs
1362. 01:35:38 I think that's probably the one I look at I do look at your mind node files by the way
1363. 01:35:41 Usually after because I don't get them ahead of time
1364. 01:35:44 It's probably good that I don't get them ahead of time mike
1365. 01:35:46 Uh, but yes, you get access to some of those things so definitely go to bookworm.fm/membership join the club
1366. 01:35:53 We'd love to have you on board
1367. 01:35:55 Indeed
1368. 01:35:56 And if you are reading along with us pick up soundtracks by john a cuff and we will walk through that one in a couple of weeks